Fur trade

The material in the collection includes items, photographs, and papers related to Dorothy Bercu Gross and her husband Norman Gross, her extended family, and her Vaudeville career in the 1920s and 1930s. Her father owned the Chicago Hide, Fur and Wool Company in Douglas, Wyoming and Denver, Colorado. The collection spans from the late 1800s to 2015 and illustrates an extended Jewish family and vaudeville performers.

Contains six copy neagatives and prints of the Chicago Hide, Fur, and Wool House.

Eli Birnbaum on life in Capulin, Colorado as the only Jewsih family; fur and hide trade.

The photograph shows part of the sign for the Chicago Hide, Fur and Wool House in Douglas, Wyoming. Large bundles of hides or fur are in front of the building. Three men and one woman are standing in front of a wagon piled high with large bundles and four men are standing by the entrance. George D. Bercu founded the Chicago Hide, Fur and Wool House in Douglas, Wyoming.

Matted photograph of George Bercu standing in the interior of the Chicago Hide, Fur and Wool House. There is a large rack of fur coats behind him. He is holding a pelt and is front of a mirror. There are a man's fur coat and a woman's coat on forms, a table with furs and pelts and other pelts in the room. George D. Bercu founded the Chicago Hide, Fur, and Wool House in Douglas, Wyoming.

Photograph on black matting of two men dressed in coverals are sitting at desks. One of the men is sitting in front of a typewritter. There are three bear hides in the room and also a free standing stove and a safe. George D. Bercu founded the Chicago Hide, Fur, and Wool House in Douglas, Wyoming.

File contains two checks from the J.L. Brown Hide Company at 1821 15th Street, Denver, CO from January of 1929. Benjamin Sosny owned the company and his youngest daughter, Sylvia Sosny's photo appears on the checks. File also contains one printed page from 2007 about the acquisition of these checks from Eileen and David Naiman, who donated them to Beck Archives.

Morris Strause was born in Braunsbach, Germany on August 28, 1835. He moved to New York where he married Theresa Holzman and traveled across the US in various merchant positions. He moved to Colorado in search of gold and settled in Grand Junction with his family in 1882 where he began a clothing business, trading furs and skins and incorporating wool when the railroad was built. He passed away in November, 1928 as the Grand Junction's oldest and longest running merchant.

Shelves on the right side of the photograph are filled with boxes and ledgers. There is desk on the left with two men standing near the desk. Behind them are a man and a woman seated at a table. On the left side, George Bercu stands between a man and a woman at desks. George Bercu founded the Chicago Hide, Fur and Wool House in Douglas, Wyoming.

The scrapbook has newspaper articles and advertisements on the Chicago Hide, Fur, and Wool House, including advertisements for fur trapper jobs; Liberty Bonds, Safe Investment and Reliance Oil Companies; and articles about George D. Bercu. George Bercu founded the Chicago Hide, Fur, and Wool House in Douglas, Wyoming.