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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 First Recorded Ascent of Long’s Peak
Topic: Mountains
John Wesley Powell about the time of his Longs Peak ascent

The First Recorded Ascent of Long’s Peak

John Wesley Powell about the time of his Longs Peak ascent

After his discharge from the Union Army in 1865, a veteran who lost his right arm at the Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee as a commander of a field artillery battery, John Wesley Powell was appointed curator of the Illinois Natural History Society’s Museum located at Illinois State University-Normal. Later, he was a Professor of Natural Science at Illinois Wesleyan University-Bloomington. 

In the summer of 1867, Professor Powell and his wife Emma, brought five students of the two university’s and six educators at other Illinois schools to Colorado Territory. Two peaks over 14,000 feet were climbed. Pike’s Peak (Emma was the 4thwoman to do so), and Mt. Lincoln. The expedition combined exploration and higher education of large scale student field trips was the first of its kind in American college history. 

In the autumn, the Powell’s visited the natural Middle Park hot springs (the heart of Hot Sulphur Springs) owned by William N. Byers editor of the Rocky Mountain News. The caretaker of the springs introduced himself as Jack Sumner, also a Union Army veteran, and Byers’ brother-in-law. Near the springs was the Grand River as the headwaters of the Colorado River were called. Around a campfire Powell and Sumner made plans for a Colorado River Exploring Expedition. Looming over this decision on the eastern horizon was Long’s Peak.  In November, Wes and Emma Powell departed for Illinois filled with fortitude to return to Colorado. 

John Wesley Powell sought financing for an 1868 expedition from the museum and university’s boards of education, being happy to oblige. However, his request to draw supplies from U.S. Army western warehouses took an Act of Congress to approve. The Smithsonian Institute donated scientific materials. The expeditions purpose was to stock the natural history museum with large collections of specimens representing different sciences and illustrating the resources of the country. Before leaving Illinois for Colorado, it was understood that the ascent of Long’s Peak would be attempted. 

At Chicago on June 29th, a special Pullman car of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad arrived with a banner lettered “Colorado Scientific Exploring Expedition”. At 3 p.m. Professor and Mrs. Powell, with 19 others were taken to Omaha, Nebraska traveling all night. In the morning they rode a Union Pacific train to Cheyenne, Wyoming. They were organized into messes of four and drew supplies from the army warehouse. Each man had to break his own bronco for the pack train ride to Denver. One man was bucked into a cactus. A Reverend was thrown with his foot hung in a stirrup. While being dragged he said, “take hold of her boy’s. Whoa!  Sweet little angel you.” They arrived and camped at Denver on July 14th. Then proceeded to Empire where they were greeted by mountain man and guide Jack Sumner,  William Byers, and Ned Farrell.  

So much was untouched to be plucked in the names of anthropology to zoology. A week was spent on Berthoud Pass. One young scientist shot a jack rabbit thinking it an antelope. Jack Sumner was used to dudes. Finally, the expedition arrived at Mr. Byers’ resort where headquarters and the Reverend’s “Preaching Tent” was set up. Rest and relaxation were enjoyed by soaking in the hot springs. 

Professor Powell used his military rank Major. He never let the loss of his right arm hinder him. The Major took a trip to the Rabbit Ears and Gore Range where the highest peak is named Mt. Powell. When he returned the Major selected his student squad for the ascent of Long’s Peak. Chosen were L.W. Keplinger, and Sam Garman. One old mountaineer told the two that nothing could get them there that didn’t have wings. The idea of tenderfeet trying the ascent was ridiculous!

August 20th-22nd -The Major, his brother Walter Powell, Jack Sumner, William Byers, Ned Farrell, and the squad, departed headquarters mounted on horses, and one pack mule with 10 days rations. Each carried a pistol or rifle. The squad had weather equipment. They camped at Grand Lake. In the morning the party of seven rode up a steep rock ridge almost impassable by fallen timber. They corralled the equines at Mt. McHenry elevation 13,327 feet and camped for the night. At 7 a.m. the Major made bacon and biscuits. The men stuffed their pockets with a two day’s allotment. Leaving their firearms behind Sumner and Keplinger led the way to Wild Basin over tortuous terrain. All arrived exhausted at 2 p.m. except for Keplinger who volunteered to find a route to Long’s Peak. Keplinger went through the notch and was within 200 feet of the crown. Turning to enjoy the view he almost became an eternal resident of Estes Park. Nightfall was setting in and he had to return to Wild Basin. To his amazement Sumner was hollering and had lit beacon fires. At 10 p.m. Keplinger and Sumner were in camp. 

