Business/Industry

How did people make a living? What were some of the businesses and industries that brought people to Grand County?

Business/Industry Articles

Agriculture of Grand County	Agriculture of Grand County The first settlers in Granby realized the sunny days and cool nights were perfect for growing one crop in particular, lettuce. Lettuce farming boomed in the 1920's and a new industry was born. Granby had become an important railway center as tracks were laid over the Divide at Rollins Pass,giving the Moffat Railroad access to Salt Lake City. Granby produced some of the best-known lettuce in America. There are even tales that New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel bragged of their “Granby Lettuce” on the menu. Then a blight settled into the soil, probably brought in by the wooden crates used for shipping, and the lettuce business was ruined. Since then, ranching has replaced agriculture as Granby's major industry.
Devil's Thumb Ranch	Devil's Thumb Ranch According to local lore, Native Americans named Devil's Thumb, a rocky outcropping that towers high above the Ranch. As legend goes, after the warring Ute and Arapahoe tribes settled their differences in the Ranch Creek Valley, they buried the devil, but left his thumb exposed to remind them of the evils of war. Before the Trans-Continental Railroad opened up the area in 1904, a stagecoach route from Idlewild (now Winter Park) joined the Rollins Pass route. A state station was situated east of what is now our Ranch. The road extended transversely over the Ranch where it followed the course of the existing County Road 83. The land was rich agriculturally, and was used for cattle grazing in the early 1900s. After the railroad was introduced, settlers began moving west in search of wealth and opportunity. Many ended their journeys in the Rocky Mountains. During this time, there were more people living in the Fraser Valley than there are today. One favorite hangout of the railroad workers was a dance hall on Black Ranch, located immediately north of Devil's Thumb Ranch. In the 1930s, Margaret Radcliff built the original Ranch homestead and operated it as a dairy. However, it was brothers Dan, Louis, and George Yager who started Devil's Thumb Ranch as a vacation property in 1946. The Yagers incorporated the Radcliff homestead in to the Ranch facilities and the original building exists today as the Ranch House Saloon. The Yagers operated Devil's Thumb Ranch as both a working ranch and dude ranch until 1972. They introduced cross-country skiing in the winter of 1975-1976. Dick Taylor, a 1964 Olympic cross-country team member, designed 35 kilometers of the area's Nordic trails. The Ranch was well known as a Nordic destination, but one without many amenities or niceties. The current owners purchased it in 2001, saving it from a group of developers who planned to fill the valley with residences and a golf course. They immediately began making improvements to the facilities, all the while impacting the land as little as possible.
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.
Dutch Town	Dutch Town When two Germans, having imbibed too liberally shot up the mining town of Lulu City, they were run out of town. They went higher and established camp, on the side of Red Mountain near timberline. There they found a lode of low grade gold, silver and lead. While it lasted only two years, this encampment came to be called "Dutch Town". Gradually the fierce winters and lower quality of ore drove the settlers out, leaving only a few empty cabins about a mile west of Lulu City.
Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Western White House	Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Western White House Dwight D. Eisenhower met and married Mamie Geneva Doud of Denver on July 1, 1916. Carl Norgren, a Doud family friend, had started spending time in the Fraser area and was enchanted by the beauty of the area and especially the Byers Peak Ranch for Boys. By the late 1930s, Norgren partnered with Aksel Nielsen to purchase the Byers Peak Ranch. During Eisenhower's presidency, the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, the Byers Peak Ranch, and Lowry AFB were all known as "Western White Houses" or "Summer White Houses." There is a well known photo published in Life Magazine of Eisenhower fishing in the Fraser River with his grandson, David. Eisenhower used his time at the Byers Peak Ranch to rest and recompose himself in the face of difficult political times. As President, Eisenhower dealt with the threats of the Cold War, a truce in Korea, the desegregation of public schools (Little Rock, Arkansas), and the development of the "Eisenhower Doctrine" to bolster the Middle East against the threat of communism. On the domestic front, he was faced with the difficulties of dealing with the Republican Old Guard, including Senator Joseph