Places

Regions

Topic:

Regions

Grand County has a stunning variety of terrain, landscapes and distinctive regions. The county encompasses 1869 square miles with almost 68% of the land is managed by the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management or the National Park Service. The Continental Divide marks the northern and western boundary of the county and the county is also the headwaters of the Colorado River. Regions have been established by proximity to water sources (The Troublesome, The Muddy, The Blue, and Three Lakes) or by their geographic features (Middle Park, Church Park, and the Fraser Valley).

William H. Kimball

Topic: Biographies

William H. Kimball

The span crossing the Colorado River on State Highway 9 southeast of Kremmling is known as the Kimball Bridge. It honors the memory of William H. Kimball who carried the mail over Berthoud Pass from Empire to Hot Sulphur Springs by foot, winter and summer. Kimball was born in Maine and accepted the Middle Park mail contract in 1875. Although reportedly nearly blind, Kimball traveled on snowshoes all winter carrying a backpack of mail weighing 70-105 pounds, day and night, at least once a week.

In 1884, Kimball established a flat bottom ferry over the Colorado River near the spot where the bridge now stands. Before that time, no wagons could cross at that area. With the addition of the ferry, load of game meat and fish could be taken up the Blue River to be traded for much needed staples.

Kimball never married and lived at a nearby ranch until his death in 1909.

Post Offices

Topic: Community Life

Post Offices

Article contributed by Abbott Fay

Postal routes into Middle Park were first offered for contract to the lowest bidders in 1875. A once a week route over Rollins Pass was bid at $693 per year but winter was so severe that the service stopped. The route from Georgetown to Hot Sulphur Springs over Berthoud Pass from July through October was more enduring.

Later, postmaster appointments were recommended by congressmen, thereby making the the system more variable as political party power shifted at election time. The great advantage to having a post office was the opportunity to include a retail goods for sale, often in the living room of the postmaster's home.

Post offices were located within 10 miles of the addresses they served. In those days, a 10 mile round trip would often take a full day of travel by horse or wagon. Many post offices were simply ranch homes, and there were frequent changes in location due to disabilities or political party changes.

Post offices were closed when there were too few recipients to justify the cost, often caused by consolidation of ranches or mine closures. As transportation became mechanized, there was no longer the need for a 10 mile radius maximum.

PO Opening Date First Postmaster

Hot Sulphur Springs Sept. 10, 1874 Thomas N. Francie

Fraser July 20, 1876 William Z. Cozens

Troublesome March 15, 1878 Henry King

(When Henry King died in 1879, his wife Albina replaced him. The Troublesome office was discontinued on April 19, 1935)

Red Mountain April 8, 1878 William D. Coberly

(Discontinued in September 1878)

Hermitage May 17, 1878 George Rand

(Intermittent service. Discontinued Jan. 10, 1884)

Grand Lake Jan. 10, 1879 John Baker

Twelve Mile June 1879 Daniel N. Ostrander

(Discontinued Aug. 5, 1880)

Lulu City July 20, 1880 D.W. Hassix

(Discontinued Nov. 26, 1883)

Gaskill Oct. 22, 1880 John K. Mowrey

(Discontinued Nov. 11, 1886)

Colorow May 24, 1882 Thomas E. Pharo

(Discontinued May 16, 1903)

Selak June 11, 1883 Frank J. Selak

(Discontinued Sept. 29, 1893)

Fairfax Jan. 14, 1884 John Barber

(Discontinued July 9, 1885)

Coulter Aug. 14, 1884 Fred Halkowiez

(Discontinued Sept. 20, 1905)

Kremmling Feb. 12, 1885 Rudolph Kremmling

Kinsey Oct. 24, 1891 Rudolph Kremmling

Crescent Feb. 14, 1887 Tracy C. Tyler

(Discontinued April 16, 1894)

Clarkson July 28, 1892 William M. Clark

(Discontinued Dec. 8, 1898)

Dexter Sept. 21, 1896 Milton G. McQueary

(Discontinued May 20, 1911)

Martin Aug. 24, 1898 Samuel Martin

Discontinued Nov. 3, 1934)

Scholl Nov. 27, 1901 Ole Langholm

(Discontinued Jan. 21, 1930)

Lohman March 31, 1903 Clyde N. King

(Name changed to Stillwater on Oct. 4, 1911. Discontinued Oct. 29, 1930)