At 6 a.m. on August 23rd, Keplinger led the way. Required of each was caution, coolness, and intense labor; life depending on the grasp of fingers in a crevice that would hardly admit them. Moving up in order were Keplinger, the Major, Sumner, Byers, and the others. Before 10 a.m. the entire party stood on Long’s Peak summit, elevation 14,255 feet. “Glory to God!” shouted the Major. For three hours they remained enjoying the spectacular views. North, south, east, and west. They counted 32 alpine lakes. An American flag was flown and left. A monument was built, and a baking soda can was used as a time capsule. Placed in the capsule were each member’s names, and the temperature. A biscuit was going into the capsule but the Major objected as he wanted fame as a mountain climber and not a biscuit maker. The capsule was sealed for the next climbers to find. Wine was sprinkled on the monument and disposed of in the usual manner. Two members abstained. 

The descent route went towards the branches of the St. Vrain River. Noticed on the snowbanks were two bears feasting on grasshoppers numbed by the cold. On the western branch of the St. Vrain the party was out of grub and they rested for the night. The men hiked to Mt. McHenry where a hearty breakfast was made. The two Powell’s, Sumner, Byers, and Farrell, returned to the springs on August 25th. Keplinger and Garman remained to record high altitude weather. Submitting the first mountain climate observations to the Smithsonian Institute. 

The First Recorded Ascent of Long’s Peak (with a lengthy caption) was published in the Rocky Mountain News by William N. Byers on September 1, 1868. Proud of the fact, “that all were eminently successful and satisfied; the more so because the mountain had always before been pronounced inaccessible, and ours was the first party that had set foot on its summit.” 

   

 

Colorado-Big Thompson Project
Topic: Water

Colorado-Big Thompson Project

The idea of diverting water from the Colorado River on the Western Slope of the Continental Divide to the productive farmlands of the eastern plains had been a dream of planners as early as 1929.  Subsequently,  a long period of drought and the sagging economy of the “Great Depression” whetted demands for what became the largest trans-mountain diversion project ever built.

The Colorado-Big Thompson Project takes water from Grand Lake on the western side of the Continental Divide to the Big Thompson River on the east.  The water flows through a 13 mile tunnel beneath Rocky Mountain National Park.  In order to supply the residential and farming needs of Northeastern Colorado, the project was begun in 1938 and continued through the years of World War II.  The first water flowed though the tunnel, named for Senator Alva B. Adams, on June 23, 1947.

In order to assure an adequate supply from Grand Lake, a dam was built creating Shadow Mountain Reservoir.  A larger lake, Granby Reservoir was then built below, with a unique pumping plant that forces water into Shadow Mountain.  The Farr Pumping Plant cost over $9 million and provides an additional 700,000 of irrigated land to northeastern Colorado.  Further reservoirs were added, both to supplement the diversion and to compensate the water needs of Western Colorado.  These include Willow Creek and Windy Gap Reservoirs in Grand County.

While most legislators were enthusiastic about the project, U.S. Representative Edward Taylor was vehemently opposed to the reduction of water flowing down the Colorado River.  A compromise was reached in the creation of Green Mountain Reservoir (on the Blue River), which reserves water to replenish the Colorado River.   The city of Denver later claimed upstream water on the Blue River for the massive diversion project of Dillon Reservoir

Claims on the water of the Colorado River range from the fruit and wine regions of the Grand Valley in Colorado all the way to Los Angeles and Mexico.  It can be said that every snowflake which falls in Western Colorado had already been over-appropriated, especially during drought periods in the arid West.

Train Legends of the Moffat Road
Topic: Railroads

Train Legends of the Moffat Road

Article contributed by Abbott Fay

The railroaders graded and bridged the trails originally made by the Indians and expanded by the trappers, prospector and stage road builders that following in rapid succession. The

Moffat Road
train track has an almost endless series of wreck stories and legends.  In one, a "green clerk" was said to have piled all the mail order catalogs on the same side of a car, causing the train to leave the tracks and roll down the mountainside into Yankee Doodle Lake.

 

In another lost train story, the No. 3 westbound was seven hours late out of Denver because of a severe winter blizzard.  It crept out of the Fraser Canyon and whistled for the Granby Crossing.  The engineer parked the train intending to wait till daylight to continue on.  In the meantime, the No. 2 eastbound, 2 days late out of Craig reached Corona without passing the No. 3. In the morning, all were amazed to find the train parked "plumb center" of Granby's main street. Later investigation showed that the No. 3 train left the train tracks just east of Granby and traveled almost a mile over frozen highway.  The next day a Chinook wind came up and melted the frozen soil, sinking the train to it's axles in mud. It required the building of 1500 feet of special track to salvage the train. However, some longtime Granby residents say the locale of this incident was the Kremmling flats.

