Ute Bill Thompson

Volunteer Fire Departments

.

Volunteer Fire Departments Articles

Fire Engine No 1 - Hideaway Park Fire Department
Fire Engine No 1 - Hideaway Park Fire Department

"What Hideaway Park needs is a fire engine!  No way can we fight fires without more water; all we can do is watch some building burn!"  The half dozen volunteer firefighters were seated around the table in Hildebrand's little grocery store on Highway 40. "I agree," said Ray.  "We've talked long enough!  Who's got the want ads?"

Claude pulled out the latest Denver Post want ads.   "I don't see any fire engines.  I looked up fire fighting equipment too.  Nothing there.  But here's a 1940 Chevy truck for $400.00.  That's just eight years old; maybe it would do."

"We could mount a tank and a pump on the back," said Dwight.  "Do we have enough money to pay for it?" Claude pulled out their account book.  " We've $550.00.  That would pay for the truck and we volunteers could use the rest to put up a shed.  We can always have more Bingo nights.

"Dwight, you're the Fire Chief.  Why don't you and Ray go down and look at it.  We'll give you a blank check so you can bring it home if it looks good." The men agreed.  At last they were getting started.

The following week Dwight and Ray drove to Denver to the car lot and took a look.  The truck wasn't much, but the engine worked and the tires weren't too bad.  Ray commented, "I know a fellow who has a galvanized tank.  We can buy some 2" hose and a pump from American LaFrance.

"Okay," said Dwight.  "Let's take it."   He brought out the check Claude had sent along and signed it.  The used truck salesman looked at it and looked at Dwight.    "How old are you, Mr. Miller?"

"I'm 20 years old," he answered.  "What's the problem?  I'm Fire Chief."

"Hmph, you look more like sixteen!  We're not supposed to take checks from anybody younger than 21.  Let me go talk to the bookkeeper."   It took a long time and Dwight and Ray were getting nervous.  At last the salesman returned.  They'd accept the check.

And so Hideaway Park got its very first fire truck.  The men in town finally got the tank and pump put together and started in on a wooden building, along the main road off Highway 40 where Cooper Creek is now.  Winter came early that year, and the fellows didn't have time to get the roof completed.  The rafters and sheeting were up, but the 90# roofing material had to wait; so snow drifted in with every storm, and ice built up, to melt and leak later onto the truck.  But the men knew they could finish up the following year.   Periodically they got together to try out the pump and drive up and down through town, with their new siren wailing.  Everything seemed to work.

A few years passed.  When fires occurred, however, the buildings still usually burned to the ground. One winter in 1952, Dwight was wakened before midnight.  "The Spot is burning.  Let's go!  Let's go!"  Ray's voice broke with excitement.  Dwight jumped from bed and threw on his clothes.  He could see the flames down on the highway leaping above the trees.

Men were gathering at the firehouse. Dwight ran through the door and clambered up on the fire truck.   He tried to start the engine.  R-r-r-r --.  Nothing happened.  R-r-r-r.   "The battery is dead," he cried. 

Ray and Wally were struggling to get the overhead door open and the miserable thing was frozen shut!  They took a hammer to the base, but the frost wasn't about to give way and let door move.  Finally Dwight cried, "Let's slip a cable under the door and hook it to the truck.  We can pull the truck out and on down to Vasquez, to fill the tank." 

The cable was soon in place and Claude jumped into his truck and started pulling.  With the fire truck in gear, it moved forward, hit the double garage door, and continued on.  With a groan and a jerk, the engine and siren  finally started.  Dwight guided the rig onto the road with the door riding on top of it, blinding him.  At last, the door fell to the ground.

At the creek, the fellows pulled the hose down to the water and chopped a hole in the ice.  Another started to hook the hose onto the pump.  "The hose has shrunk!  It won't fit!"

 "What?  It did the last time we practiced!"  The volunteers looked at each other and threw up their hands in disgust. The Spot to Stop was burning fiercely by this time, but Ray said, "Let me string my garden hose across the highway.  I think it's long enough, and maybe it will do some good."  This is what he did, but it was too late.  That building was a goner. 

The townspeople stood around until there was nothing left but ashes; then they went home to bed.  The firemen met the next morning to decide what to do about the truck.  They eventually chose just to leave it there all winter.  It sure wasn't going to do anybody any good.  The next winter, that fire truck had a new hose!

