Joe on Melody

Health Care

In its earliest days of settlement, Middle Park area residents and travelers doctored themselves using whatever remedies they were able to concoct on the scene of accident, illness, or injury.

Health Care Articles

Doc Ceriani
Doc Ceriani

Article contributed by Kathy Zeigler

Dr. Ernest Ceriani was a graduate of Loyola Medical School, and served his internship at St. Luke’s Hospital in Denver.  In 1942, he married a nurse, Bernetha Anderson, and joined the Navy, serving until 1946. He began a surgery residency in Denver, but was unhappy with city life,  city medical practice and its politics.  He came to practice in Kremmling in 1947, working for the Middle Park Hospital Association.

The Association had purchased the home of the previous doctor to remodel and serve as a hospital; it employed 2 nurses as well as the young doctor.  The doctor was general practitioner, seeing patients in office, hospital, and home, often as far away as Grand Lake.  He was as self-sufficient as he could be, developing his own X-ray films, for example, as a cost saving measure. Medical practice for an isolated doctor was challenging. Consultation with other physicians was difficult if not impossible and keeping up with medical journals was daunting. 

“Doc” Ceriani was dedicated to his community and to his practice, often returning to the hospital or going to an accident site to treat illness or injury when he had planned to take some leisure time.  The community depended upon him to listen to their recitation of symptoms and make sound judgments in the art of healing.  Their “Doc” was not just a medical corporation putting patients through procedures--he was a highly dedicated professional in the world of medicine.  He truly cared about his community and its members.

Life magazine honored him with a large article, which covered, in depth, the challenges of practicing medicine in such an isolated area. From childbirth, to ranch injuries, to treating the tourist who suffered from altitude sickness, the article showed the American public the human side of this very dedicated physician.

“Doc” practiced until 1986, in Kremmling, retiring at the age of 69.  He died two years later.

Source:
Of Things Medical in Middle Park, Grand County Historical Association Journal, vol. XIV, no. 1. 1997
Doc Susie - Mountain Pioneer Woman Doctor
Doc Susie - Mountain Pioneer Woman Doctor
Doc Susie

Susan Anderson was born on January 31, 1870, in Nevada Mills, Indiana. Her parents, William and Mary Anderson, were divorced in 1875. Four-year old Susan never forgot her parents arguing and her mother crying before her father literally grabbed Susan and her brother John, who was three years old, from their mother at a railroad depot. He jumped on the train as it was leaving the station and took them to Wichita, Kansas, where he homesteaded with Susan’s grandparents.

Susan’s father, Pa Anderson, had always wanted to be a doctor, and he vowed that one of his children would fulfill that role, which he had been unable to accomplish. John, however, was more interested in roping cattle and playing than becoming a doctor. Contrary to John, Susie watched her father, a self-taught veterinarian, as he worked on animals. She absorbed important knowledge for her future as a physician. Susie was less interested in the lessons that her grandmother taught her: manners, housework, crocheting and cooking. 

Shortly after Susan and John graduated from High School in 1891, Pa Anderson remarried and became very domineering, insisting that everything be exactly as he demanded. At about the same time, the gold strike in Cripple Creek, Colorado, caught William Anderson’s attention, causing him to sell his homestead in Wichita and move the entire family to Anaconda, CO, which was about one mile south of Cripple Creek. Very rare for the time, Susan pursued an education in medicine and graduated from the University of Michigan and started practicing in the mining towns of the area. 

In her 30's Susan contracted tubuculosis and came to the Fraser Valley in hopes of a cure in the clear mountain air.  Not only did she regain her health, but she he practiced medicine from 1909 to 1956 in Grand County, a total of forty-seven years.  

People in the area were very poor and seldom paid in cash. They usually gave her meals for payment. This suited her fine because she did not like to cook or keep house, which was always messy. Because the railroad ran beside her shack, she often would be called to various parts of the county, even at night. Doc. Susie would flag down a train and ride wher ever she needed to go, free of charge. She also treated the men working on the railroad and their families in Fraser and Tabernash, which was about three miles northwest of Fraser. Around 1926 Susan became the Coroner for Grand County. 