 

Sources: Roland L. Ives, Folklore of Middle Park Colorado,Journal of American Folklore, Vol. XXXIV, Nos. 211, 212, 1941; Levette J. Davidson & Forrester Blake, Rocky Mountain Tales, University of Oklahoma Press, 1947

     

 

Smiths of the Blue River
Topic: Early Families

Smiths of the Blue River

Frank John Smith was born October 5, 1852 in Granby, New York.  He married Elizabeth Olive Sanders, who was born in 1860 in Hannibal, New York.  They were married in 1878 in Hannibal and had two children Albert and Lelah.  Albert died as an infant in 1881.  In 1880 Frank homesteaded his ranch close to the Blue River and sent for his wife and baby daughter who came West by train to Dillon in the spring of 1883.

They had 10 more children, all born at the Smith Ranch, between 1884 and 1907.  As the boys grew into young men, they homesteaded additional acreage around the ranch.  The youngest son, Earl, operated the Smith Ranch until 1958, when it was sold to Ted Orr Sr. His son, Ted Orr Jr. and his wife, Virginia Smith (granddaughter of Frank and Elizabeth) operated the ranch until 1967, when it was sold to the Berger brothers.    

Joseph Wescott
Topic: Biographies

Joseph Wescott

Joseph Wescott was born in 1838 in Nova Scotia and reared in Iowa.  By 1865, he was in Middle Park, squatting, half-blind and semi-alcoholic, in Hot Sulphur Springs with his friend Charlie Utter.  

Having come to Colorado to get relief from rheumatism, he passed his time in creative writing, fishing, drinking, and shooting his revolver.  In 1868, after being induced to sell all of his claims of 160 acres around the hot springs, he left Hot Sulphur Springs to go to Grand Lake.

In 1870, a group of Arapahoe Indians arrived in the area and there is an unverified report that Wescott, Jack Sumner, and three fishermen killed “not less than five” of the Indians.  Soon after this incident, Wescott settled into developing a rustic resort with cabins, rafts, canoes, and skiffs on Grand Lake.

By 1879, he had three buildings on the West Shore. In July 1880, disaster struck when Edward Phillips Weber, an attorney, took over Wescott’s original filing as his own.  Weber claimed that there were “flaws in the filing” and forced Wescott out.

Nevertheless, on June 26, 1888, Wescott filed a plat for “Grand Lake City,” on the lake shore south from the inlet.  He designed the area for summer visitors rather than as a residential community. 

Wescott later wrote a famous poem about the legend of Grand Lake, and how the spirits of the lost Ute women and children can still be heard wailing on foggy mornings at the lake shore.
 

Berthoud Pass
Topic: Mountains

Berthoud Pass

Berthoud Pass was named for Captain Edward L. Berthoud, who completed the first survey of  this saddle in the main Divide in the spring of 1861.

Berthoud’s expedition of eight people, including Jim Bridger, crossed the Continental Divide at the 11,315 foot summit and established a relatively easy way to get into Middle Park from the east. Berthoud also served as chief engineer on the Colorado Central Railroad.

It is surprising that this famous pass had played no previous role in the history of the region. Even Jim Bridger, who knew the country well, did not learn of its existence until the survey. For reasons of their own, Indians had chosen to go over the divide at higher levels further to the north. One explanation may be that the pass is not evident from most locations on either side of the Continental Divide.

Biographies
Topic:

Biographies

From Indians and explorers to doctors and developers, click on the drop-down menus to learn about some of the remarkable people who helped shape Grand County.

Dude Ranches
Topic: Dude Ranches

Dude Ranches

Starting in the late 1870s, ranchers took in guests to supplement their income during hard times. Early adventure-seekers from the East made the long rail journey to the wilds of Middle Park in search of big game and unspoiled mountain scenery. With few accommodations available, travelers looked to frontier families for room and board. Ranchers soon discovered guests, or “dudes” as they came to be known, would pay to fix fences, ride horses, work cattle and sleep in tents....sometimes for an entire summer! Entertainment was eventually incorporated into the guest experience.

Located on the stage stop between Georgetown and Hot Sulphur Springs, William Z. Cozens was the first rancher in Grand County to provide room and board to travelers starting as early as 1874. The Lehman and Sheriff families also ran well-known turn of the century dude ranches. The years following World War I were the height of the dude ranch era. By the late 1950s, Granby had as many as ten guest ranches between Granby and Grand Lake with others scattered throughout the county. Today Grand County is still home to six dude ranches, which attract visitors from all over the world for their western charm, high-quality accommodations, horseback riding programs and superb fly fishing.