Leal Sept. 17, 1904 Charles F. Barker

(Discontinued April 30, 1930)

Arrow March 21, 1905 William L. York

(Discontinued March 15, 1915)

Tabernash Sept. 30. 1905 Mary Knight

Granby Oct. 26, 1905 Agnes Whited

Radium Feb. 9, 1906 O.C. Mugrage

(Discontinued Dec. 6, 1963)

Parshall Nov. 17, 1906 G. Walter Dow

Mountains of Grand County

Topic: Mountains

Mountains of Grand County

The mountains of Grand County may not boast any of the famous “fourteeners“ (14,000 feet and above), but Middle Park is defined by some of the most majestic ranges in the state. These include parts of the Front Range, Gore Range, Rabbit Ears Range, and the Williams Fork Mountains.

The only range Grand County can call entirely it's own is the Never Summer Range. It's highest point is Mount Richthofen (12,940 feet). Other major peaks include: Mount Howard (12,810 feet), Mount Cirrus (12,797 feet), Mount Nimbus (12,706 feet), and Nokhu Crags (12,485 feet). The name Never Summer is translated from the Arapahoe name, Ni-chebe-chii, which means “the place of No Never Summer“. The cloud names of Cirrus and Nimbus, and Stratus and Cumulus were the idea of James Grafton Rogers, a founder of the Colorado Mountain Club.

The Never Summer Range stretches for ten miles from Cameron Pass to Bowen Mountain. This range is darker and harder due the tremendous heat produced when the peaks were a localized center of volcanic activity.

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.

Historic Granby Real Estate

Topic: Granby

Historic Granby Real Estate

William Shakespeare, the historic play writer, said, “There is a history in all men’s lives.” The same could be said for many Grand County buildings. According to author, Lela McQueary in her 1962 book, “Widening Trails,” real estate sales and land giveaways helped to build our towns. “In 1905, a town site was obtained from Jim Snider, who had homesteaded the land upon the sagebrush mesa,” wrote McQueary. “The village was called Granby for Granby Hillyer, a civil engineer. Two general stores, two livery stables, a post office and a tiny café (all built with false fronts to make them appear much larger) were scattered on the north side of Main Street, three blocks long.” That Main Street today is Agate Avenue. A quick search of the Grand County tax rolls reveals an interesting historic mix of buildings.

For example, the current Brynoff home at 170 2nd Street was the Post Office building constructed in 1910 and originally located at 458 East Agate. That building was moved to its current home to make way for the construction for the new Post Office building in 1945 at 458 East Agate. Deb Brynoff, the Executive Director of the Grand County Board of Realtors, said, “When we updated and built onto the original building, we found old letters stuffed in the walls. Obviously, they used them in the early years to add insulating value. I guess they had junk mail even then!”

On July 1, 1966, a new Post Office building was dedicated at 225 East Jasper Avenue (now the current home of the Grand County Library District Administrative Office). According to Granby-area Realtor, Susie Peterson of Glenn Realty, who used to own the building at 458 East Agate when they converted it to the Granby Veterinary Clinic, “Downstairs was full of those neat glass front post office boxes with the gold dials. You can just imagine the history in that building.” Other buildings constructed in those early years were 127 4th Street in 1909. In addition to a private home, over the years, businesses such as Re/max Real Estate and Katie’s Flower Shop were located at 247 East Agate, which was also built in 1909. In 1910, the property at 110 Garnet was built.
The Roaring 20s saw a spurt of construction such as 172 Topaz (1922), 307 Jasper and 59 4th Street (1924), 166 Jasper and 291 Topaz (1929). The current Columbine Café property at 395 East Agate was built during the heydays of 1927 when it was called the Town Crier Restaurant.

After the Great Crash of 1929 and the Depression of the 1930s, New Deal jobs and loan programs helped fuel new construction. In fact, in 1933, the famous Payne’s Café was built at 365 East Agate. Today, the Greater Granby Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Enhancement offices, along with Noriyuki & Parker law offices are housed in the almost 75 year-old building.

Today’s Shadow Mountain Chiropractic Clinic of Drs. Jeff and Deb Shaw at 60 2nd was built in 1935 as a private home. On April 18, 1935, the first addition to Granby helped the town grow. In 1938, 387 East Agate was the site of the new pool hall run by Alva West. Today Lorene Linke’s Fabric Nook welcomes customers and quilters at the historic location.

