All in regards to the Emma Crawford Coffin Race!

MANITOU SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – Coffins might be flying Manitou Avenue as soon as once more on Saturday as the town celebrates one in every of its most well-known residents — with one in every of its most iconic occasions!

The Emma Crawford Coffin Race is famously in honor of the very actual Emma Crawford, who died of tuberculosis within the late 1800s — however her story didn’t finish there!

Per her dying want, Crawford was buried on prime of Red Mountain overlooking Manitou Springs. Her afterlife took an sudden flip when a long time of flooding, harsh winters and erosion jarred her coffin unfastened and despatched it rolling down the mountain!

In typical Manitou style, her memory is honored with a huge parade, followed by teams of coffins racing along the city’s main drag!

“We’re keeping the legend of Emma Crawford alive, which is so fun for us,” mentioned Jenna Wells, the chief director of Visit Manitou Springs.

The occasion brings hundreds of individuals to Manitou Springs, and organizers tout it because the first-of-its-kind occasion within the nation.

“In 1995, the Manitou Springs Chamber of Commerce started the first coffin races in the nation, in memory of a beloved resident of Manitou Springs. Since then, the races have grown into an often-copied-but-never-equaled Manitou Springs tradition,” the official race website reads.

This 12 months’s occasion boasts 60 coffin racing groups, with every workforce consisting of 5 individuals: 4 “mourners” pushing the coffin and one “Emma Crawford” sitting inside. Since there are dozens of groups collaborating, groups race two at a time, from Canon Avenue to the Ruxton Avenue visitors circle.

“Why is there an Emma in the coffin?” I requested Marissa Bar-av, the “Emma” for her workforce, the Treble Makers.

“She slid down the mountain,” Bar-av informed me.

Teams build and decorate their coffins through the lead-up to the race — severe enterprise for probably the most aggressive teams!

“Last year, I was standing next to this coffin, and people were coming by saying things like, ‘I don’t know, it’s a little bit too low to the ground, and aerodynamically, could it do this and that,’” recalled Eddy Lieberman of the Treble Makers. “It was very funny for me that people were coming by, engineers, looking at how it was working.”

The Treble Makers ended up with their very own coffin as a result of its earlier proprietor was searching for a quicker model!

“There was someone else who was disappointed at a third-place finish and said, ‘We need a lighter coffin, we’re going to build a lighter coffin,’ so they brought it to the chamber and said, ‘Is there anyone who’d like our coffin?’ and one of our board members at the time was working that day at the chamber and said, ‘Yes, our music foundation would love it,’ and so we’ve had it ever since,” mentioned Steven Miller, member of the Treble Makers and the founding father of the Manitou Music Foundation, which the workforce is representing. The basis helps native dwell music and schooling.

The hand-me-down coffin has served the Treble Makers properly ever since: the workforce has steadily improved its placement over the six years it’s raced and obtained second-place final 12 months with a scorching 27.7 seconds!

“Some people aren’t in it for the competitive side, they are more in it for the showmanship of it, but we need that first place!” laughed Treble Makers workforce member Michael Edmiston forward of Saturday’s race. “… Once you get the taste of starting to get a better place in the race, it gets really competitive.”

And like all athletes, the Treble Makers have been working to enhance efficiency this 12 months.

“Placement of our runners has changed a little bit. We’ve also done some work on the coffin reenforcing it. This is our fifth year with that coffin … so, you know, it just takes a little bit of upkeep to make sure everything is working right and the bearings are greased and the whole nine yards.”

In addition to adorning the coffins, workforce members can even costume up!

“We’re going to be wearing top hats this year. We’re going to have some zombie makeup on our faces,” mentioned Philip Phelps, who’s a part of the Cliff House workforce.

The Treble Makers donned capes and live performance black as a nod to the Manitou Music Foundation.

“I think with Manitou, it’s three things: community, community, community, so it’s really important to be here, and it’s really cool to represent the foundation,” Edmiston mentioned. “… Just to have a representation in the race shows everyone in town that this town is really serious about their music and treats their musicians with a lot of respect. These capes are basically a representation of all the musicians out there.”

Everyone 11 News spoke with, from rivals to organizers to spectators, agrees that group is Emma Crawford’s largest legacy,

“[It’s] so great for our community to invite folks to come to just in the off season, to Manitou Springs, to enjoy a really weird, fun, funky family day in our downtown,” Wells mentioned.

“I think the lore of Emma Crawford — Manitou is a spooky town, and we love our history and our spooky background, so I think the Emma Crawford race is just one more reason for us to become the embodiment of Halloween Town out here!” Edmiston informed us.

Watch the movies above and under this text for extra in regards to the race from a workforce’s perspective — together with an illustration of how operating with a coffin works!

Click here to look at this 12 months’s race!

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