McCarthy, who headed a subcommittee charged with the finding of communists within the government. Eisenhower enjoyed cooking for guests at the Ranch, fishing St. Louis Creek and having "brookies" (brook trout) for breakfast, painting, and playing golf. On September 24, 1955 while at the Ranch, Eisenhower suffered a coronary thrombosis (heart attack) and was hospitalized at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver until November 11, 1955. His hospital suite has now been restored and is open for limited tours. The bulk of information about Eisenhower and the Byers Peak Ranch comes from the personal papers of Carl Norgren, which are housed at the Eisenhower Museum and Library in Abilene, KS. The collection of correspondence from 1948-1964 covered a broad variety of topics: fishing, recreation, taxes, health matters, food, communism, reorganization of the Department of Defense, federal spending, etc. The Norgren collection valued for the details it provides concerning the hobbies and recreational pursuits of the President during his visits to Grand County between 1952 and 1957.
Gaskill and the Wolverine and Ruby Mines	Gaskill and the Wolverine and Ruby Mines The Wolverine Mine was discovered in 1875 by James Bourn and Alexander Campbell. Bourn was the brother-in-law of James Crawford, the founder of Steamboat Springs. James Bourn was the twin brother of Crawford's wife, Maggie. A Grand County recording error forever changed the name of Bourn in the area to "Bowen". The mine was located in the Rabbit Ears Range on Bowen Mountain, up Bowen Gulch, approximately 10 miles northwest of Grand Lake. This discovery sparked additional exploration in the area that lead to a number of new mines. Within a week of the original discovery, interested parties formed the Campbell Mining District which included Bowen Mountain, Bowen and Baker gulches. Some of the Middle Park residents who participated in the mining exploration were John Baker, Charles Royer, Charles Hook, John Stokes and the Redman brothers, William and Mann. The Redman's eventually discovered the Sedalia mine. Bourn and Campbell in less than a year lost the Wolverine mine by not fulfilling a grubstake agreement with the Georgetown grocers, Spruance and Hutchinson. John Stokes leased the Wolverine Mine from the grocers until Edward Phillip Weber, an agent representing a group of Illinois investors, purchased the Wolverine Mine in the Summer of 1879. Weber continued purchasing other Campbell Mining District claims which created a great deal of local excitement. Weber hired Stokes to assist him and also hired Lewis Dewitt Clinton Gaskill to act as the first foreman for the Wolverine mine. Gaskill had mine operation experience, having successfully operated the Saco Mine, on Leavenworth Mountain, above Georgetown for several years. A mining camp was built below the Wolverine Mine that contained a large bunk house building and a more substantial mine office building. Gaskill, a Civil War veteran of the 28^th Regiment of the New York Volunteer Infantry, had come to Colorado in 1868 as a representative of a group of Auburn, New York bankers to invest in mining properties. He eventually successfully operated the Saco mine in 1873 and 1874. He invested in the Georgetown, Empire and Middle Park Wagon Road in 1874, which was a toll road that finally made the Berthoud Pass road passable for wagon traffic. Gaskill also acted as the foreman during the construction of the road. The principal investor in the road was William Cushman of the First National Bank of Georgetown. The bank had a financial collapse in 1877. At that time, Gaskill was the secretary of the road company and lived with his family in the company house just below the summit of Berthoud Pass on the west side. William Hamill, a wealthy Georgetown businessman, bought the wagon road in a foreclosure auction in 1881 for $7,000. Gaskill continued to live with his family in the Berthoud Pass summit house until 1885, when he moved his family into the Fraser Valley and homesteaded 160 acres along Elk Creek. The settlement of Gaskill began when in August of 1880, Al J. Warner built a log cabin store in a meadow below Bowen Gulch on the trail/road that lead to both Bowen Gulch and Baker Gulch. The settlement was also strategically well placed midway on the trail/road between Grand Lake and Lulu City and the Lead Mountain Mining District. Another store was built in September by John K. Mowery. By that October, Mowery was appointed as the first postmaster of Gaskill. The following spring E. Snell, opened a large general merchandise store that prompted the original store keeper, Al Warner, to relocate to Grand Lake as Al's Place. The town was named to honor L.D.C. Gaskill, the greatly respected foreman of the Wolverine Mine, the road builder/operator and the Civil War veteran. By 1882, the town covered 60 acres. E.P. Weber