Yount-Manion Films - Rockledge (1939)

Duration: 0:02:03

Year Published: 1939

Sound: silent

Description: This home movie captures the Yount-Manion family in Manitou Springs, Colorado, on July 14, 1939. The house, named “Rockledge,” became a summer home for the growing family. Miles Frank Yount bought the Rockledge house in 1929 from the Heath family and built the Manitou Mineral Spa and the nearby Arcade area. After Yount’s daughter, Mildred, married Edward Manion, the two made the mansion their summer home away from Beaumont. Mildred sold the property in 1969, the same year that she died. Rockledge then turned over to the ownership of George Haggard, who was also president of Santa’s Workshop at the North Pole amusement park in Colorado Springs. The Yount-Manion collection captures extended family members enjoying the facilities at Rockledge as well as Santa’s Workshop. The footage shows 14-week-old Kathryn Manion; her mother, Mildred Yount Manion; grandmother, Pansy Yount; and other unidentified friends and relatives. The Yount-Manion Films were given to Lamar University by Greg Riley and Fred McKinley. The pair discovered the films while researching their 2005 book, Black Gold to Bluegrass: From the Oil Fields of Texas to Spindletop Farm of Kentucky, which chronicles the legacy of Frank and Pansy Yount.