One time she hiked eight miles on snowshoes to a ranch because she was con cerned about a woman who was due to deliver her baby soon. That night the mother gave birth to a baby girl. While there, the four-year-old son had an appendicitis at- tack. Neither of the parents could take the boy to Denver for surgery. Doc Susie took him by train. A blizzard hit, blocking Corona Pass. The men passengers were called out to help clear the track It wasn't until the next morning the train arrived in Denver Doc Susie had no money for a taxi fare. The passengers gave her the taxi fare to get from the depot to Colorado General Hospital. Doc Susie stayed with the boy during the surgery from which he fully recovered. 

Another time Doc Susie rented a horse drawn sleigh to go as far as she could, then snow shoed into a ranch in a storm to treat a child with pneumonia. She had the rancher heat his home as warm as he could, heat water and then put the child in a tub of steaming hot water and open the door to make more steam. By morning the child had recovered.   SDoc Susie lived to be ninety years old. The last two years of her life she was cared for in a rest home by the doctors for the Colorado General Hospital out of respect and love. 

Susie wanted to be buried beside her brother in Cripple Creek, but because of bad record keeping, no one could find his grave until later. She was buried in a new section of the cemetery. When the residents of Grand County learned there was no head stone, they took up a collection and erected a headstone. 

Susan Anderson never married, but she said she had delivered more children than any one and claimed them as her children. Her family was everyone in Grand County. Her home still stands in Fraser and the Cozens Ranch Museum has a display of her life and medical tools. 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Dr. Sudan
Dr. Sudan

Article contributed by Barbara Mitchell

 

The people of Grand County have been lucky to have good doctors from early times to the present. Such a one was Dr. Sudan.

Archer Chester Sudan was born on a farm in Sioux Falls, S.D. in 1894. While still quite young, he discovered a talent for healing - mainly of sick or injured farm animals. The notion of medicine as a career led him to leave his family and move to Chicago to live with a married sister where he attended high school and college. To support himself, he worked as a barber and as a summer harvest hand in the Dakotas. He received his bachelor's degree and a master's degree from the University of Chicago and later graduated from Rush Medical School. Upon graduation in 1925, Sudan came west to intern at Denver General Hospital. There he met Tuleen Swift, a pretty little nurse from Kansas City, who later became his wife.

His first interest was teaching and research, but in 1926 his life took a major turn when he came to the mountains of Colorado to fish the area around Kremmling. As he was chatting one day with local druggist, C.C. Eastin, about potential fishing holes, a woman hurried in. She had four little ones at home, all ill with acute tonsillitis.

Gathering his medicines from his tent at the edge of the Colorado River, the young doctor hurried to their house to treat the youngsters. Before long, other neighbors made their way to his tent.

Dr. Sudan liked the country and the people so much that he took leave from his Chicago job and brought his wife to the high country where they set up practice in this sparsely settled rural area. He quickly came to know all about the bad roads, lack of sanitation facilities and electricity.

In the fall of 1926, he was introduced to the cow trails that represented roads to ranches back in the hills. A rancher had shot himself and was bleeding profusely. The rancher's wife was trying desperately to stem the flow of blood with towels. Guided by his new friend C.C. Eastin, the young physician headed out into the evening in his Model T Ford. Reaching the house some 30 miles away, he treated the man, rigged up a stretcher for the car, and started toward Kremmling. Part way there, the car bogged down in mud and Sudan had to hike five miles back to a ranch house where there was a telephone. Calling for a wrecker, he plodded back once again, arriving at his car about daylight. Sudan finally got the rancher to Denver, 130 miles away, where his leg was amputated. The Doctor left him there in the care of capable hands and returned to his home in Kremmling where he could finally take a breather.

He was dedicated to healing and sought to provide medical care as good as could be found in a city. He was also civic minded and actively boosted good roads and agitated for improved sanitation, home nursing and public health programs. He served on the school board and town council and was county coroner for a time. He was a sportsman and liked to ride the Gore Range on horseback, hunt, fish and cook out.

In April 1933, the Middle Park Times carried a note indicating that Dr. Sudan had built a small hospital having a basement with eight rooms including space for an x-ray machine and a furnace for heating. This building still stands as a part of the Kremmling Memorial Hospital District complex.