of the Grand Lake Mining and Smelting Company got involved in the town real estate development by laying out a city grid and offering lots for sale. Weber's plat renamed the town Auburn after L. D. C. Gaskill's home town of Auburn, New York, but the Gaskill name stuck. By the close of 1882, there were over 100 residents living in Gaskill. The most substantial building was the Rogerson House, a well appointed two story, squared log hostelry, Horatio Bailey Rogerson, proprietor. Rogerson, would be elected County Commissioner in November of 1882, but would not serve because of a sudden discovery of ineligibility. Instead, lame duck Colorado Governor Pitkin, appointed E. P. Weber to the post. Weber was killed in the infamous July 4, 1883 shoot-out at Grand Lake. The Bowen Gulch trail lead to many of the most productive and worked mines in the Campbell Mining District which included the Wolverine, now owned by the Grand Lake Mining and Smelting Company, E. P. Weber superintendent and the Ruby and Cross mines owned by Kentucky and Colorado Mining and Smelting Company, John Barbee superintendent. Barbee, who lived in Grand Lake, would go on to serve as superintendent of schools, Justice of the Peace and briefly the editor of the Grand Lake Prospector. Barbee's partner in many endeavors was Antelope Jack Warren. Warren was as rough as Barbee was refined. He acted as a foreman and, by one account, a bodyguard for Barbee. The Bowen Gulch trail continued up the mountain to Bowen Pass and then descended into North Park and the Jack and Park mining districts which were organized by the end of 1880, to the settlement of Teller City. Passable roads that could handle wagon traffic were needed and often planned but rarely built. The high cost of building and maintaining wagon capable roads in Middle Park was a difficult proposition for local governments and private entrepreneurs. The Grand County Commissioners in July of 1877 had declared the trail from Grand Lake to the mining gulches of the Rabbit Ears Range to be a county road. However there was little county money to pay for improvements to make the trail a road. Private investors were reluctant to invest in wagon roads when there was the persistent rumor that railroads were coming spawned by the numerous railroad surveys that were performed in the area. Albert Selak, a Georgetown brewer, in August of 1878, organized a toll road that would branch off of the Georgetown, Empire, and Middle Park Wagon Road at the Ostrander Ranch on Red Dirt Hill, and proceed to Grand Lake and continue on to the Rabbit Ears Range mines and continue on into North Park and on to the Wyoming territory line. John Barbee invested in the Middle Park Toll Bridge Company, a toll bridge company that intended to build a bridge across the Grand River above the confluence of Willow Creek and the Grand River. However, this project languished, and was taken over by the county with an expenditure of $150. If ore wagons would need to haul ore to the nearest reduction mill which was over 60 miles in Georgetown, the toll road might have been a financial success. However, the lower grade ore from these Rabbit Ears Range mines would not yield a sufficient profit to cover the transportation and processing costs in a market where the market value of silver annually declined. So the ore piles grew. What was needed was a nearby reduction mill or cheaper transportation, like a railroad or a higher price for silver. Weber had repeatedly promised that a reduction mill was coming, but nothing was ever built. By April of 1883 with tons of ore piled up and waiting for transport to be processed, Weber temporarily closed the Wolverine Mine and laid off his miners. He admitted in June of 1883 that the ore from the Wolverine was “rather refractory” and that it would not justify shipment without local reduction. Some hoped the closing was a strategic move by Weber to trigger a sell off of area mining properties so that he could acquire additional mines before he built the reduction mill, but it was not to be. Weber would soon be shot dead by his political rival, John Gillis Mills. The favorable newspaper stories of Rabbit Ears Range mining would continue, but for the informed, it had become clear that without a major investment in improved transportation including a railroad or a major investment in a reduction mill in the area, the mining concerns were doomed to fail. Mining claims had to be worked in order to be kept. A minimum of $100 of labor or $500 in improvements had to be expended each year to maintain the claim or else the claim would be deemed abandoned. Many claim holders leased their claims to miners to work for a percentage of the return. Without the ability to sell and process the ore for a profit, there was no return. The speculative mining investment money began to dry up and the miners and their supporting merchants began to leave. By the end of 1886, the Middle Park mining boom had ended. To further add to the decline, a border dispute that arose between Larimer County and Grand County over the taxation and mineral wealth of North Park was finally decided in 1886 by the Colorado Supreme Court in favor of Larimer County. North Park was part of Larimer County, not part of Grand County. A lawsuit would follow so that Larimer County could recover the wrongly collected taxes of $20,000 from Grand County. Grand County's total tax income at the time was less than $3,500 a year.