Some years later, Dwight and Jean Miller gave land for a volunteer fire building, which was made of metal and which had a heater.  And over the years, better trucks were purchased and the men received some proper training.  The early volunteers had a perfect record ? they never saved a building.

Some of the volunteers in 1947-48; there may be others.  
Dwight Miller
Ray Hildebrand
Claude Brock
Bill Polk
Jim Quinn
Wally Tunstead
Easy Butler
Leroy Hauptman
Dick Mulligan, Jr.

Grand Lake's First Fireboat
Grand Lake's First Fireboat

During the summer of 1960, Jeff E. Fuller and Don Drake formed Mountain Services Inc. to offer Grand Lake shore owners protection by patrolling the properties.  In May of 1961, Don Drake promoted the idea of a fireboat and with donations, a 1960 18 foot Buehler Turbocraft Jet 56 was purchased and equipped to fight fires. Don tested the water jet and found that it would pump enough water to reach the fourth story of the five story-14 bedroom Oscar Malo home. 

Ironically, on September 10, 1961, that very home caught on fire.  The home was completely engulfed by the time Don got the fireboat to the location but, with the help of Elmer Badger and Jerry Gruber, they concentrated on the 4-slip boathouse.  The heat was so intense it melted the plastic trim on the fireboat but the boathouse was saved and still stands today.

 

     

 

 

Articles to Browse

Topic: Biographies

Eduard Berthoud

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

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

 

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

Topic: Places
Spruce Lodge

The search for Spruce Lodge

Spruce Lodge

 You gotta love a mystery! My curiosity rose, my anticipation of being the one with the real story was more than my appetite could stand. I looked at pictures, figured angles, mused at what other people said, reviewed topographic maps and finally said to myself “it just can’t be.” The terrain doesn’t look like that. It isn’t two miles from the last switchback on Hwy 40. I don’t care what the writing on the back of the pictures say. 

I want to know once and for all, where is the real location of Spruce Lodge? How can it be located so everyone will agree. I’ve got it, find an expert wilderness person with my same curiosity. As fate would have it, entered Debora Carr, author of Hiking Grand County Colorado, complete with pictures, maps, GPS coordinates and trail narratives. Her coauthor Lou Ladrigan also caught the bug. “We can find it.” 

Exploration began early in the spring but the snow was just a little too deep to find any artifacts. Failed attempt, but the appetite was there. Wait till the snow melts in the trees. Again, as fate would have it, entered Carol Hunter. Carol has been instrumental in the efforts to resore the Berthoud Pass wagon road. Carol has lots of maps and pictures of the development of the wagon road and just happened to have an original U.S. Bureau of Public Roads 1920 survey map for the construction of Hwy 40 from Empire to Fraser. I loaded it into the computer, expanded the image and found lots of strange numbers. Almost like mile markers. Carol said they were numbers used by the work parties. They seemed evenly spaced and the map had a distance legend. It even had a marked location for Spruce Lodge. I couldn’t wait to add this map to Deborah and Lou’s reference material.

Armed with new references, Debora and Lou hiked both sides of Hwy 40 from the switchback to the entrance to Mary Jane. Looking for artifacts, existence of remnants of the old wagon road, foundations and terrain that matched the photos in the GCHA collection. A couple places looked promising, but not quite. Finally, a white station post number 390 was found lying on the ground on the west side of today’s Hwy 40. Then another white station post was found to the south, number 380. That was a match! Just what we needed. That confirmed the surveyor L.J. Young’s map. To the south of 390 a flat part of ground revealed what looked like part of a foundation and surrounding the location were remnants of discarded cans and possible buildings. A two holer! Now check the terrain with the pictures. Well maybe. Don’t forget that Hwy 40 didn’t exist. Step back and look from the east side of the existing Hwy. A great match with the slope and tree line. This was it! Just .9 miles North of the last switchback.

                      

                       

Topic: Monarch

Monarch: Grand County's City of Atlantis

Monarch, now a picturesque lake for meandering around on a pleasant summer day, was once a bustling town, the home of the Monarch Consolidated Gold and Copper Mining and Smelting Company, and the rail head of the Rocky Mountain Railroad.  The life of this little company town and railroad was very short lived and now nearly forgotten. 