By the war's end, Sudan was getting tired. This was a young man's country, he felt, and he started planning to move to Denver, to do general practice and research there; he longed for a quieter life. He stayed on in Kremmling while serving as president of the Colorado State Medical Society until September 1947. Finally, 21 years after he came to Grand County, Archie Sudan turned his hospital over to young Dr. Ceriani and made the move to Denver. The following year, the American Medical Association gave him its first gold medal award for outstanding community service as a G.P.

Tuleen died in March 1950 and in 1955 Archie married longtime friend and neighbor, Martha Hawkins. The couple traveled, camped, fished and explored the West and Canada.

In the late 1960s, Dr. Sudan's health began to fail and the couple built a one level home on Martha's farm in Lafayette. In October 1971, the doctor was shoveling snow when he died of a massive heart attack at age 77.

(The above is taken from the Grand County Historical Association Journal No. XIV, "Of Things Medical in Middle Park" written by Dr. Jim Wier and Jean Miller. For a more complete account of Dr. Sudan's, and other pioneer doctors' medical contributions to Grand County, the Journal is worthy of a place in your home library. The GCHA Journals are available at the Grand County/Pioneer Village Museum in Hot Sulphur Springs.)

 
Health Care
Health Care

In its earliest days of settlement, Middle Park area residents and travelers doctored themselves using whatever remedies they were able to concoct on the scene of accident, illness, or injury.  The cure might have been a poultice of herbs, bread, oil, mustard, or something called Raleigh’s Ointment.  It might have been a dip in the medicinal springs at Hot Sulphur, a dose of iodine, arnica or vinegar, castor oil, Epsom salts, or any number of other standbys.

The first “doctors” known in the area were Dr. Hilery Harris (1874 or 1876) and Dr. David Bock (1876); both were “self-certified”.  Dr. Harris had a predilection for the treatment of animals, while Dr. Bock treated the medical and dental needs of the people. By the mid-1880s, there were a number of doctors traveling through the area, working for various entities and setting up private practices.  During the mining boom, there were a number of physicians and surgeons in Teller City, which was then a part of Grand County.  

Around 1900, the Dunphy and Nelson Contracting Co, a construction firm building roadbeds through the Fraser Canyon for the Moffat Railroad employed Dr. John Wills as company physician.  By 1903, the Denver, Northwestern and Pacific Railroad employed Dr. Leonidas Wills, cousin to John Wills, for its employees and families.  These types of company jobs provided regular work as well as regular pay for doctors who otherwise would have had little in the way of compensation for their work.

Many of the doctors found themselves moving from community to community as the working community moved--from the Fraser Canyon to the Gore Canyon to lay roadbed, or from one logging area to another.  Later, work flow was based on government projects such as the construction of the Moffat Tunnel and the Alva B. Adams Tunnel, both of which went back to the old tradition of having a company doctor.  By the time of the coming of the Moffat Line to Grand County, most of the communities had drug stores, many of which were owned solely, or in part, by the local physicians. There, people could avail themselves of all types of patent medicines, drugs, toilet articles, soaps, perfumes, and sometimes even a drink at a soda fountain.

It was common for surgery to be done in the home of the patient, or the doctor.  Only occasionally, for the worst of illnesses or injuries, did the doctors attempt to transport patients over the Continental Divide to a Denver hospital.  Childbirth was almost always in the mother’s home, under the watchful eye of a female neighbor, or a midwife, and  rarely with a doctor in attendance.

Dr. Archie Sudan built a medical facility in Kremmling and Dr. Susan Anderson remodeled a barn in Fraser to accommodate her patients. Often it was the wife of the doctor, who might be a nurse, who attended the patients.  Many of those in attendance were trained by the doctor in charge; some went on to attain certifications as Registered Nurses or other professionals.

In June, 1947, the Middle Park Hospital Association held a fundraiser to undertake hospital improvement.  The first $20,000 raised went to buy the home/hospital of Dr. Archer Sudan.  In total, the group raised between $35,000 and $70,000 to purchase, remodel, and outfit the facility, which was intended to serve all of Grand County, most of Summit County, and parts of Eagle, Routt, and Jackson counties. The hospital had four private rooms, three wards for six patients each, living quarters for hospital personnel, an office, exam room, operating room and an x-ray room.  Dr. Ernest Ceriani was the first physician for the new facility.