Logging	Logging In the early decades of Grand County, lumbering was a key contributor to the local economy. Logging was necessary as the principal source of building construction and also as the only available fuel. When the railroad first made its way over Rollins Pass, the production of railroad ties became an important industry. In the Grand Lake area, the brief mining boom of the 1880s created a steady demand for timber. Some remains of log structures from abandoned logging camps were still evident late in to the 20^th century. These include the Middle Park Lumber Company on St. Louis Creek (southwest of Fraser), an operation that had it's own railroad line into town. In the same area, the independent logging settlements of Lapland and Stockholm date back to 1915. Above Tabernash was located the Deiler Mill, ten miles up Hurd Creek. In 1910, the Western Box Company bought the mill and moved it to the head of Meadow Creek. A box factory was located in Tabernash and the logs were floated down in a flume, thirteen miles long. Mrs. Braddock was the "flume lady" at one time and would balance on a log while breaking up log jams on the trip downstream.....a task that required "great skill and derring-do". Other operations included Koppers Camp up Pole Creek (above Tabernash), Mr. Daves Mill at Hideaway Park and Bob Morrow's camp on Byers Peak. Broderick Wood Products Company of Denver was a major purchaser of Grand County timber starting in 1930. In 1939, Smokey Harrison founded the Timberline Sawmill at Kremmling. A huge box making plant was built on a site now covered by Granby reservoir. Its main supply point was a logging camp at southwest corner of Monarch Lake. You can still see remnants of the logging machinery along the shore of the lake. For a short time there was a branch railroad from Granby to the box factory, which later burned to the ground, In 1949, American Timber built a sawmill and log pond at Granby, west of the Highway 40 overpass. The west end of the county was logged by the Kremmling Division of the Edward Hines Lumber Company. Later, Louisiana Pacific built a wafer board plant in Kremmling but it closed in the 1980's. The short growing and harvesting season created many challenges for the loggers. According to Ed. "Jr." O'Neil, it takes over 100 years in Grand County to grow a tree big enough got a 35 foot telephone pole. In contrast, it would only take 30 years to grow a similar tree in warmer climes. There is still private logging activity in Grand County, most of it for the construction of luxury log homes.
Lulu City	Lulu City A popular hiking trail in Rocky Mountain National Park leads to the site of the historic mining town of Lulu City. When precious metals were discovered there in 1879, as many as 500 prospectors showed up. When the mines played out four years later, they departed in haste for other promising boom towns. Lulu City was named for the daughter of Benjamin Franklin Burnett, one of the town founders. At its height, the town had a hotel, post office, and a justice of the peace. It was served three times a week by a state coach from Fort Collins, on the other side of the Continental Divide. There were probably ten saloons which drew customers from various mines in the area, such as the Rustic, Friday Nite, Tiger, Carbonate and Southern Cross. These yielded low grade gold, silver and lead but the remote location of the Lulu made the cost to process the metals so high that efforts were soon abandoned. The closest smelters were probably well over 100 wagon miles away. One of the more remarkable characters of Lulu was "Squeaky Bob" Wheeler. His high pitched voice was unique. He was subject to drinking bouts, but was usually a likeable, well-behaved citizen. After working in the mines, Squeaky Bob saved enough money to purchase a ranch south of Lulu. There he established a guest house and became famous for his cooking skills and colorful hospitality. The current Lulu City trail runs through the site of his property, which was named the Phantom Valley Ranch. He sold the ranch in 1926, but it continued to be a popular tourist stop until it was included in the National Park boundaries.
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.
Mining in Grand County	Mining in Grand County 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.

