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!

The lights dimmed; mothers had already found their seats after coming from the classrooms where they had put makeup on little children’s faces and checked their costumes to make sure angel wings and halos were secure and costumes were on right side round.  I was at the piano, music and script lined out. The gym was full to the brim, every seat taken, with folks lining the sides and back walls, for the whole town had turned out.  Early birds got the seats!  Christmas wasn’t Christmas in the Fraser Valley unless it included the program at Fraser School (now the Town Hall).   I began the overture and chatter stopped.   I had played for this event for ages, starting in 1958.  High school students were gone by then, moved to the new Union High School in Granby, but 7th and 8th graders were still there.  And in 1958, the first kindergartens in the district were established.   It was a time of excitement and anticipation, of fun, and of panic? Well, no, not panic, for the teachers were beautifully organized. 

The program was chosen during October. Each teacher had a specific job. For instance, Martha Vernon, the art teacher, did sets.  Helen Hurtgen was responsible for dialog.  Edith Hill did costumes.  Nancy Bowlby was in charge of the music.  Others coordinated the whole.  And I played the piano, with Nancy sometimes accompanying me on her violin.  

Mothers were asked to contribute sheets and any fabric they could spare.  Patterns and material for costumes went home to be sewn into various sizes and shapes -- angels, gingerbread men, knights or royalty.  In the gym, we stitched on finishing touches, bright patches to decorate jester outfits, townspeople, and such, while watching various groups practice. Bits of tinsel became crowns, tinfoil turned into wands, cheesecloth into wings.  Lace scraps and sequins added color and “class.”   The budget was extremely minimal at first, but over the years, more money was directed to Christmas programs.  Instead of old sheets, we could buy cotton fabrics, velveteens, sometimes satin.  One year I even stopped by a furrier’s in Denver and begged some fur scraps.  Were we uptown then!  We had fur trim around the necks, cuffs, and hems of the costumes for the prince, queen, and king.  

The day before the play, PTA mothers gathered in the gym to fill brown paper sacks with an apple, orange, nuts, and candies, provided by R. L. Cogdell from his grocery store.  

Every single child in school took part in the play, as a class, except for those with speaking parts, of course.  Fraser grew and grew, then as now. Soon the 7th and 8th grades moved to Granby.  Then the 6th graders went, but the 4th and 5th graders handled the leads neatly.  Our stories were usually simple Christmas tales, but sometimes we tackled ambitious efforts such as the Nutcracker Suite or a version of Gilbert and Sullivan.   The only children not included were the Jehovah Witness youngsters.  They couldn’t be in the play and they couldn’t come watch it either.  We all felt very sorry for them, because everyone had such a wonderful time.  Their teachers tried to give them special projects to entertain and interest them while they sat off in a corner or in their classrooms.   The plays always went well.  Tiny kindergartners came out onto the stage, to stand behind the colored lights.  They knew their song perfectly in practices, but I have to admit that a number of them usually stood silent, stunned by that mass of faces looking up at them.  No matter.  They were darling. “Hi, Mom,” some were sure to call. “Mom” beamed.  

There might be a glitch or two every year. For instance, little Diane was chosen to do the Arabian dance in Nutcracker Suite.  Her parents were dark, as she was, and she was slender as a dancer. Trouble was, she didn’t have an ounce of grace in her body at that stage of her life.  I thought Nancy Bowlby was going to have grey hair before she got that child moving properly.  But the night of the program, Diane looked like Anitra herself, doing her exotic dance.   One year the king jumped his cue and entered on stage.  His first words were, “Did I miss anything?”  The prince muttered, in an aside, “Yes, three pages!”  But the cast went on as if nothing had happened, while down at the piano I sat, flipping pages rapidly, trying to figure out where the dialog was now.  