Ray Osborn
Topic:

Ray Osborn

Article contributed by Tonya Bina 11-07

 

Ray Osborn's father, Elonzo Osborn was also an avid fisherman and hunter, and he and a neighbor stocked cutthroat trout the in the 1920s in the lakes in what is now Rocky Mountain National Park. This fact seems to bring pride to Osborn, who spent his entire adolescence exploring the terrain surrounding the upper Colorado River. "Everything in the outdoors was so ingrained in the way we lived," he said. "We lived in the outdoors, and we fished when we could and hunted when we could."

Osborn's maternal great grandfather is Warren Gregg, a settler and talented carpenter whose wife took the life of her young children, sparing two boys, in a story that has become legend in Grand Lake. His maternal grandfather, Ray Gregg, was a blacksmith and a carpenter. He was also the justice of the peace in Grand Lake.

And Ray Osborn's father was a rancher, a man who was forced off of his land when a large water delivery system came to define the West Slope. Being fourth-generation Grand County can be frustrating, he said. "There's too many changes. None of them for the better. Rich developers are coming in here and tearing the country up and developing the county. They don't care because they're not going to live here. They're going to get their money and go someplace else," he said. "I don't like all the changes now, they're destroying the natural beauty of Grand County."

Osborn, who had six brothers and sisters, has seen two of his childhood homes be torn down "for progress." The first was the ranch house his family lived in before the Bureau of Reclamation claimed his father's 54 acres for the Colorado-Big Thompson project. The ranch land is now a lake bed, 11 feet below the water's surface.
When Shadow Mountain Reservoir was drained last year to kill weed growth, Osborn said he could still see the old foundation. The government offered his father $5,400 for the 54 acres, take it or leave it.  "My father was broken-hearted over it because he loved to ranch."

With the money, Elonzo Osborn bought 11 acres on the north side of the North Fork of the Colorado, where he kept a milking cow and raised chickens, then went to work for the Bureau as a janitor at the government camps that sprung up for the construction of the project. Ray's mother went to work as a mail carrier, with a route from Granby to Grand Lake up to Phantom Valley in the Park to supplement the family's income.

During WWII, the family raised rabbits during a meat shortage. "Rabbits were easy to raise, and we sold a lot of them," Osborn said. Ray Osborn attended first through ninth grade at the Grand Lake primary school before attending Middle Park High School, which had just been built in 1947. There were 22 people in Osborn's class, and he was the first student to graduate mid-term from the new school. The very next day, he joined the Navy, the start of a 24-year career that involved two wars.
"On my first tour of duty, I came home on leave and went to a high school football game," Osborn said. It was there that Osborn met Mary Ann, who was visiting from Iowa for a few months during her senior year in high school.

After a long-distance engagement, the couple married at St. Anne's Catholic Church in Grand Lake in the fall. This September, they celebrated their 55th anniversary.
Most of his career was spent overseas, Osborn said, with more than 16 years in Asia. He credits his wife for raising their four children mostly on her own. In 1973, he retired from the military; his youngest was 13 years old.

Upon retirement, after a stint in Denver, the family relocated to Grand County, where Osborn worked at Winter Park Resort for 12 years. Nearly every day, Osborn heads to his favorite fishing spots, such as the canal that feeds into Shadow Mountain reservoir, a replacement of the river that once was.  He now brings his grandchildren fishing too, and grandma Mary Ann knows just how to cook up those brookies, "cornmeal and flower, olive oil in the pan, a sprinkle of lemon pepper" to make them taste real good. "Get them real brown," she says.

Osborn likes how much fun they are to catch, and his youngest grandson does too.
"They're like wild trout - you got to know how to fish for them in order to catch them," he said. It's when the 75 year-old outdoorsman is talking about the rivers, inlets and hills he knows so well, he seems most at home. "Not too many people left here that have been here longer," he said.

 

Winter Carnivals
Topic: Skiing

Winter Carnivals

Carl Howelsen, a ski jumping champion in his native Norway, came to Denver to pursue a career as a stonemason in the early years of the 20th Century.  He amused himself and others by demonstrating ski-jumping in the foothills of Denver. 

In 1911, Howelson went to Hot Sulphur Springs, where he taught locals such as Horace Button the art of jumping.  Under Howelson's leadership, the first winter carnival west of the Mississippi Rover was held there on February 10-12.  According to the Middle Park Times, "Never before in the history of the Territory and State of Colorado has such an event even been contemplated, much less held!".

Norwegian immigrants Howelson, Angell Schmidt of Denver and Gunnar Dahles of Williams Fork (Grand County) all staged jumping competitions during the carnival.  There were also skating and tobogganing events and a Grand Ball.  Hot Sulphur Springs continued holding Winter Carnivals annually until World War II, when they were discontinued until the 100th anniversary celebration, called the Grand Winter Sports Carnival scheduled for December 30, 2011-February 11, 2012.

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