The local rural physicians often called on their colleagues in the city for assistance with difficult cases.  They arranged for specialists to visit, consult and perform surgery, saving the patients and their families hospitalization in Denver.  Just as today, the need for specialized care presented special difficulties for the rural physician of the early days.

The list of physicians, surgeons, dentists, osteopaths, and veterinarians who served Grand County is lengthy, but the most famous are Dr. Susan Anderson (Fraser), Dr. Archie Sudan (Kremmling), Dr. Mac Ogden (Granby and Kremmling), Dr. Ernest Ceriani (Kremmling), and Dr. James Fraser (Grand Lake).  “Medical Practices in Early Middle Park-Grand County” includes extensive information on each.

Articles to Browse

The Train Comes to Fraser
Topic: Railroads

The Train Comes to Fraser

Article contributed by Tim Nicklas
 

A little over a hundred years ago the few residents of Fraser were awakened by a sound new to their town.  The railroad had finally arrived in 1904, just over 30 years after it had first debuted in Denver.  That same blaring horn, followed by the rumble of iron wheels on rails is waking up the good town-folk of the Fraser Valley today.  As the local Manifest has documented recently, many residents have long been annoyed by the noisy disruption the train makes as it announces its passing through town.  Additionally, parents of school children rushing to Fraser Elementary School in the morning can attest to the intrusive obstacle the slow moving behemoth becomes at in the morning.

A hundred years ago, residents of the Fraser Valley complained loudly of the intrusion of the iron horse on the tranquil lifestyle.  It has long been rumored that the course of the railroad was determined by an angry old timer by the name of Billy Cozens.  Cozens was a pioneer of the valley having homesteaded his ranch in the area in the early 1870s.  According to legend, when the engineers were surveying the route of the future Denver, Northwestern, and Pacific Railroad through the valley, Billy Cozens bullied the crewmen into the woods.  As the railmen would lay their flags for the roadbed, Cozens, an expert marksman, would shoot the markers out of the ground.  As the story goes, this was the reason the tracks were laid through the forest, rather than the meadow.

The reality of the chosen route for the D.N.&P. was due to grade and not fear of the rifle.  Whether Cozens despised the railroad is anyone's guess.  According to Robert Black's book, Island in the Rockies, the railroads designing engineers actually consulted Cozens concerning the lack of snow on the continental divide.  Regardless, the rumors have persisted over the years about the "Old Sheriff's" contempt for the railroad.  It has even divulged to me that the ghost of Billy Cozens will not allow anything concerning the railroad in his former home, the Cozens Ranch Museum.  Whenever railroad exhibits have been attempted they have mysteriously vanished and were never seen again.

As far as the townfolk of Fraser were concerned, many of them regarded the railroad as an opportunity that had eluded the region for years.  Unfortunately for Fraserites, their town was to be bypassed as the major hub for the area.  Further down the valley Tabernash was chosen as the location for the workshops and roundhouse for the forthcoming trains.  As a result, the trains would move through Fraser without their engineers paying the town much notice outside of their blowing whistles.  Nonetheless, the people of the valley would embrace the iron horse.  Economic potential in Grand County would erupt due to the advent of relatively efficient transportation.  Specifically, the lumber industry would boom with the outlet that the railroad would provide.  Additionally, people could move between Denver and Grand County easily compared to the wagon roads that formerly provided the only passage to the outside world.  As timber and cattle traveled to the Front Range, mail and hard goods traveled back to the Fraser Valley.

In years past, just like today, it has been easy to forget the benefits that the railroad has brought to our lives.  Certainly, when the train moved into the valley, the people that day realized that their life could slow down a bit.  The reality was that the short inconvenience that the passing train brought with its blaring horn, bringing traffic to a momentary standstill enhanced the life and character of the Fraser Valley.  It provided power, people, and materials in a unique way that simplified life here.  This is as true today as it was in 1905.      

 

Moving Water from Point A to Point B
Topic: Water

Moving Water from Point A to Point B

Most serious ranchers had more than one ditch and most built one or more reservoirs. Hilry Harris, Munroe C. Wythe, Samuel H. Burghard, and John A. Coulter entered the first water claim in the county on September 20, 1874. This came out of Sheep Creek above the head of Gore Canyon.