Another year, our son James was to take part in a minuet.  “Uck!  I have to touch a girl?”  By the greatest good fortune, he broke his leg and got to be a guard at the palace door, standing at attention on crutches, while another boy took his place.  (I think he did that on purpose.)   Songs and parts were adapted to the talents of the students.  We had five boys once, who couldn’t talk, dance, sing -- anything.  So they wore monks’ costumes and filed on stage, supposedly singing a Christmas carol, but supported strongly by the cast present.   Another time, Twyla’s parents couldn’t come, so Miss Vernon took her home to get ready. Now, Twyla usually looked like a dirty ragamuffin, but after a bath and hair wash, she truly looked like the angel she portrayed.   For the finale, the entire school came on stage to sing a last carol, with the audience joining in.  Then Santa showed up to distribute the goodie sacks, and the great night was over.  Coming out into the quiet night was a wonderful feeling.  Sometimes we moved through drifts of new falling snow; sometimes the sky was filled with icy stars.  Gay lights showed in windows throughout town. 

We never talked much on the way home, as we thought of the play, the success of everyone¹s efforts, and how happy the children had made their parents and families.   My last program was the first year after the new school was built.  It was fun still, but the school population had grown enough that it was impossible for whole classes to participate as one. Things weren’t the same as they were in the little old school.

As late as this summer, John Murphy, 94, mowed ditches on his ranch land and built a new fence. "You got to keep busy doing something," he said.
His longevity, he said smiling at wife Carolyn across the table, is owed to "having a good wife to keep you healthy."

And then he added, "and being stubborn and contrary, I guess." But, Carolyn believes John's secret to healthy aging is due to "hard physical labor from an early age," plus the privilege of being raised where there is good air, little junk food, fresh vegetables, fresh milk daily and ranch-harvested meat. Dancing and regular rodeo jaunts also don't hurt.

This week, the Murphys are pausing to acknowledge a 100-year milestone, when John's parents first bought the ranch in greater Granby. John Murphy was born in the family's white two-story ranch house, which still stands on the property, six years after his parents Anna (Rohracher) and James Murphy bought 160 acres from Leopold Mueller in 1909. He had purchased the land from the widow of Edward Weber, who was one of the Grand County commissioners shot in the Grand Lake shoot-out of 1883. Weber's grave is still surrounded by a white-picket fence, located just northwest from the Murphys' newer home.

Mother Anna had crossed the ocean from Austria in 1882 with her family, then in the spring of 1884, they walked over Rollins Pass from Ward to homestead at Eight-Mile Creek south of Granby. The town of Granby didn't sprout until the railroad came through in the early 1900s, so twice a year, the family would travel over Berthoud to Georgetown to buy groceries - a testament to the fortitude people had back then. "How often do you go for groceries now?" John asked. "Twice a day?"

Anna and James married in March of 1907 and had three children: Margaret, James and John. When John was just two years old, his father died and his mother was left to care for the ranch and the three young children. She later married Joseph Reinhardt who had the ranch above theirs.

Upon her death in 1952 at the age of 75, "The Middle Park Times" saluted Anna for having been "a hardy pioneer woman" who prided herself for her ability to horseback ride and milk cows, and called the latter a "fine art rather than a chore."

"It was a pleasure for her to sit down and milk cows," John said. "That's when she could rest. She would milk half of the cows while me and my step-dad milked the other half."

The ranch had about 35 cows, and the cream and milk they produced was shipped to Denver where it was sold. When the lettuce colonies came to the Granby area around the early 1920s, the Murphy ranch prospered selling milk and butter to local settlers.  "Where the airport is now, there was a shack or tent on every 10 acres over there," he said, "and five packing warehouses along the railroad." Even a section of Murphy land was leased to grow lettuce and spinach.

When young boys, John and his brother would sometimes find entertainment riding on the backs of calves in the barn - always out of sight from their mother who would have disapproved, he said. And the younger John would horseback to the Granby schoolhouse located across from the present day Granby Community Center.

