Adolphe Gérard

Adolphe Gérard (1844–1900) was a French chef.^[1]

Adolphe François Gerard was born in Alençon, France in 1844. He was enrolled in a seminary in Sées, France at the age of 15, but left at age 20 for Paris, where he apprenticed as a chef in a hotel. He then moved to London and worked with a newspaper on its reviews and translations (he was fluent in English, German and Latin). Shortly thereafter, he moved to New York City and once again worked for a newspaper. He was 22 years old.

For some reason, in 1868 he enlisted in the U.S. Army at Fort Hamilton, New York and traveled west to Fort D. A. Russell (now Fort Warren) near Cheyenne, Wyoming. In April 1869, he deserted to Denver, Colorado and changed his name to Louis Dupuy [perhaps after the French scholar and translator Louis Dupuy (1709–1795)]. That year, he went to work for the Rocky Mountain News as a roving reporter for the mining camps.

"Louis" became so enamored of mining life in Colorado that he became a miner himself. In 1873 while working in the Cold Stream Mine on Sherman Mountain in Silver Plume, he was badly injured in a delayed dynamite explosion in the Kennedy Tunnel. He took the brunt of the blast and saved the life of a fellow miner. Louis broke a rib and clavicle, and injured his left eye. Because he could not return to mining, the sympathetic people of Georgetown raised enough money for Louis to rent the former Delmonico Bakery; Louis was able to purchase the property within a few years, and created a successful restaurant and hotel he called Hotel de Paris.

By the early 1890s the original building was unrecognizable; it had tripled in size, contained numerous rooms, a formal dining room, a sizeable kitchen, and an apartment for Louis. The Hotel de Paris had indoor plumbing with a washbasin in each room, as well as electric lighting, which replaced gas lamps in 1893. Dinners were served on Haviland china from Limoges, France, with elegant linens and imported glassware. The menu included steaks from cattle raised on Louis' ranch Troublesome Creek, delicacies such as oysters, and anchovies in olive oil imported from France.

Louis Dupuy was an avid reader of literature and philosophy. His library contained a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica and more.

In 1900 Louis Dupuy contracted pneumonia. After fighting it for 5 weeks, he died on October 7 at the age of 56. He left the hotel to his housekeeper Sophie Gally, who passed away only 4 months after Louis. In 1904, the Hotel de Paris was purchased by James H. and Sarah Burkholder. Their daughter Hazel Burkholder McAdams owned it until 1954 when the National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the State of Colorado acquired it and turned it into a museum.

Louis Dupuy is buried with Sophie Gally. They share a grave marker inscribed with the words "Deux Bons Amis."

In 1985, Louis was fictionalized by America's storyteller Louis L'Amour in his novel "The Proving Trail."

www.hoteldeparismuseum.org (bio by: Kevin Kuharic)

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