Brief by Allen Best
Lore – January 2009 – Colorado Central Magazine
Do doctors still occasionally accept payment in something other than greenbacks, Visa and MasterCard? Dr. Alfred Bedford, a doctor based in Durango, apparently did so, at times in his career taking as payment a barnyard of animals: a donkey, a goat, and chickens. Once he accepted tamales as payment.
Although born in Paris, France, and reared near New York City, the doctor spent his adult life based in Durango as a general surgeon and family practitioner with a small farm and ranch out in the country. He also had a clinic in Silverton, notes the Silverton Standard, who reported his recent death at an advanced age.