Back then, Granby was barely a settlement, and the Murphys' closest neighbor was farther than a mile away. Granby, especially, has grown in the past 20 years, threatening the lifestyle he has known all his life. In the past, ranching families made up the community, and neighbors looked out for one another, he said. "There was kind of a togetherness," he said. "Now we don't have that."

Nodding to the golf courses and newer homes surrounding Granby proper, "We're losing it, losing all the ranchers," he said. "Like any piece of property, I hate to see it change hands, but progress happens and there's nothing you can do about it."

John Murphy began running the ranch in 1934 and his older brother James ran another ranch near Fraser, land the brothers originally had purchased together.
John's first wife Edith died during childbirth, and John became a single dad to a daughter and son who were 2 and 4 years old at the time, running the ranch and raising his children like his own mother did when he was a toddler.

At its height, John Murphy's commercial cattle operation had about 2,000 acres and about 120 pair of cows and calves, with the calves selling at the top of the market in Omaha. John said from working his land for hay through the years, he has found buffalo horns. "There must have been quite a few buffalo here in the 1800s," he said. The land has since been leased, split, and some shared with John's family, including daughter Jennifer Baker and son Steve Murphy.

Although the winters are no longer as harsh as he remembers them - "It would get 30 to 40 below for the whole month," he said - he and wife Carolyn now winter in Arizona. John met Carolyn in the 1970s, and the couple would dance at haunts such as the Circle H and Hazel Mosle's (now Johnson's Landing). "I just held the girls, and they did the dancing," John said. "She complained I held her too tight," he said, of Carolyn. "And she's been suffering every since."

Transcribed by Dan Nolan

In 1880, Jacob Pettingell moved to Grand County at the age of 20. He spent the rest of his life here serving as postmaster, notary public, insurance agent, abstracter, legal counsel, justice of the peace and county clerk. The following is part of an interview conducted by his son-in-law Victor Frey in 1931.

Company of soldiers 
"When I came here, there was a company of U.S. soldiers camped at the old Barney Day ranch; this ranch is a few miles below Parshall, Colo. I think they left that fall. The Meeker Indian Massacre was in ‘79 and these soldiers were sent here in anticipation of further trouble. In addition, the govern­ment sent Springfield rifles to all settlers with ammunition.  We were curious about these new guns and went up on the hill to try them out; before we realized it, we had used up about all the ammunition. At this time some of the Utes came to Sulphur and vicinity to hunt and fish, and to trade. 

Fish & game 
Both fish and game were very plenti­ful in the early ‘80s. On account of severe weather, the settlers usually laid in their winter’s supply of grub early in the fall. At this time they would take several loads of game out to Empire and Georgetown, trading same for grub and provisions.  C. H. Hook, who ran the stage, would pay 25 cents per pound for fish, taking it out to market and selling it for 50 cents per pound. Some persons made as high as $15 per day by fishing. There were no state game laws then. 

Town of Kremmling 
Around 1880 or 1881, there was one little store and a building or two, located across the River (Muddy Cr.). This store belonged to a man named Kremmling.  About 1891, John Kinsey laid out the town of Kinsey City. Later, Kremmling moved his store and post office across the river to this townsite and the name was changed to Kremmling, Colo. There were some ranches in this locality and some of the ranchers names were Bill Kindell, Tracey Tyler, Jim Hetherley, and Dr. Hillery Harris.

Williams Fork
There was only about one ranch here owned by Joe Coberley. There was, of course, no town of Parshall. 

Town of Grand Lake
Old man Wescott lived here; a family by name of John Shafer and Ike Burton. Hot Sulphur Springs had been the county seat and headquarters for supplies for all the mines up Bowen Gulch. Grand County included all of Jackson County at that time.  About 1881, when the mining boom commenced up Bowen Gulch where the towns of Lulu, Gaskill and Teller City sprang up, they decided to move the county seat to Grand Lake since this was much closer. The county seat remained there until 1888 when it was moved back to Hot Sulphur Springs. The old town of Gaskill was located at the mouth of Bowen Gulch; Lulu was about three miles above Squeaky Bob’s ranch, now the Phantom Valley Ranch; while Teller City was on the other side of the ridge in North Park. 