Articles to Browse

The face of the 1883 Grand Lake Commissioner Shooting

Topic: True Crime

The face of the 1883 Grand Lake Commissioner Shooting

By Amy Ackman Project Archaeologist - 2018

I work in Cultural Resource Management (CRM), which means I document any man-made occurrence that is 50 years or older. I’ve recorded anything from prehistoric stone tools to 1940’s cans and glass. As a CRM archaeologist, I’m a data collector. Our job is to protect the archaeological record by gathering data and determining the significance of it. In 2011, I worked on a project near Jensen, Utah, just across the border from Colorado. During this project, I came across an unmarked grave. There was a headstone, but no name. I eventually found from historical documentation that the grave was that of a man named William Redman.

Redman was the undersheriff who took part in the Grand County Shooting of 1883 that involved three county commissioners, a county clerk, and the sheriff. Three men died during the shootout, two men died of their injuries after the fact, and the sheriff committed suicide out of guilt. Two weeks after the incident, Redman was the only living participant. He was on the run from the law and actively hunted by the Rocky Mountain Detective Association. A full month after the shootout, Redman was found dead in Utah at the side of a road with a bullet in his head.

I knew Redman was part of the Grand County Shooting and poured over any sources I could get my hands on; books, websites, newspaper articles; any tidbits of information that might answer questions. Like a detective, I wanted to understand how Bill Redman was involved in the gunfight and how he ended up in Utah. I found the story and a picture of William Redman and I was ecstatic that a site I had recorded was associated with such a tale.

William Redman was ruggedly handsome with high cheek bones and pronounced jaw; the clothes and countenance of a miner. The more I learned about him, the more questions I had. How old was he when the photo was taken? At a time when it was such a privilege to have a photo taken, why is there a photo of him and not other prominent men in the county? I wondered about his motivations. Was he the ruffian newspaper articles touted him to be? Archaeology is about understanding the past. Most of the time we are forced to interpret the past with only a few pieces of material that are left behind. The more material and data we have, the more we can understand.

In the case of William Redman, there are questions surrounding his death that give rise to the possibility that the man in the grave is not Redman at all. If the opportunity arises to excavate the grave, his photograph will assist in his identification. Archaeology not only studies the past but works to preserve the past for the future. Now, I hope that a family member of yours is never being researched by an archaeologist for being a ruffian and a murderer. But, like an archaeologist, I would encourage you to preserve as much as possible for those in the future who would care to learn about the past.

Business and Industry

Topic:

Business and Industry

How did people make a living? What were some of the businesses and industries that brought people to Grand County? Jut click on the drop-down menus and find out more about it!

Middle Park

Topic: Regions

Middle Park

Middle Park is one of three big parks in the Colorado Rockies and covers a large portion of Grand County. Like North Park and South Park on either side, Middle Park is a large open area of meadows, river valleys, woodlands, surrounded by mountains. It is also the headwaters of the mighty Colorado River.

The first printed account of Middle Park was written in 1839 describing abundant antelope, deer, big horn sheep, bears, buffalo and elk. The word “parc” is of French origin and so it is logical to assume that French trappers named this location.

In 1819 the Adams-Onis Treaty partitioned Middle Park so that Fraser, Granby and Hot Sulphur Springs, had they existed, would become part of the United States; however, Kremmling would have belonged to Spain! Later, Kremmling would have been part of Texas.

While political boundaries have changed, the beauty of the park remains the same. As Middle Park is entirely surrounded by mountains, Robert C. Black, who wrote the area’s definitive history, chose to call his book, Island in the Rockies.