There usually was some natural irrigation; but the challenge of getting the water from the creek required laborious construction of diversion dams, headgates, and ditches, the earliest ditches being dug by hand and often taking up to four years to complete. Later, ditches were dug using teams and scrapers. The grade was figured out initially by simple gravity flow, letting a trickle of water move down the ditch. Soon ranchers refined the process, using a 16’ long board placed with a 1/8" slope, determined by a carpenter’s level. A.F. and Roy Polhamus surveyed a great many of the water ditches, especially those impressive ones in West Grand County, some of which even had tunnels involved. Most small ditches supplied just one ranch, but if a ditch had to cross another ranch, that rancher usually got a share. And some of these ditches were long!

For instance, Dr. Henry Hoagland, on the Blue River, anticipated getting water close at hand from Spruce Creek. Instead, he discovered an old timer had previous rights that forced him to go back into the mountains and build a 13-mile long ditch. Hoagland had figured on spending about $7000; in the end, the actual cost was $26,000! His crew dug the ditch around side hills and across valleys using flumes and siphons. Then his real troubles began. Terrible leaks and washouts occurred everywhere. Finally he hauled in adobe and put this in the bottom of the ditch, rented sheep, and drove them day after day up and down the ditch to pack it. After a couple of years of using this tamping process, the ditch held. Other ditches were even longer. The Church Ditch at Willow Creek and the Wheatley Ditch on the back Troublesome were both 16 miles long.

The Company Ditch (aka the Williams Fork Ditch), eight feet wide on the bottom, was another long one. Built between 1903 and 1907, it cost $44,000 and had a decree for 150 cubic feet / second. The ditch went uphill and down, requiring many flumes and bridges. One flume was actually 1200 feet long! Subsequent breakdowns, leaks, and slides were so frequent and repairs so extremely costly that old-timers have said the reason the Company Ranch went broke about 1920 was the expense of The Ditch. The Lyman Ditch (or the Curtis), started about 1891, was just as complicated as the Company Ditch. Crossing high above the Williams Fork River, the ditch eventually needed cement piers to carry the pipe (1928). This ditch had so many slides, leaks, and washouts, that it had to be inspected once or twice daily! Siphons were required over draws. Flumes, sometimes ¼ mile long, might be 25-30 feet high, and one flume was actually 177 feet high; but these heights were necessary to maintain the elevation.

Flumes, being of wood, rotted and were guaranteed to leak. Sometimes wind blew a portion of the flume down. Finally the county put in big pipes to help the ditches across the Williams Fork. It might be noted that, when water leaked out of ditches, a side benefit was that ranchers along the way could use the "lost" water. Along with the ditches came reservoirs.

Fred DeBerard had four reservoirs on the Muddy: the Albert, the Binco, Milk Creek, and a low one that flooded the Jones place near Kremmling. All were dirt, of course. The Hermosa Ranch on the Little Muddy had water rights through the Sylvan Ditch and Reservoir Company and they built the Sylvan Reservoir dam and the Hermosa Ditch starting in 1911 and completing it by the spring of 1916. The Stein Ditch, started in 1897, was another large ditch, this one later purchased by the Taussig family. These ditches were all built originally to provide water to meadows and fields for ranching purposes. For years, people hauled in water for baths and household use, but that gradually changed. Leon Almirall, near the Horseshoe Ranger Station on the Williams Fork, decided that he wanted water for his home, so he built a 1700’ pipeline to his house, added an inside bathroom, and was shocked when the line froze the first winter – it was only three feet deep. He called in workers who dug down and insulated the line with manure and straw. It froze again. Finally, Almirall gave up and buried the line six feet deep. Now he had his water!

On Ranch Creek in the east end of the county, E.D. Shew cut a ditch upstream from his house, placing it along the edge of the creek, but directing the water back into the main channel near his house. At that point, he put a little water wheel that pushed the water up the hill to his cabins -- and furnished electricity besides. Eventually he replaced the water wheel with a gas engine. There was a similar water wheel, used for the same purpose, up in Hideaway Park.