Boulder business men T.S. Waltemeyer, and Frank and Charles A. Wolcott heard about traces of gold, silver, and mostly copper at the junction of the Arapahoe Creek and the South Fork of the Colorado River.  In 1905 they established the Monarch Consolidated Gold and Copper Mining and Smelting Company and built their company on the assumption that a major belt of minerals extended east through the Continental Divide.  The Monarch Company consisted of several subsidiary companies including lumber companies, an "investment" company, an exploration company, and a development company.  The main objective of the company was to mine metal ores, but supplement it with timber and build a railway to benefit the whole corporation. 

The company had 1740 acres of placer and lode claims; the main mines were the Copper King, Copper Queen, Omaha, Ella C., and High Lonesome. The Monarch Company shipped heavy machinery by flatbed cars to Granby on the new Moffat Road.  They then put an ad in the paper asking for bids to haul heavy machinery 16 miles from Granby to Monarch.  The machinery included "5 boilers (eight and a quarter tons each), one engine (over eleven tons), one flywheel (6 tons), other machinery (from 1 to 5 tons), a carload of nails, and several hundred pounds of miscellaneous supplies."  The task of hauling the heavy equipment was made especially difficult by mud-holes and bridges not made for heavy loads.  Denver hauling companies refused to take on the job and one Swedish logging company from Wyoming abandoned the challenge after the first wagonload stuck in a mud-hole.

Finally Dick McQueary agreed to move the machinery.  To accomplish the job, McQueary purchased several hundred feet of hardwood planks in Denver, 3 inch thick, sixteen inches wide and twelve feet long.  Accompanying the heavy pieces up the mountain was a "4 horse team hauling hardwood plank, a 4 horse team pulling six inch pine poles, 10 feet long, and a four horse team pulling two ton large nails".   The crew built temporary bridges across mud-holes by laying pine poles 3 feet apart with hardwood planks laid across the poles.  2 light loads were driven across to test bridge followed by the heavy load pulled by 12 head horses.  Finally the planks and poles were pulled up to be used at the next mud-hole.  The heavy machinery was hauled in 2 weeks.

Construction on the Rocky Mountain Railway, a standard-gauge line from Granby to Monarch, began in 1907.  The 16 mile line was completed by Thanksgiving.  There were hopes of someday extending the line to Grand Lake for resort passengers and eventually a line to Walden in North Park.  The Denver and Northwest Railroad Company helped survey the line by lending J.J. Argo's services.  Dick McQueary was once again brought in to grade the road bed between the Monarch mill and Granby.  Most of the workers on the railroad were Japanese, Bulgarian, Hungarian, and Austrian day laborers from an employment agency in Denver.  The laborers were paid $2 a day, (plus a fifteen cent fee for their interpreter).

Once the railway was completed and in operation it issued passenger tickets.  However, the company never published a schedule.  Neither did the company hire a full train crew to run their single locomotive.  To meet regulations for switching service on Moffat tracks in Granby, the Rocky Mountain Railroad took on board a couple of interested bystanders.  At gates crossing ranch properties fireman Leo Algier would simply jump off the train to open the gate and close it after the train had crossed through before hopping back on the train.  Ranching families on the line were allowed to catch rides on the train when it passed through or to request package drop-offs. 

The Monarch Company created Monarch Lake by damming the valley, at the junction of Arapahoe Creek and South fork of the Colorado River, for use with the saw mill and the box factory. A 2800 foot long chute carried tree trunks down the hillside to the lake where they hit the water and could bounce up to 50 ft high.  Then a stern-wheel steamer pushed logs into a system of canals and flumes that led down to the saw mill and box factory. 

The town of Monarch included employee housing, business offices, a post office, and an assembly hall.  Dick McQueary helped haul sawlogs to mill and haul materials for building employee housing in Monarch.  Grand County's first hydro-electric generator was in Monarch.  The waterworks system was created by piping water from the falls at Mad Creek and had pressure up to 300 lbs per inch. 

Even thought the mining company never produced more than $150 a year, the owners continued to promote the business to stockholders and they were able to keep the business running by through their enthusiasm for the project.  During the summer, stockholders were invited to visit Monarch, tour the site, and hear lectures on the operation.  The tour often included a visit to a spruce tree named "Monarch" that was seven feet in diameter.  So, while business might not have been booming, enthusiasm and interest from stockholders was.  