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

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)

Rowley & Just Homesteads

Topic: Early Families

Rowley & Just Homesteads

Karl and Adella Just homesteaded on Pole Creek in the Fraser River Valley in 1896. Della was the daughter of Henry Lehman, who had, himself, homesteaded on the upper Grand River about 1880. Karl and Della worked hard, adding to their property until by the late twenties, they had the largest holding in the valley.

This lovely ranch was where Snow Mountain Ranch is now, and their log home still stands there even today. Their several children homesteaded in their own rights. Della and her son Alfred had what is known as the Rowley homestead, (now part of the Y-Camp) as well as what currently is the Winter Park Highlands. Son Rudy and his wife Clarabelle ranched part of the original Just property on Pole Creek where they watched over his mother. Another daughter married one of the Daxton boys and their spread was on Crooked Creek.

Until the 1950's, just beyond Tabernash on the north side of the highway at the foot of Winter Park Highlands stood one of the original log homes of this family. In fact, this house appeared in a 1952 movie called "On Dangerous Ground", starring Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, and Ward Bond. It was torn down some years later and a modern house built there.

Life was hard for ranching pioneers, perhaps hardest of all for the women, for they worked in the fields and of course, did all the work of the house as well as much of the garden work. Little Della raked hay during the season, hoed gardens, hauled water, fished, sewed, and cooked. She was tough. The bright spots were when rare visitors stopped by, or as the population increased, dances were held in one town or another.

It was a given that the Just home, like those of most pioneers, had no indoor plumbing. Nobody expected it and nobody complained. However, by 1957, Della Just was in her nineties. Karl was long gone. Her children decided that she should have indoor plumbing after all these years, and they heard that young Dwight Miller had a brand new backhoe. When they called, Dwight was pleased at the thought of doing such a useful job.

He brought his machine out to the ranch and prepared to get to work. He discovered, however, that there was disagreement on this bright idea. Della thought the notion was silly. "I've lived all these years with an outhouse and I don't see any reason at all to change!"

Back in those days, temperatures were very much colder than those currently expected. Forty and fifty degrees below zero were not unusual at all. But that old lady didn't mind this. (No doubt, there were chamber pots available for the worst weather.)

Della's children, themselves no longer young, won out, and Dwight dug the trenches and the septic tank hole and laid the pipes. We never heard whether Della got used to such luxury or not, but we know that Rudy and Clarabelle agreed that moving into the modern world was a good idea!

John Charles Fremont

Topic: Biographies

John Charles Fremont

Captain John Charles Fremont was born in 1813 and at the age of 31, in June 1844, was exploring the northern reaches of the Republic of Texas when he passed through Grand County. This marked the first appearance of official government enterprise in Grand County.

His expedition included some 40 explorers, including people of Creole, French, and Black descent. The guides were Thomas Fitzpatrick and Kit Carson. This expedition entered Grand County via Muddy Pass and exited via the Blue River, never traveling into the eastern part of the County.

They met with some 200 Arapahoe Indians, who were traditionally suspicious of the intruders, but through the giving of trade gifts, overt conflicts were avoided. The cartographer for that expedition was Charles Preuss, who provided the first map on which all of the central Rocky Mountain Parks were named and mapped accurately.

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.

Colorow - Ute Chieftain

Topic: Indians

Colorow - Ute Chieftain

Colorow was a Ute Chieftain who was known for profound stubbornness and bitter resentment of the white man's intrusion into the Ute hunting grounds.

Indian Agent Meeker had ruled that that the Utes must depend on the United States government for food supplies, rather than their traditional hunting. These supplies were sometimes held up for delivery and upon their eventual arrival,contaminated. Colorow thought the white settlers of Middle Park (near Granby) were killing too many of the game animals that had been critical in feeding the Ute people.

So in the fall of 1878, Colorow started a brush fire high in the Medicine Bow range, planning to drive the deer, elk, and buffalo west to the Ute reservation. But the winds took an unexpected shift, driving the wild game northward and away from Ute territory.

The fire drove out the last of the buffalo ever to be seen in the Middle Park region again and it took many years for the forests and ranges to recover from the devastation.

