Olga Little, Jackpacker

By Eilene Lyon

By the time the 1958 episode of TV’s “This is Your Life” aired, Olga Little was already a Colorado legend. She ran her pack string of burros for nearly 30 years (1909-1947) and had been labeled the only female packer “in Colorado,” “…in the West,” and even, with a touch of hyperbole, “…in the World.”

The famous horsewoman, who died in 1970, is memorialized today by a peak in the La Plata Mountains. Olga Little Mountain tops out at 11,246 feet elevation, somewhat taller than the five-foot-four “muleskinner.” Climbers reaching the summit can log their names in a box bearing her likeness.

Olga Schaaf*, daughter of Fred (Carl Friedrich) and Johanna Schaaf, came into the world in Germany in 1882 or 1883. The Schaaf family, including Olga’s older brother, Gustave, arrived in New York on March 2, 1885. By summer they were living in Sherman County, Nebraska.

The Schaafs landed in Holyoke, Colorado, and Chama, New Mexico, before coming to La Plata County, Colorado, where they remained. Along the way, two more sons joined the family: Alvin and Oscar.

The wide-open west lit a passion in Olga for horses and cattle. Before long she became known as an accomplished rider and people hired her to break their horses. By age 15 she worked as a livery teamster running teams of four horses. She competed in relay racing at the rodeo, too. Becoming a packer had never been her plan, but a miner in need thrust her into the position.

Floods washed out the road into the La Plata Mountains in 1909, cutting the mines off from supplies. Frank Rivers, who knew Olga’s skills, asked her to bring up a load to the Neglected Mine. When she arrived, the mine superintendent, John Ball, convinced the novice packer to take a three-year contract. He introduced her to Jess Eckert to “teach you all you need to know.” She learned to load a pack saddle and lifted bags weighing 50 to a hundred pounds.

Though she started out using horses, she switched to burros. They could handle the snow better and were sure-footed and trusty. A string of ten could pack a load of one ton. Over the years, they carried food, dynamite, rolls of thick cables, tools, lumber, coal, bales of hay, “everything, says Mrs. Little, but a grand piano.”

Her return trips brought loads of ore from the mines to be smelted in Durango. At least once, she had to pack out the body of a dead miner. She was also credited with saving miners’ lives when they were snowed in, keeping them from starvation. In 1933, she used her pack train to break a trail out of the mountains for the men.

One of the more exciting incidents in her career took place in October 1934, a story carried by the Associated Press. A buck mule deer and four does, apparently fleeing hunters higher on the mountain, barreled headlong into Olga’s train. Olga was “bowled from her horse,” but escaped serious injury. Four burros were knocked from the trail and groceries scattered far and wide.

Though it was obvious to many the hazards of her profession, Olga disagreed. “Lots of people thought my job was awful. But I never gave it a thought. There’s nothing dangerous about it,” she told a reporter.

Over the years, she served nearly every mine in the La Platas. On one early trip, she passed a young miner heading up to the same destination. They struck up a friendship that soon led to marriage. William Chambers Little, a Scot, and Olga wed in 1913. Olga was already well-known throughout the state. In a 1916 article about William C. Little, he’s noted as “husband of Olga Little, the only woman owner and personal handler of a 40-burro pack train in the West.”

He shortly became the second-string pack leader. Each train would have 18 to 30 burros, led by Olga or Bill on horseback. At one time, Olga owned as many as 44 burros and 90 milk cows. Her profession went by many nicknames in addition to muleskinner. A more colorful title was “Jack-Whacker,” sometimes “jackpacker.” “Mule packer” is a slight misnomer.

Olga was known for the great care she took of her animals, and despite the hazards of the mountains, she lost very few. One fell into a ravine in winter and could not be retrieved. She tossed down bales of hay for the stranded survivor until spring arrived.

The Littles made their home on 500 acres in the tiny community of Mayday at the mouth of La Plata Canyon. They had no children. Their home began as a single room. The Littles added to it as they repurposed other buildings in the canyon that had been abandoned. There was once a rail spur that ended at their property used to move the ore they packed out of the canyon, though in the early days Olga took her loads all the way to Durango, 16 miles away.