The last piece of Monarch to be constructed was the box factory in 1907.  Unfortunately the factory only operated for 2 or 3 months before it suffered a fire and was totally destroyed.  Robert Black in Island in the Rockies stated that the questionable promotions of Monarch would have been forgiven if the box factory had developed into a solid operation. 

Soon after the fire, a disagreement between management and labor resulted in the entire work force being fired.  For several months the Rocky Mountain Railroad operated the train with one man who acted as engineer, fireman, brakeman and conductor. The company hired Dick McQueary as general manager until fall the fall of 1907 when stockholders discovered the true state of the company and declared bankruptcy.   Stockholders and the community were convinced that the whole company had been created as stock-selling scheme.

Although the Monarch Company and the Rocky Mountain Railroad were no longer in business, the railway continued to be used for a number of years.  For example, Ed McDonald, dude rancher, put a Cadillac touring car on flanged iron wheels to carry mail, supplies, and guests to his ranch.  The center of town was preserved and developed by the Dierks as a summer resort called Ka Rose, after Katherine Rose Dierks, after the owner's daughter.   In 1912 the rail line was used for transporting fisherman along the river by Ernest F. Behr, a former Colorado and Southern engineman.  Finally, in 1918 the rails were sold to a junk dealer in Denver to satisfy the World War I need for scrap metal. 

Currently, the town, mill site, and box factory lay under the waters of Lake Granby and are inaccessible, except in years of draught.  However, there are a couple of remaining pieces at Monarch Lake that are still visible.  On the south side of the lake, near the water's edge, is a boiler that was used to yard logs into a chute and shoots the logs into a holding pond.  Also, the flume still runs down the hillside into the lake.  The trail around Monarch Lake takes hikers directly under the flume.

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!

Topic: Regions

Three Lakes

The Three Lakes area encompasses the north-east corner of Grand County and is so named because of the three connected lakes of Grand Lake, Shadow Mountain Reservoir and Granby Reservoir. 

The two reservoirs were formed as a part of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, which takes water from Grand Lake on the western side of the Continental Divide to the Big Thompson River on the east.  Shadow Mountain Reservoir and Granby Reservoir. connected by a   unique pumping plant, assure that the Grand Lake water level remains consistent. Further reservoirs were added in the Three Lakes area, including the Willow Creek and Windy Gap Reservoirs.

Topic: Biographies

Joseph Wescott

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fire Engine No 1 - Hideaway Park Fire Department

"What Hideaway Park needs is a fire engine!  No way can we fight fires without more water; all we can do is watch some building burn!"  The half dozen volunteer firefighters were seated around the table in Hildebrand's little grocery store on Highway 40. "I agree," said Ray.  "We've talked long enough!  Who's got the want ads?"

Claude pulled out the latest Denver Post want ads.   "I don't see any fire engines.  I looked up fire fighting equipment too.  Nothing there.  But here's a 1940 Chevy truck for $400.00.  That's just eight years old; maybe it would do."

"We could mount a tank and a pump on the back," said Dwight.  "Do we have enough money to pay for it?" Claude pulled out their account book.  " We've $550.00.  That would pay for the truck and we volunteers could use the rest to put up a shed.  We can always have more Bingo nights.

"Dwight, you're the Fire Chief.  Why don't you and Ray go down and look at it.  We'll give you a blank check so you can bring it home if it looks good." The men agreed.  At last they were getting started.

The following week Dwight and Ray drove to Denver to the car lot and took a look.  The truck wasn't much, but the engine worked and the tires weren't too bad.  Ray commented, "I know a fellow who has a galvanized tank.  We can buy some 2" hose and a pump from American LaFrance.

"Okay," said Dwight.  "Let's take it."   He brought out the check Claude had sent along and signed it.  The used truck salesman looked at it and looked at Dwight.    "How old are you, Mr. Miller?"

"I'm 20 years old," he answered.  "What's the problem?  I'm Fire Chief."

"Hmph, you look more like sixteen!  We're not supposed to take checks from anybody younger than 21.  Let me go talk to the bookkeeper."   It took a long time and Dwight and Ray were getting nervous.  At last the salesman returned.  They'd accept the check.