In 1938, the building at 185 East Agate, which was Granby’s first strip mall, also was constructed with Craig’s Café, later Olson’s Café. Over the years businesses such as Maureen’s Clothing Shop, a laundromat, a barbershop and the Carpet Wagon found homes where today the Longbranch and Schatzis Pasta & Pizza Restaurants are found.

Post World War II America and Granby boomed. Granby had an influx of new residents because of the continued construction of the Granby Dam and the Colorado Big Thompson Water Project. In 1946, the Granby Dairy Building at 106 Jasper sprung up. That same year, Carmichael Real Estate Company built a new office at 191 East Agate. Today real estate is still king at that corner building with the Grand County Board of Realtors and The Title Company of the Rockies offices located there.

The Granby landmark, Frontier Motel, at 232 West Agate was built in 1951 by Earl Saylor. In 1954 Jenkins & Fulk began construction of the Granby Trading Post at 231 East Agate. Ken and Debbie Eaker and Jay Young bought that property in May 1995 and renamed the store, The Grand Mountain Trading Company.

Sudden Death in Old Arrow

Topic: True Crime

Sudden Death in Old Arrow

A shooting in the Old West I know was not much like the shootings on television today. There was no glorification of the bad man. Killings were usually like the fatal shooting of Indian Tom on that 6th of September, 1906, in old Arrowhead (or Arrow). Nobody called anybody out. Nobody told anybody to draw or asked him if he was wearing a gun. It wasn’t a fight. It was a killing.

1906 Arrow had six saloons, a grocery store, one small hotel and a livery stable. But two thousand people picked up their mail there. The woods were full of tie-hacks: the three sawmills hired may lumberjacks and teamsters, most of them Swedes, who seemed to make the best lumbermen. I had arrived in Arrow the 18th of April that year to work as a teamster for my brother Virgil, who had been operating a sawmill there for about a year. I was just sixteen.

My brother Dick, the tallest Lininger, had been Virgil’s foreman. Virgil had also bought the only hotel in Arrow. My mother, two sisters and my little brother Gilbert and I came from our farm in Osawatomie, Kansas, so that my mother could run the hotel. My brother Wesley came at that time too: he planned to buy a lot and build a café. Whole families often followed the first member who had come to these early Colorado towns. I soon discovered that driving logging horses needed a lot more technique than driving a small farm team, but Virgil was patient, and I soon received a raise to $2.75 a day as top teamster.

The town was a wide open as it could get. My first introduction to the violence was the day my brother Dick fired three drunken lumberjacks. They drew their pay and went to Graham’s saloon to get drunker. As dick passed the saloon later, one of the men grabbed a quart whiskey bottle, and ran out and struck Dick behind the ear, knocking him cold. The three then proceeded to kick him around. Dick’s roommate Charley came to my brother’s rescue. When Dick came to, he started for the hotel. Charley guessed what he was after and beat him to the six-shooter. “I’ll make sure you can taken them one at a time” Charley promised him. I came along just as my brother knocked the pick from the pick handle. Something was up! In less time than it takes to tell it, Dick had three drunks out cold.

Mother patched Dick up. I think this was her introduction, too. A man couldn’t stay boss long if stayed whipped. Every other Sunday was a holiday for me although I always saw to it that I put in enough overtime to bring my monthly paycheck to $75. That September Sunday I was dressed in my holiday garb – tan peg-top dress corduroys, light blue wool shirt, Western hat, and high-laces boots as befitting a teamster who drove four or six horses hauling logs from timber country to the saw mill. When I drove six horses, I rode one of the wheel-team horses and held the lines over four. If I drove four horses, I rode the wagon and sat on a sack of hay.

About noon, I stopped in front of the MacDonald saloon to talk to Ed MacDonald, one of the few saloon men my mother didn’t disapprove of. After all, Ed had come to Colorado as a TB and couldn’t do heavy work; filling glasses over a bar was about the only light work in those old mountain towns. Later Ed owned the famous MacDonald Ranch on the South Fork of the Grand Rover – now Colorado River- and managed boats on Monarch Lake just above his ranch. He always served great dinners and good food. While Ed and I were talking, Indian Tom rode up. He was a flashy cowboy of the old school, a very good looking man with predominantly Indian features although he was only half Cherokee. When riding, Tom always wore leather chaps, spurs, and a big Stetson. As wagon foreman for Orman and Crook, contractors for building the Moffat Road, he was a very important figure, for he had charge of all their wagons and teamsters. The greeting between Ed and Tom was cordial.