Once the packing business began to wind down, Bill Little took an interest in collecting and polishing stones and making jewelry. For many years, part of the rock collection and mementos from Olga’s packing years were displayed at First National Bank in Durango.

On several occasions beginning in 1938, Olga visited the Denver area with her pack string to demonstrate how things were done in the “old days” of mining. She also rode in the parades in Durango and participated in other equine-related events.

Though the Littles retired from packing they did have the work of running their ranch to keep them in shape. Bill Little passed away in 1969. Olga followed the next year. Both are buried in Durango’s Greenmount Cemetery.

*An interesting aside is that my great-grandmother was Emma Schaaf, no known relation to Olga’s family. My Schaaf ancestors arrived in America in the early 1800s.

Feature image: Olga and her sure-footed burros in La Plata Canyon—“nothing dangerous about it!” (Center for Southwest Studies P 015.033)

Sources:

Paul Pennington, “Honoring Olga Little on the Summit of Her Mountain,” Durango Herald (Durango, Colorado), September 7, 2018, https://www.durangoherald.com/articles/honoring-olga-little-on-the-summit-of-her-mountain/.

Roscoe Fleming, “The Story of Mrs. Olga Little,” The Rocky Mountain News (Denver, Colorado), November 1, 1941, https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org.

Jim Lyon, “Burros ‘Gentle’, Says Woman Who’s Driven ’em since 1909,” The Rocky Mountain News (Denver, Colorado), July 4, 1947, https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org.

“Mrs. Olga Little Leaves with Her Pack Train,” Durango Semi-Weekly Herald (Durango, Colorado), May 11, 1914, https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org.

Debra Mayoux, “A True Pioneer: Olga Schaaf Little the first woman to lead a mue train to and from southwest Colorado mines,” Farmington Daily Times (Farmington, New Mexico), April 1, 2001.

“Five Fleeing Deer Hurl Pack Train down Mountain,” Rocky Mountain News (Denver, Colorado), October 12, 1934, https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org.

“William C. Little, Husband of Olga Little,” Eastern Colorado Times (Cheyenne Wells, Colorado), November 9, 1916, https://www.newspapers.com/article/eastern-colorado-times-19161109-william/179773295/.

“Pack Train Is Attacked By A Buck and Does,” The Daily Sentinel (Grand Junction, Colorado), October 11, 1934, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-sentinel-19341011-pack-train-i/179772507/.

“Lady Jack-Whacker,” The Daily Sentinel (Grand Junction, Colorado), July 6, 1950, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-sentinel-19500706-lady-jack-w/179772295/.

“Mrs. Olga Little, Durango,” Windsor Beacon (Windsor, Colorado), January 30, 1941, https://www.newspapers.com/article/windsor-beacon-19410130-mrs-olga-little/179773039/.

“Denver Starting Second Century,” Fort Collins Coloradoan (Fort Collins, Colorado), October 30, 1958, https://www.newspapers.com/article/fort-collins-coloradoan-19581030-denver/179773197/.

“Strong Women Helped Shape Area,” The Daily Sentinel (Grand Junction, Colorado), July 4, 1976, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-sentinel-19760704-strong-women/179772633/.

“They Won’t Put John Deere out of Business,” The Daily Sentinel (Grand Junction, Colorado), August 6, 1978, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-sentinel-19780806-they-wont/179772953/.

“Peak Named for Durango Mule Skinner,” The Daily Sentinel (Grand Junction, Colorado), October 8, 1983, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-sentinel-19831008-peak-named-f/179772852/.

John Marshall and Jerry Roberts, Living (and Dying) in Avalanche Country : Stories from the San Juans of Southwestern Colorado, (Silverton, Colo.: J. Marshall, 1992), p. 65, http://archive.org/details/livinganddyingin00mars.

Alton Pryor, Amazing Women In the Old West, (Roseville, CA : Stagecoach Publishing, 2014), p. 35, http://archive.org/details/amazingwomeninol0000pryo.

Ancestry.com.