For sale at Harperrose Gallery in Leadville, Colorado

OLD MOSE” 24x36 old rustic window, some reverse style with acrylics.

Old Mose: The Legendary Grizzly of Cañon City

Growing up, my dad shared stories of Old Mose, a legendary grizzly who prowled the wilderness around Cañon City in the 1860s. Nine feet tall when standing, this mountain of muscle moved like a shadow through the Colorado backcountry. For over a decade, 'Old Mose,' the 'Monarch of the Mountains,' outsmarted every hunter who dared cross his path. Bullets seemed to bounce off him. Ranchers swore he could smell gunpowder from miles away and recognize the sound of a rifle being loaded. Some claimed he could vanish into thin air, despite weighing nearly a thousand pounds. When Old Mose finally fell in 1871, something more than a bear died that day. His spirit never truly left Black Mountain, where I've painted him among vibrant sweeps of wildflowers—delicate columbine dancing in the breeze and fiery Indian paintbrush standing proud against rocky soil. On moonlit nights, when the mountain falls silent and these flowers sway without wind, I imagine old-timers still glimpse a massive shadow moving between the trees, keeping eternal watch over his mountain kingdom—just as he did in those stories that captured my imagination all those years ago.