Everyone liked Indian Tom. When Tom learned I was a teamster for my brother Virgil, Tom showed a much keener interest and invited me in to MacDonald’s for a drink. Ed rescued me. “Oh the kids doesn’t drink; but he might like a cigar”. As they ordered drinks, I puffed away in my best imitation of a Kentucky colonel; however I soon excused myself, saying that I had to target my 30-30 rifle for the upcoming deer season. I puffed until I was out of sight. The corn silk I had scorched behind the barn paid off. I didn’t disgrace myself, nor had I broken my pledge to my mother not to gamble, use profanity, drink, or perform any act inconsistent with the conduct of a gentleman. I took my rifle northwest of Arrow to Fawn Creek.

It was a beautiful fall day. The aspen were just beginning to turn. Fawn Creek Gulch had been burned over many years before by the Indians who hoped in this way to discourage settlers, and the aspen were all young, straight and shimmering in the way that has never ceased to delight me. The fire thirty years before had made the gulch an excellent place for deer hunting because the new growth gave the deer some inviting protection, but the terrain was open enough for a hunter to locate his game. I figured I’d have to shoot from at least 200 yards, so I planned to target for that distance. I tacked a piece of cardboard I’d cut from my brother’s Stetson hat box (he never took off his Stetson off anyway) to a tree and stepped off the 200 yards. That 6-inch target looked pretty small but after each three shots, I’d examine the target. Finally satisfied, I took a long walk looking for deer sign, tracks, or droppings. I found good sign but no droppings. About feeding time for the horses, I went back to the barn in town to feed the four, Cap, the big bay, Bird, the glossy black (those were my two wheel horses- t e ones next to the wheel); Kate, the little lead horse; and Bud, her mate.

Virgil had bought Kate, a grey mare weighing about 1400 pounds, at a very reasonable price from the Adams Express Company because she had run away at every opportunity and had destroyed several wagons. He couldn’t run away now pulling Cap, Bird and a load of lumber with her, but her high spirits made her an excellent leader. The heavier team, always used as the wheel team, weighed about 1700 pounds each. I was very proud of this unusually fine team. Virgil had trained Cap and Bird so that after they were harnessed in the barn, they could be turned loose to go to the watering trough, drink long and thirstily, then walk out to the wagon, back into position by the tongue, and stand ready to have the breast straps snapped in place and the tongue attached. When tourists trains stopped and hundreds of passengers stood around the eating places looking the town over, I’d drive slowly by, and then stop to rest the team a minute, to give the dudes a chance to see a good, four-horse team. Then with a single “Yup!” I’d pull all the lines tight, and they’d start as one horse while the tourists explained and pointed.

That Sunday after I put a gallon of oats in their food box and shook some hay into their manger, I left the barn and started up the steps alongside the depot. It was still light; the sky hadn’t even begun to color. Time to head home for supper. I’d have to be up, hitched and pulled by seven the next morning. We’d probably have roast beef or roast chicken with noodles, since it was Sunday. Mother would be cooking on the big wood-burning stove at the hotel, and my sisters would be taking the heaping platters to the tables where everyone would pass them around. Probably there would be hot biscuits.

Suddenly a shot cracked just above me and across the street. I knew instantly it had come from the Wolf Saloon ahead. It wasn’t common to hear shots in those days. You hear more in a 20-minute Western on TV than you heard in a couple of years unless a few boys rode into town on a Saturday night to shoot up the air. I broke into a run and could see a man lying on the board walk in front of the saloon. As I got to him, one of the ladies I wasn’t permitted to mention came out and fell to her knees beside him. Raising the man’s head, she tried to pour whiskey down his throat. With a queer, paralyzed feeling, I realized it was Indian Tom. I reached for his wrist. His hand was warm as life, but there was no pulse. Several men ran our. “Ragland got him!” one of them shouted.