Water was used to transport lumber as well. A flume ran down the mountain into Monarch Lake, in the days when the Monarch Company was timbering there. There was a flume along St. Louis Creek, carrying lumber from the camps upstream. Perhaps the most ambitious flume ran from Western Box Sawmill. This area is now under Meadow Creek Reservoir. In 1906, the Deisher Lumber Company paid Nathan Hurd for a right of way through his land and built a flume with a 2% grade down Hurd Creek. Logs were placed in the flume and a horse harnessed to the last log. The horse then pushed the logs down the flume with the help of the water. Three years later, the mill was moved to "Sawmill Meadow" on Meadow Creek.

In 1911 construction on the seven-mile-long Vaver Flume began, with 117 cubic inches of water allotment. This flume ran down Meadow Creek and over to Tabernash, carrying partially processed logs for further manufacture. A flume rider checked along the way, making sure there were no jams, and phone line allowed the rider to report troubles. Hikers can see remnants of both the St. Louis Creek flume and that one coming down Meadow Creek today.

The Muddy
Topic: Regions

The Muddy

The Muddy Creek Valley, on the western edge of Grand County, has a rich history, mostly based on ranching. It became something of a multi-cultural region, attracting French, Greek, Belgian, British, Dutch, Austrian, Swiss, German and Jewish settlers.  There were also dozens of homesteading families that came from eastern Colorado and Mid-West America.

The known prehistory of the Muddy Creek area extends back 10,000 years at a kill site for bison on Twin Peaks, which separates the Muddy from the Troublesome Creek drainages. 

Among the early settlers in the region were the Ed Pinney family who has a ranch near the summit of Gore Pass.  As the boundary between Grand and Routt County was not well defined, Ed paid his taxes to whichever county had the lowest rate in any given year.  After the railroad arrived at Kremmling, a stage coach route to Topanos, west of Gore Pass, was started.  At first the Pinney Ranch was designated a lunch stop, and then an overnight stop.  In 1906, the Pinneys' built a big house that could accommodate up to 40 people, two to a room.

One of the many notable ranches was that of Fred and Myrtle DeBerard.  Their Park Ranch included 20,000 acres, and they ran over 1600 registered Herefords.  Fred was instrumental in the creation of four reservoirs in the region.

Another prominent early rancher was Frenchman Alfred Argualer, who first came to hunt the region but returned to establish the May-Be-So Ranch.  He continued developing properties from 1880 until 1911 when he sold his ranch on the Muddy to Nick "Turk" Constantine.

A significant rancher of the 20th century was Walter "Wad" Hinnan, who served form 1966-7 as President of the Colorado Cattlemen's Association and as Director of the National Western Stock Show in Denver.  He was instrumental in breaking the barrier between cattlemen and sheep growers by showing that both enterprises could be complimentary and profitable.  Wad also represented Grand County in the Colorado Legislature from 1968 to 1982.

At one time in the early 1920's there was a sanatorium for World War I veterans who had been disabled by mustard gas.  The lower Muddy was the site of an ice house which supplied refrigeration for fruit shipments out of Grand Junction and Palisade, Colorado.  German prisoners of war were used to cut the ice during World War II.

A unique innovation resulted from the widespread ranching families.  In 1935, the schoolhouse was put on sled runners so that it could be taken to which ever ranch had the most children for that season.  It was moved in the winter as the school terms were held during the summer.  It was moved three times between 1931 and 1939 and was probably the only mobile schoolhouse of that era.  

William Byers
Topic: Biographies

William Byers

Article contributed by Abbott Fay

Born in Ohio in 1831, William Byers became a surveyor in Iowa, Nebraska, Oregon and Washington during the 1850's.  He described himself later as "a mountain tramp". In 1859, he hauled a printing press to the new town of Denver, where he founded the Rocky Mountain News. He also served as postmaster of the settlement.

He was enthusiastic about the mining prospects of Colorado, and wrote endless editorials about the wealth to be found in the mountains to the West.  However, many disappointed prospectors took to referring to Byers newspaper as the "Rocky Mountain Liar".  Among his promotions was the idea that the South Platte River could be made navigable. That vision never became reality due to the size of the river. He wrote inflammatory articles against Indians which contributed to the infamous Sand Creek Massacre, a slaughter of peaceful natives by Colorado militia in 1864.