Sandy Campbell and Jim Bowen were the first prospectors. The price of silver was high, and most of these mines were for silver. These mining towns sprang up around 1880-81. I originally came west to spend about three months in Middle Park, hunting and fishing, but when the mining boom struck this locality, I became interested. I grubstaked two men; later I took up a claim above the old Wolverine mine for silver and mined for 7 or 8 years. It was a paying proposition while silver was up in price but on account of the long freight haul and drop in price, the mine was later abandoned. Estimated population dur­ing boom days: Gaskill 150; Lulu 200; Teller City from 1,200 to 1,500. It was claimed that Teller City had 27 saloons. My personal recollections are that they might have had as many as 20 at one time.

The Famous Foot Race 
About once a month, the miners would all come down to Grand Lake for celebra­tions. There is no use to say that considerable liquor was disposed of. During the winter of 1882 a man named Sharp had been working at the Wolverine mine; he had beat them all at foot racing early that spring when the snow went off; these miners thought they had a world beater at foot racing.  While down at Grand Lake on a monthly celebration, they were all bragging about this man Sharp. At this time Harley McCoy was living at Grand Lake and he spoke up and said he had a man named Montgomery who could beat Sharp in a foot race. Sharp went into training at Gaskill; Montgomery at Grand Lake. Bets were originally around $100 and increased to nearly $8,000 on this proposed foot race. The race was pulled off July 4 on the main street of Teller City. Montgomery won the race by about 7 feet and Sharp kept right on running to the end of Main Street, then out into the timber. There was a horse tied there for him and a man waiting to divide up the swag—Sharp was never seen again. The gang at the Wolverine mine took their defeat like good sports, the other bunch paying for all they could eat and drink for a number of days.

The Mock Trial
Usually there was quite a bit of fun and excitement during the mining boom, but once in a while the boys would get a little lonesome on Sundays. This was one of those particu­lar Sundays when they craved a little excitement. There was a tourist and his party who had come in from around Boulder to fish and hunt. The boys confided in the judge and they arrested this man by an old location certificate and he was charged with horse steal­ing (a pretty serious offense in those days).

They held open court and the house was packed, not only with local people, but about 20 tourists were present. The defense attorney spent much of his time describing the wonderful scenery around Grand Lake and Colorado in general. The prosecut­ing attorney prosecuted hard and produced a witness who claimed he actually recognized the accused man and stated there was no doubt but what he was the guilty party. About the time the jury was to have the case, it was framed that I should commence a heated argument across the room with Gil Martin. When I jumped up and called Martin a liar, he opened fire with blank cartridges across the room: I commenced returning the fire. There was a great commo­tion, people actually jumping out thru the windows and a wild scramble thru the doors. The frightened defendant escaped into the timber. It rained all that afternoon. We later succeeded in convincing his partner that it was a joke, so he finally brought the de­fendant in that night, dripping wet and still badly frightened. They all pulled out of Grand Lake before morning.

First Courthouse
This was a small frame building about 12’ x 14’, one room. It has been moved and is now one of the cab­ins belonging to the Corner Cupboard. The Commission­ers then let a contract to Tom Johnston to build a new court house with jail behind, as quickly as possible. There was a sawmill at Grand Lake and plenty of lumber. Johnston put on a large crew; they start­ed in one morning; the next day they moved into the new court house building. John­ston put up this building in a little over one day, sufficiently for them to move in and use it. This building is now John Zick’s restaurant building. 

The Duel 
The commissioners were Barney Day, Webber and Mills, an attorney from Teller City. The sheriff was Chas. Royer and under-sheriff Bill Red­man. Cap Dean was the clerk pro-tem. Mills and Webber had been close friends but had a falling out over the Repub­lican State Convention the year before and since then had become bitter enemies. It is reported that there had been differences between Bar­ney Day and the sheriff and under-sheriff. 

