20 Mile Poker Club

I have been trying to come up with a catchy name for a local poker club. I have the table and the chips and am trying to start some regular games but I need a cool name for the club.

I originally wanted to go with ManCave Poker Club, but a quick search on the Internet showed me that someone had beaten me to it. I saw that a lot of catchy names were derived from something unique about the location, for example a poker club in the Pittsburgh area might be named three rivers poker club. I live in Parker, Colorado and a quick Google search brought me the entire history or my little town.

From the official town website, www.parkeronline.org
Parker can trace its colorful recent history to the establishment of the Pine Grove Post Office by Alfred Butters around 1863. Prior to that time, the area was used for hunting by Indians, including the ancients (prehistoric), the Plains-Woodland Indians, and later (1800s) mostly Arapaho, Cheyenne and Ute Indians.

The old Indian trail that ran next to Cherry Creek near Parker was utilized by early traders, trappers, frontiersmen and gold seekers such as: John Beck, Captain R. B. Marcy, William Green Russell, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Jim Baker, "Uncle Dick" Wooten (Wootton) and Kit Carson.

The trail became known by several names, such as Cherokee Trail, the South Branch of the Smoky Hill Trail, and a branch of Trapper's Trail. When stage lines rolled into Colorado, it became known also as the West Cherry Creek Stage Road, and the Denver-Santa Fe Stage Road.

Gold was discovered in Colorado in 1858 and in the next year over 100,000 people followed the trails here in search of their fortunes. Small towns and settlements sprang up as the focus changed from gold to land. A man named Alfred Butters built a one room building in the pines south of the present day Hilltop Road (now known as Rampart Station) around 1863. Butters handled mail, provided provisions and a place to leave messages. Butters named this refuge for travelers Pine Grove.

Butters traded the building to a Mr. Goldsmith for a yoke of oxen. Goldsmith, in turn, sold it to Mr. and Mrs. George Long in 1864. The Longs moved the structure to the site of present day Town of Parker, made a rough addition and some other buildings were added to accommodate animals and wagons. The building was referred to as the 20 Mile House since it was located 20 miles south of Denver. it was a way station that provided meals, lodging and provisions.

There was all sorts of catchy names in there but the one I liked the most was 20 Mile. I have heard that around town before and one of our major streets in named twenty mile. I never knew what the significance was until now. It is settled that my poker club will be the 20 Mile Poker Club.

Now I just need to decide how involved I want my club to be. I just love projects like this.

My New Poker Table

Well, sort of new anyways. This past Christmas, my dear and wonderful wife bought me a poker table. We got it from one of the furniture chains here in Colorado and it was a very nice table at a good price.

After playing on it a few times I noticed that the felt was shedding. My cards would be covered in this fine black dust and it really annoyed me. In addition the felt would catch the cards as you dealt and it made it difficult to get the cards down to the far end of the table when dealing. I researched the net and found that replacing the felt did not seem to be a difficult nor expensive endeavour.

A place called YourAutoTrim.com sells poker speed cloth, which is the same material used on almost all poker tables found in casinos. After much deliberation I decided on the pine green color. My table is a dark cherry wood and I figured the green would stand out nicely against the dark wood.

My neighbor helped me put it one which was pretty easy. After removing the rail, the table top was a separate insert that had the felt stapled on. I put the speed cloth right on top of the existing felt and glued it down. The ends were tricky but my neighbors wife who is a craft guru was able to pleat it and glue it down with ease.

Here is a picture of the finished project. I am very happy with how well it turned out.

Original Table


Same Table with new felt