Fascinated by the co-called "boiling springs" in Middle Park, Byers managed to obtain rudimentary land titles from Indian claimants and promoters to establish the town of Hot Sulphur Springs in 1863.

Byers developed Hot Sulphur Springs into what was probably Colorado's first resort town.  He also tried to grow grapes and other commercial garden crops in Grand County, with little or no success.  He invested in sawmills and was part owner with William Cozens of the Hilry Harry & Company "Brand H" ranch.

In 1901, at the age of 70, Byers undertook the ascent of the peak which had been named for him by the official Hayden survey.  The next year he donated land for the Grand County Courthouse in Hot Sulphur Springs

William Byers died in 1903.  His fame is preserved in the names of Byers Canyon, Byers Peak and the town of Byers. He was one of the founders of the Colorado Historical Society, which owns the Byers-Evans House, a historical museum in Denver.  There is a stained glass window of his portrait in the Colorado State Capitol building.

Sources: Don and Jean Griswold, Colorado's Century of Cities, Denver CO 1958.

Thomas J. Noel, The Colorado Almanac, Portland, OR 2001

Samuel Bowles, The Switzerland of America, Springfield, MA, 1869

Robert C. Black, Island in Rockies, Boulder CO, 1968

Lulita Pritchett, Maggie By My Side, Steamboat Springs CO, 1976

Dougall MacDonald, Long's Peak: Colorado's Favorite Fourteener, Englewood CO, 2004

Carl Ubbelokdre, Maxine Benson and Duane Smith, A Colorado History, Boulder CO 1972

Alice Reich and Thomas Steel, Fraser Haps and Mishaps, Denver CO  1990 

 

Mining
Topic: Mining

Mining

Ghost towns and broken dreams are legacies left by the early miners and prospectors of Grand County. Ever since 1879 when the first mines were staked out and claimed on Bowen Mountain near Grand Lake, “gold and silver fever” grew like an epidemic. Men blinded by greed and prospects of a better tomorrow scrambled to the Kawuneeche Valley with picks and shovels to unearth their fortunes. Women worked just as feverishly along side their men and encampments gave way to mining towns almost overnight. Land offices, eateries, and boarding houses sprouted like wild flowers.

Claim jumping became a common practice, resulting in fights and even murders. Most of these injustices would go unpunished, for no one wanted to risk losing their chance of riches. In Grand County the mother load was a false prophecy, as only small quantities of low grade gold, silver, and lead ore were found. In a few short years, Gaskill, Teller City, and Lulu City, three of the more noted settlements, suffered the same fate as the other boom towns. By 1885 the mining boom had ended in Grand County and ranching had taken it’s place as a sustaining industry.

Rocky Mountain National Park
Topic: National Lands

Rocky Mountain National Park

In 1915, thanks to the efforts of visionary Enos Mills, Rocky Mountain National Park became the 10th national park. The concept was then, and still is, conservation of natural lands and wildlife. No commercial enterprises which consume resources operate within its boundaries--no logging, grazing, farming, mining, hunting or trapping.

Almost all private property in-holdings have been bought by the National Park Service and the buildings destroyed. Located within park boundaries, Longs Peak, at an altitude of 14,256 feet, named for explorer Stephen Long, is visible from both sides of the Continental Divide. Indeed, one can look northwest along 17th Street in Denver, to see one of the area’s best known peaks.

Trail Ridge Road, which runs through the park, was completed in 1932 and is the highest continuous highway in the United States. It is open only in the summer. Dignitaries from the towns of Estes Park and Grand Lake celebrate the opening each year, often but not always by Memorial Day, with a ceremony at the top called “Hands Across the Nation.”

Ute Legend of the Quaking Aspen
Topic: Indian Legends

Ute Legend of the Quaking Aspen

It is amazing to behold the continuous quivering of aspen leaves in groves around Grand County, even when there is no apparent breeze.

According to Ute legend, the reason for this unique aspect of the aspen tree happened during a visit to Erath from the Great Spirit during a special full moon.  All of nature anticipated the Spirit's arrival and trembled to pay homage.  All except the proud and beautiful aspen. The aspens stood still, refusing to pay proper respect. The Great Spirit was furious and decreed that, from that time on, the aspen leaves would tremble whenever anyone looked upon them.