Moffat Road

Topic: Railroads

Moffat Road

"I shall never forget it as long as I live. Nor do I ever expect to experience anything comparable to it again. Civilization had found its way across the mountains into Middle Park," reflected Mrs. Josephine Button in 1955 on her 91^st birthday, as she recalled seeing smoke from the first Denver Northwestern and Pacific work-train on Rollins Pass, high above the Fraser Valley and Middle Park. Once those rails made it over the Continental Divide all the way to Hot Sulphur Springs, "changes came thick and fast." Many men, many dollars, many routes and many dreams tried to bring a railroad over the Continental Divide into Northwest Colorado, and the "Hill Route" over Rollins Pass that finally accomplished it a century ago has retained its allure ever since.

The Moffat Railroad built a cafeteria, telegraph station, living quarters for Moffat's "Hill Men" (as the railroad crews up there were known) and a fine hotel - all collectively called Corona Station. Soot-filled snow sheds protected over a mile of this windblown section of track. And where today silence is the most powerful sense, colorful locomotives pulled passenger and freight cars, filling the rare atmosphere with black smoke and mechanical clatter.

Decades of men's dreams lay behind the once massive snow shed that cut the bitter winds from the north and west, behind that fine hotel that offered some of the most spectacular scenery in America, behind the hopeful Town of Arrow nestled below tree-line ten or twelve miles west of Rollins Pass, and behind that first work-train that Josephine Button watched from her hay ranch along the Cottonwood Pass Wagon Road to Hot Sulphur Springs. Competent, often powerful, men in the 1860's through the 1890's filed surveys, graded road beds, and even began drilling before being stopped by severe storms that foiled the best laid plans or their inability to fund the ambitious projects.

Dreams to penetrate the high mountains along the Divide in central Colorado began when the Front Range was flooded with miners during the Gold Rush of 1859. Even before Colorado became a territory in 1861, Golden City, just west of Denver along Clear Creek, recognized its potential as a gateway to the rich mineral resources of mountain towns like Central City, Black Hawk, and Georgetown. Golden City's ambitions went beyond becoming a mountain transportation hub, believing that with the right incentives, enthusiasms, and leadership, its location supported a future as a national commerce center.

Golden City certainly had men of vision, ambition, and wealth among its ranks. William Loveland and George Vest, both young and feverishly ambitious to see Golden City reach its potential, vigorously pursued their dreams for a powerful commercial center in Golden City. From Missouri River towns like Leavenworth in Eastern Kansas, leading town founders also recognized the benefits of linking their water and rail routes to the east with the resources of the west. Finally, as if destiny had demanded it, Edward L. Berthoud, a young civil engineer and surveyor with energy and ability, arrived in Golden City from Leavenworth in April of 1860 to unite the similar passions of leading citizens from both locations.

From 1861 until 1866, Berthoud, Loveland and Vest focused on bringing a direct transcontinental railroad route through Golden City. First, Edward Berthoud, along with Jim Bridger and a capable young cartographer named Redwood Fisher, blazed a trail across Berthoud Pass through Middle Park all the way to Salt Lake City. Returning to Golden City on May 28, 1861, Berthoud reported "a good wagon road could be ?quickly' built" from Denver to Salt Lake City over Berthoud Pass for about $100,000.00. According to the local hyperbole, a railroad would surely follow.

In spite of considerable enthusiasm, disappointment plagued early efforts to put a rail line over the mountains in Colorado Territory. In 1862, Territorial Governor John Evans sent the Surveyor General for Colorado and Territories along Berthoud's route and others to confirm or deny the potential of a railroad line. About the same time, the Union Pacific Railroad Company sent an independent reconnaissance to examine potential routes over the divide that included Berthoud and Boulder Passes (Boulder Pass became Rollins Pass in the early 1870's, when John Quincy Adams Rollins built a toll road over it, and then Corona Pass when the Railroad crossed it). Surveyor General Case and the UP agreed that neither route offered much hope for a standard gauge railroad. The dream of a transcontinental line over the Continental Divide through central Colorado seemed to die with the UP surveyor's words, "I learned enough to satisfy myself that no railroad would - at least in our day - cross the mountains south of the Cache la Poudre..."

