Kitty Heit owned and operated the Bon Ton restaurant and the St. Elmo Hotel.  The Bon Ton restaurant opened in 1886, when Ouray was getting along pretty well.  Ouray had a school, many churches, and the mines were getting ore by the minute.  Kitty Heit, a divorced woman, came to Ouray in a stagecoach from Kansas with her son Freddy.  Kitty was a very unusual person. One thing was she had a son she had raised by herself! That was very unusual. She also was divorced which was a very bad thing for you’re reputation. Another thing is she operated her hotel alone! Usually a man owned a hotel and had a lady maid, but she was alone on the job. She was a very nice lady and very brave. Everybody liked her.  The Saint Elmo hotel was opened in 1898, right next to the Bon Ton. When miners came down from the mines they needed a place to stay, so they would stay there a night or two and then go back up the mountain. It cost $1.00 for the miners to stay there, but $1.50 for transient people.  Sadly, Kitty died of a heart attack.  Freddy was a no good, rotten rascal because he was always gambling, drinking, and getting in trouble.  After he took over, he borrowed money from a bank, but he gambled so much that he couldn’t pay back the loan.  So, the bank took the restaurant and hotel away.  He shot himself a few days later.  His body was found by his girlfriend.  The moral to this story is never gambling away your good mother’s fortunes.