We carried Tom’s body into MacDonald’s and laid him on a roulette table that was in the back room for repair. Somebody went to wire for the sheriff at Hot Sulphur Springs. Word soon reached Orman and Crook’s, and the Indian’s many friends began to jam into Arrow. Indian Tom and Ragland had evidently had words during the afternoon and had quarrels once more before at a rodeo. The women from the saloon said that when Indian Tom left after the quarrel, Ragland had stationed himself, gun in hand, inside the saloon door. Everyone agreed that Ragland knew he wouldn’t have had a chance in a fair fight with Tom. The moment they heard Tom’s spurs outside , Ragland pushed the door slightly open and shot point blank through the aperture along the hinge. The he ran out the back door. We searched the town inside and out for Ragland. The sheriff joined is in the search late that night, but we found no trace of him. Just after midnight a wire came for the sheriff. Ragland had turned himself in at Hot Sulphur. We learned later he had run to a ranch down below, borrowed a horse and ridden for his life. A coroner’s jury was called.

My brother Virgil, named foreman, took a firm stand. The only verdict he intended to take out of that room was murder, and, after only a few hours, that was their verdict. After three days, Ragland was released on $3,000 bond posted by his father, but you may be sure he didn’t show himself around Arrow. His attorney, John A. DeWeese, got a change of venue from Grand County to Jefferson County at Golden, claiming an article in the Middle Park Times of September 7, 1906, reporting the verdict of the coroner’s jury, made it impossible for Ragland to get a fair trial in Hot Sulphur. The article said in part: Four witnesses for the prosecution, and seven for the Defendant were examined, making eleven in all. The testimony of the witnesses on both sides failed to show that the shooting was justifiable. According to the testimony, the fatal shot was fired when Reynolds (Tom) had his revolver in his scabbard and when he did not even see Ragland who was standing opposite the cut-off. (As told to Donna Geyer by A.W. Lininger)

Chauncey Thomas: ‘Sage of the Rockies’

Topic: Biographies

Chauncey Thomas: ‘Sage of the Rockies’

In 1900, while visiting in Washington, D.C., Chauncey Thomas, a nephew of William and Elizabeth Byers, wrote ‘Snow Story, or Why the Hot Sulphur Mail was Late’. When the great British author, Rudyard Kipling, read the piece, he pronounced it the ‘best short story by an American’.

The opening paragraph of the ‘Snow Story’ reads as follows: ‘Berthoud Pass is a mighty pass. It is the crest of a solid wave of granite two miles high, just at timberline. Berthoud is a vertebra in the backbone of the continent. It is the gigantic aerial gateway to Middle Park, Colorado - - a park one-fifth as large as all England. The mail for this empire is carried by one man, my friend Mason.’ The story goes on to describe Mason’s winter trip over Berthoud Pass into Middle Park where he encountered extreme winter blizzard conditions, an avalanche and Salarado.

Chauncey Thomas, a native son of Colorado Pioneers, was born in Denver in 1872 and died there in 1941. At the age of three, Chauncey suffered his first loss. ‘The light went out of my left eye forever. A pair of scissors did it’, he said. At age nine he received his first weapon, a .22 caliber revolver, and promptly shot himself in the foot. No matter. Forever after, firearms fascinated him.

He attended Gilpin and East Denver High School where he was a military cadet, but except for military drill and mathematics, school interested him very little. After graduation and college attendance at Golden, Colorado and Lake Forest, Illinois, he found his way to New York City. Here, he worked as an editor for well-known magazines - McClure’s, Muncey Publications, and Outdoor Life (among others) and hobnobbed with the likes of Ida B. Tarbell, S. S. McClure, Jack London and Frederic Remington. He returned to his home town and occupied himself more and more with Denver’s historic past.

On the night of September 23, 1941, in his garret room at 1340 Grant Street, he took up a scrap of paper and wrote: ‘stroke--agony’.The next morning a neighbor found him, pistol in hand, dead. Two years later, at Berthoud Pass on a mountain that bore his name, Chauncey Thomas was honored. Dr. LeRoy Hafen the Colorado State Historical Society’s historian and the Colorado Historical Society dedicated a monument to him on which was inscribed, Chauncey Thomas: Sage of the Rockies.

Excerpts of this article are courtesy of Colorado Historical Society & Grand County Historical Association. The publication ‘Snow Story, or Why the Hot Sulphur Mail was Late’, written by Chauncey Thomas, is available in the History Stores at Cozen’s Ranch Museum and Pioneer Museum

Indians

Topic: Indians

Indians

There is a great deal of evidence of primitive cultures in what is now Grand County, but all seems to have been transient until the modern tribes arrived, probably around 1450. The Arapaho Tribe claimed the northern part of this region and were in frequent territorial dispute with the Ute Tribe, who were dominate in the Colorado Rockies. The Utes did not have “chiefs” in the sense of the organized Plains Indians.