Multiple failed attempts to bring a rail line over the Divide through Middle Park during the following decades strengthened the UP's "death sentence." Against the odds, Berthoud and Loveland continued to solicit support for a railroad west over or through the Continental Divide, using improved surveys and maps to support their requests. In the 1880's, survey crews from a variety of railway incorporations were scattered over the high country on or near Rollins Pass. Over Berthoud, Rollins and other passes, they marked potential railroad lines with their wooden stakes. It was during this stretch of strenuous surveying activity that David Moffat, a highly successful Denver capitalist, got involved with an unsuccessful effort to bring through the mountains instead of over the top.

In the early 1880's, Mr. Moffat invested in the Denver, Utah and Pacific Railroad, which intended to tunnel through the mountains near Rollins Pass. Like the other efforts, though, the Denver, Utah and Pacific vanished in a few short years. Unlike many other lines that accomplished little more than surveys and maps, the DU&PRR completed significant grading and began tunneling before reaching the "end of its resources."

Money, power and success supported Moffat's dream to put Denver on a direct transcontinental railroad line. Doctor Robert C. Black, III, wrote that David Moffat's failed efforts in the early 1880's converted him to the idea that Denver needed to be on a direct transcontinental rail line. Moffat considered the route over Rollins Pass valuable enough to have surveying and grading crews working on it throughout the winter in 1902. The Denver Rocky Mountain News claimed that Moffat's route through Northwestern Colorado included "the largest strip of fertile land as yet undeveloped in the United States..." With his Denver, Northwestern and Pacific Railroad, David Moffat planned to make good his intentions to put Denver on direct transcontinental railroad line.

Moffat's original plan called for the "Hill Route" over Corona Pass ? the name changed from Rollins Pass in honor of Corona Station at the top ? to last for only a few short years. While the "temporary" route over the top generated resources by extracting the resources of Northwestern Colorado, a tunnel was to be bored through the Continental Divide. Even the wealth and power of Moffat, though, failed to adequately finance the tunnel before he died in 1911. The temporary line, therefore, lasted for nearly of a quarter century, from 1904 until 1928.

Its obstacles proved as enormous as the mountains it crossed. Work crews had to cease operations because of snow for most of April in 1920. The road was closed from late January until May in 1921. In December of 1924, engine number 210 busted "a main reservoir pipe," causing the train to fly down the hill out of control until it jumped the tracks and crashed into the valley below. Clearly, the Denver and Salt Lake Railroad, which took over Moffat's DNW&P after his death, needed a tunnel to replace the expensive effort over the "Devil's Backbone."

As Denver and Salt Lake Locomotive Number 120 came through the tunnel in early 1928, it represented the culmination of a massive undertaking through wet, unstable rocks which required considerable engineering ingenuity and caused six deaths in a 1926 cave-in. It also took an enormous amount of coordination and effort to secure the necessary funding. Through local bond issues, private investors and other means, the project was completed. And through a connection at Dotsero, a railroad station less than 30 minutes west of Vail on I-70, freight and passengers could make a direct Pacific connection from Denver. Posthumously, David Moffat's dream became a reality.

For significant periods of time since the trains stopped operations over Rollins Pass in the late 1920's with the opening of the Moffat Tunnel, on-road vehicles crept along its relatively easy grades and wide curves from Rollinsville on the east slope to Winter Park on the west side of the Divide. Like now, the road ran through an area attractive to backcountry campers and sport enthusiasts. On September 1, 1956, local officials and private citizens met on Rollins Pass to celebrate a "joint state-federal-county project to convert the old D. & S. L. railroad right of way over Corona Pass into an access road for sportsmen." According to the Denver Post, the game and fish department's construction division reconstructed the road during the summer of 1955 for about $20,000. The following year, the road became a scenic route over the Continental Divide for family cars and jeep caravans alike. And after it was built, or at least reconstructed, they did come. Intrepid tourists into Middle Park.

Grand County History Stories

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