Central City’s sweethearts, Sandy and Bruce Schmalz — 50 years of building a marriage, a community

By Linda Jones

Sandy and Bruce Schmalz

Loyalty. Commitment. Dependability. Unselfishness. Add several batches of humor and you have a recipe for 50 years of happiness. Sandy and Bruce Schmalz are the core of a marriage, a family and Central City. Their wedding was July 23, 1960; they moved to Central City April 15, 1972. Adding six residents to the small town’s population was a big event in itself.

They met because Bruce played drums in bands, including the Vincent Brothers Trio. His college degree is from the Lamont School of Music at Denver University and Bruce’s life centered on music then; he taught drums by day and played at clubs at night. He remembers his drumming days in various bands in Denver vividly. He and his fellow bandmates/buddies played six nights a week up and down Colfax Avenue and at Hart’s Corner, and on their day off, they scouted up more gigs.

Bruce and his band were playing at Vic Iacino’s restaurant when Sandy’s mom introduced the two. Sandy’s stepdad bartended there and her mom knew the band members. No spark was struck at that first meeting, but Sandy and Bruce met again at the Keyboard Lounge in late 1959 and Bruce made his move – they agreed to a date. The next summer they were married at Notre Dame.

Bruce’s parents were responsible for their move from Denver to the hills in 1971. His parents had owned a rock shop in Central City since 1958 because of a unique steelworker’s union law. Bruce’s dad worked in Pueblo at the CF&I steel mill and had accumulated so much seniority he could take one full quarter every year as vacation, so he purchased a rock shop in Central City to run during the then-busy summer season. He and his wife lived over the shop and enjoyed a cool respite from Pueblo’s heat. (The family knows their rocks; Bruce’s brother Ted established a rock shop in Georgetown and his son now manages it.) A third brother, Richard, also lived in Central City for years and developed a reputation as one of the town’s colorful hippies.

Sandy, Madam Emeritus of Lou Bunch Days Photos by Linda Jones

After Bruce completed his college degree, he and Sandy and their four children moved to Central City. The rock shop started in another location, but by 1972 it had been moved to the Main Street location old-timers remember. Bruce’s parents purchased the building in 1964 and in the 1970s, they also bought the former T-shirt shop next door, on the corner where Sam’s Pick & Shovel Restaurant had served meals to visitors for years. A local handyman (Jake Forester) created a doorway between the two buildings and now both buildings are included in Dostal Alley Casino.

Dostal Alley is beloved by locals, not only for its pizza but also for the Schmalz adherence to the spirit of Amendment 4, which legalized gambling in the three mountain mining towns. The committee that wrote that amendment envisioned gambling as simply one more attraction to bring visitors to the struggling mining town. Bruce was a part of the committee and he excavated the space under the two shops to create a small casino/pizza restaurant/bar, meanwhile keeping the two tourist shops overhead for retail business. The basement casino was given the historical name of the area behind the Main Street shops – Dostal Alley. It was here that the Chinese community had centered their homes and businesses in the mining heyday.

The gaming laws drafted by the state legislature were so stringent and involved that keeping both a casino and tourist shops under one roof became impossible, and the shops morphed into a casino. The state ruling that an owner, manager or anyone with a gaming license cannot hold elective office forced Bruce to resign as mayor of Central City. His son Bruce Junior, known to one and all as Buddy, runs a successful brewpub from the upstairs and eventually followed his father as Central City mayor. (Buddy does not hold a gaming license and is now a Gilpin County Commissioner.)

Sandy and Bruce had barely finished unpacking after their move to “The Richest Square Mile on Earth” before they became involved in every volunteer organization and movement in the town. Bruce is an active member of the local Elks Club and was a volunteer fireman, a Central City Council man and a leader in planning the popular Jazz Festival for years. His term as mayor began in the mid-‘80s – it was Bruce who was elected to end Bill Russell’s 24-year reign as mayor – and lasted until the gambling era. He has spent thousands of hours in committee meetings and working for the local businessmen’s association and the Wintershire Festival through the years.

Sandy was just as active, serving on the school board, the firemen’s auxiliary, in the Elks Ladies, as secretary of the businessmen’s committee, to name just a few, and she has been the heart and soul of the Lou Bunch Day activities since their inception.

One of the real pluses of gambling in Central City has been the jobs now available for the young people who grew up in the local school but had to leave for jobs elsewhere. Three of the Schmalz’s four children – CinDee, Buddy and Lisa – live in Central City, and seven of their nine grandchildren. The family has left a cherished imprint in the fabric of the community and we salute them as Central City’s First Citizens.