Eduard Berthoud
Topic: Biographies

Eduard Berthoud

Born in Geneva, Switzerland, Eduard Louis Berthoud (pronounced "Bare-too") came to the United States with his parents in 1830. His childhood was spent in New York State along the Mohawk River.
 

After completing a degree in engineering at Union College in Schenectady, he spent a lifetime supporting the great western movement. In 1860, Berthoud came to the Rocky Mountains with the Gold Rush. During the 40 years between 1850-1890, Berthoud contributed greatly to the expanding west through his experiences as a young surveyor on the Panama Railroad, the linking of Leavenworth, KS to the Rocky Mountains, and his survey and exploration of a transcontinental road through Colorado's Middle Park.

 

As a Coloradoan, Edward Berthoud (his name now "Americanized) also lead surveys for railroads to booming mining camps in Gilpin County, Georgetown, Leadville and San Juan County. Berthoud's legacy includes his pioneer survey of Berthoud Pass and  wagon road through Middle Park into Utah.  In addition to his work as a surveyor, Berthoud also helped create the School of Mines and often taught there.  He also was involved in various political positions from territorial legislator to Golden's Mayor. He collected natural history specimens for eastern museums that even today are considered extremely valuable. 

The Ute Legend of Grand Lake
Topic: Indian Legends

The Ute Legend of Grand Lake

A group of Utes were camping on the shores of Grand Lake when they were suddenly attacked by an enemy tribe of the Arapaho (and in some versions the Cheyenne as well).  As the brave Ute warriors began fighting, the women and children were hurried onto a large raft for safety and pushed to the middle of the lake.  As the battle continued, a treacherous wind overturned the raft and all the women and children were drowned. Many Ute warriors were also killed during the fighting. 

The legend holds that you can still see ghostly forms in the morning mist rising from the lake and hear the wailing of the lost women and children beneath the winter ice.  The Utes avoided the lake for many years because of these tragic events and evil spirits.

Sheriff
Topic:

Sheriff

Article contributed by Abbott Fay

 

One of the oldest brands in Colorado still in use by the same family is the Bar Double S brand of the Sheriff Ranch near Hot Sulphur Springs.  The current owners of the ranch are John Brice and Ida Sheriff.

 

In 1863, Matthew Sheriff of Keithsburg, Illinois came to Colorado to search for gold in the California Gulch, near where Leadville would be established.  Mathew was dismayed by the gray mineral which consistently clogged the gold sluice, and gave up on his dreams of instant wealth to return to Illinois.  Many other miners also gave up mining for this reason, never realizing that the gray mineral was carbonite of lead, which was rich in silver.  Mathew died in 1863 at the age of 40, leaving behind his wife Marietta and their 3 surviving sons, Burt, Glenn and Mark.

 

In 1878, Marietta was inspired to return to Colorado in search of security and stability for her family.  She spent some time in Leadville running a boarding house.  Her sister was the wife of William Byers who was developing the Hot Sulphur Springs area so Marietta moved to the area to settle with her sons.  In 1882 the family homesteaded three ranches of 160 acres each, proving them up and added a preemption right to another 160 acres.

 

Bert later moved to Denver and established a livery stable and Mark and his mother moved into Hot Sulphur Springs, while Glenn continued to work the ranch.  Glenn married Alice Cleora Smith in 1886 and they had two surviving sons, Brice and Glenn Jr.  Glenn Jr. was only 6 weeks old when his father died at the age of 33 of "brain fever" or diphtheria.  Alice took the children back to her family in Iowa to raise them, but the boys returned to their Colorado ranch in 1910. 

 

Brice, who suffered from a back injury as a child, bought an abstract business in Hot Sulphur Springs and lived there with his mother for the rest of their lives.  Glenn Jr. continued to expand and develop the ranch and married Adaline Morgan in 1923.  They had four children; Nona, John, Robert and Catherine.   Glenn Jr. served Grand County as a Commissioner for 24 years and also as the County Assessor for 4 years.

 

Glenn Jr.s, son John, took over the ranch and married Ida Marte in 1949.  Ida's family had homesteaded their own ranch near Cottonwood Pass.  They have two children and continue to work the ranch to this day.        

 

Source:

Interview with John and Ida Sheriff, at the Sheriff Ranch, July 14, 2004

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