The commissioners met at Grand Lake on July 3, 1883; they all agreed to adjourn un­til July 4 because Mills had an important case in court that day. Mills went to court but Day and Webber went to the Nickerson House and held a commissioners meeting there. At this meeting they raised the amount of bonds for county officers, making same so high they knew none could comply. As I recall, the sheriff’s bond was around $50,000. This caused the sheriff and under-sheriff to throw in with Mills. The next day was Fourth of July and many people were shooting out into the lake, there being considerable noise. Cap Dean, Barney Day and Webber left the Young Hotel (where I was also stopping) and started down town. No one knew just what did happen or who fired the first shot. There were some extra shots in that direction: someone thought they saw a man fall to the ground; we all ran down to the spot which was about 500 yards from the Young Hotel. 

Mills was lying in the road; Barney Day part way in the water; both Dean and Web­ber had been carried into the hotel. Day and Mills died instantly, while Webber lived until around 2 A.M. the next morning. I sat by his bedside. Cap Dean lived 4 or 5 days although he was shot to pieces. I sat beside Dean’s bed and asked him who did the shoot­ing and he replied that he did not care to say. Later, he described one tall man with a handkerchief over his face who attacked him and it fit the description of Bill Redman. It was thought that Mills opened up the attack by firing his rifle. The sheriff and undersheriff both es­caped. They first came to Sulphur and tried to organize a posse but the people seemed to mistrust them and they left the country. Later, Chas. Royer, the sheriff, committed suicide. Bill Redman had been a great pal of Royer’s and when he picked up a paper reading about Royer, he also com­mitted suicide. Therefore, this cost the lives of 6 men.

Firsts in Grand County:

The First Newspaper
The Middle Park Times was founded in 1881 at Grand Lake by John Smart and George Bailey. They called it the Grand Lake Prospector. It was moved to Sulphur in 1889 and called the Grand County Prospector. One day, in 1890, I walked into the newspaper office and was talking to Willard Minor, then running the paper. I told him that I thought Grand County Prospector was a h-l of a name for a county newspaper and sug­gested they change this name to “Middle Park Times.” They took this action and the paper has been known by this name from then on. About 1897, I bought out this paper and edited it for three years.

The First Auto
It was a Thomas Flyer driven from Denver to the Grand Hotel at Sulphur by Harold Brinker, who later on became a famous race driver. This was in 1905. It caused no end of excitement in our small town. Brinker kindly took several of the young people for a ride out to the old horse race track. My daughter, now Mrs. V. H. Frey, was one of the persons and she often mentions the thrill that first auto ride gave her. The car was driven in over the old Berthoud Pass road. 

The First Train
In the fall of 1905 the tracks were laid as far as Hot Sulphur Springs and at this time the first train came in two sections; there were about 1,000 people with a band. The community gave a barbecue and fish fry.

The Grand Hotel 
This was contracted for by my friend Mr. Chapin and myself, and finished in the year 1905. I ran same for a number of years. The first Forest Service office was located in this building and J. C. Stahl was the Supervisor. Later the forest office was moved to Fraser; it was there a short time, then moved back to Hot Sulphur Springs. 

Conclusion
From May 10, 1880 to the present time, February 7, 1931 I have watched the following towns spring up in Grand County: West Portal, Fraser, Tabernash, Granby, Grand Lake, Parshall, and Krem­mling. The Williams Fork locality has also settled up. The old mining towns of Gaskill, Lulu and Teller City came, and then died away. Ranches have developed over most of the county. Stock raising, both sheep and cattle, has become a fixed indus­try. The county, during this time, has shipped out an enormous amount of timber. Like else­where, the auto has developed rapidly and we have many miles of splendid mountain pass roads. There is an abundance of fish and game, although not so plenti­ful as the early days. Every town in Grand County is growing slowly but surely, with the possible exception of one railroad town. Grand County is well off financially and it has the very brightest prospects for future prosperity.