There were five different tribal groupings in Colorado, and those in the Grand County area were known as the “White River Utes”. The Uncompahgre Utes lived in the southern area of the state, near the San Juan Mountains. Their spokesman to the white man was Ouray, and because of his knowledge of Spanish and some English, the federal negotiators designated him “Chief of All Utes”. Thus it was he, who in 1868 agreed that most of the land west of the 107th degree longitude (about one third of Colorado) would be a Ute Reservation “for all time”.

Ouray probably never knew the Utes of the northern region and they were never notified officially of this treaty. Suddenly, their favored hunting grounds of Middle Park, the healing waters of Hot Sulphur Springs, and much of the Front Range and Gore Range were opened to white settlement. Naturally there were tensions between the Utes and the white settlers and there are several well documented accounts of disputes in the area, including the killing of Tabernash, retaliatory strikes by the Utes, and the supposedly intentional burning of Middle Park by Colorow. Finally, there was an uprising in 1879, known as the Thornburg and White River Massacres, and the result was that the Utes were evacuated from almost all of their former reservation and driven to the Utah area in 1882.

Though much of the culture, knowledge and influence of the original Indian people has been lost to time, Ute and Arapaho names still grace many landmarks in Grand County.

Spider House Tragedy

Topic: True Crime

Spider House Tragedy

Nestled on a quiet lane in Old Grand Lake City sits the intricately crafted home of Warren C. and Mary O’Brien Gregg, known today as the Spider House – a testament to a remarkable woodcraftsman and his tormented wife.

Warren (Watt to his friends) was a dreamer and in the 1870s he left his first wife and a young son in Wisconsin and headed for the Colorado Territory seeking his fortune in the mines of Gilpin County. Upon returning to Wisconsin his first wife died of fever, leaving Warren a widower with a small son. Holding tight to his dreams of the west, Warren eventually ended up in his native Indiana where he met and married 20 year-old Mary O’Brien, in 1884. By 1888 Warren packed his new family into a prairie schooner and headed west. Like so many other pioneer women before her, Mary bore a child along the trail, a second son whose short life would send Mary down a dark and tortured path.

The family arrived in Middle Park late in the summer of 1888, built a small homestead on the eastern slope of the Stillwater drainage and the newborn died shortly thereafter. Though the years would bring more children, Mary would never quite recover from the loss of her second son. They continued to scratch out a living in this harsh and isolated land, where winters were long and supplies were meager.

Warren spent much of his time searching for game and exploring this new country. The Gregg’s moved numerous times, finally purchasing a plot of land from Old Judge Wescott on the west side of the lake. Warren built his family an admirable house, with intricate detail and spider-like webs of wooden elements. Despite the warmth and comfort of this new home, and the close proximity of neighbors, Mary’s depression deepened.

Then on a sunny Sunday in 1904, while Warren was working in his woodshop and oldest son Lloyd was having Sunday dinner at Judge Westcott’s, Mary took a gun to her four remaining children and then turned the weapon on herself. The children died instantly while Mary lingered on for four days. The five victims of this tragedy, one girl, three boys and Mary herself are buried together in one grave in the Grand Lake Cemetery.

Warren lived in the Spider House for another 29 years. With his son Lloyd, he continued building homes and stone fireplaces. He succumbed to heart failure in 1933. Mary O’Brien Gregg finally found peace in the quiet grace of the little town cemetery surrounded by her children. Almost a century later, as the tall pines whisper their mournful winter song, the Spider House still sits nestled on that quiet little lane.

Grand County History Stories

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Grand County

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Regions

William H. Kimball

Post Offices

Mountains of Grand County

Moving Water from Point A to Point B

Historic Granby Real Estate

Sudden Death in Old Arrow

Chauncey Thomas: ‘Sage of the Rockies’

Indians

Spider House Tragedy

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Regions

William H. Kimball

Post Offices

Mountains of Grand County

Moving Water from Point A to Point B

Historic Granby Real Estate

Sudden Death in Old Arrow

Chauncey Thomas: ‘Sage of the Rockies’

Indians

Spider House Tragedy

Places