And so Hideaway Park got its very first fire truck.  The men in town finally got the tank and pump put together and started in on a wooden building, along the main road off Highway 40 where Cooper Creek is now.  Winter came early that year, and the fellows didn't have time to get the roof completed.  The rafters and sheeting were up, but the 90# roofing material had to wait; so snow drifted in with every storm, and ice built up, to melt and leak later onto the truck.  But the men knew they could finish up the following year.   Periodically they got together to try out the pump and drive up and down through town, with their new siren wailing.  Everything seemed to work.

A few years passed.  When fires occurred, however, the buildings still usually burned to the ground. One winter in 1952, Dwight was wakened before midnight.  "The Spot is burning.  Let's go!  Let's go!"  Ray's voice broke with excitement.  Dwight jumped from bed and threw on his clothes.  He could see the flames down on the highway leaping above the trees.

Men were gathering at the firehouse. Dwight ran through the door and clambered up on the fire truck.   He tried to start the engine.  R-r-r-r --.  Nothing happened.  R-r-r-r.   "The battery is dead," he cried. 

Ray and Wally were struggling to get the overhead door open and the miserable thing was frozen shut!  They took a hammer to the base, but the frost wasn't about to give way and let door move.  Finally Dwight cried, "Let's slip a cable under the door and hook it to the truck.  We can pull the truck out and on down to Vasquez, to fill the tank." 

The cable was soon in place and Claude jumped into his truck and started pulling.  With the fire truck in gear, it moved forward, hit the double garage door, and continued on.  With a groan and a jerk, the engine and siren  finally started.  Dwight guided the rig onto the road with the door riding on top of it, blinding him.  At last, the door fell to the ground.

At the creek, the fellows pulled the hose down to the water and chopped a hole in the ice.  Another started to hook the hose onto the pump.  "The hose has shrunk!  It won't fit!"

 "What?  It did the last time we practiced!"  The volunteers looked at each other and threw up their hands in disgust. The Spot to Stop was burning fiercely by this time, but Ray said, "Let me string my garden hose across the highway.  I think it's long enough, and maybe it will do some good."  This is what he did, but it was too late.  That building was a goner. 

The townspeople stood around until there was nothing left but ashes; then they went home to bed.  The firemen met the next morning to decide what to do about the truck.  They eventually chose just to leave it there all winter.  It sure wasn't going to do anybody any good.  The next winter, that fire truck had a new hose!

Some years later, Dwight and Jean Miller gave land for a volunteer fire building, which was made of metal and which had a heater.  And over the years, better trucks were purchased and the men received some proper training.  The early volunteers had a perfect record ? they never saved a building.

Some of the volunteers in 1947-48; there may be others.  
Dwight Miller
Ray Hildebrand
Claude Brock
Bill Polk
Jim Quinn
Wally Tunstead
Easy Butler
Leroy Hauptman
Dick Mulligan, Jr.

Topic: Biographies

Stephen Bradley

 

Article contributed by Karen Wischnack

 

Born to a Wisconsin doctor in Chicago November 12, 1916 was one of seven skiing sons by the name of Stephen J. Bradley.  His talents in skiing showed up at a very early age.  By the time he was attending Dartmouth College his talents were apparent and was a top competitive skier.  He skied in the slalom, downhill, jumping and langlauf while on the college's team.  Steve then was called to serve his country during the World War II Army service.  After his discharge he then attended and coached skiing at Colorado University. 

 

In 1950 Steve became Winter Park's executive director.  During his employment at Winter Park he guided it from a four rope tow/three T-bar local ski area to a major resort of 770 acres with 13 chair lifts.  His brilliance in design led to the Balcony House, the Base Lodge which was one of the first ski area structures to utilize solar heating, the restaurant in the midway proved to be a model for the "scramble" system of food service and then there's the Mary Jane section of Winter Park which was another one of his talents.

 

Stephen was given the name "Father of Slope Grooming" in 1952 when he then invented the famous Bradley Packer-Grader when experimenting with slope grooming.  The invention was a one man gravity-powered slope grooming device which revolutionized the ski maintenance industry.  Nick-named "the Purple People Eater".  This machine was a mogul-cutting snow groomer that was 5-foot-wide corrugated culvert that a skier would drag down hill or as they said " A hardy mountain crewman" who risked his life by being devoured by the spinning rotor.  As skiing became more popular, skiers started demanding that the slopes be groomed.  Nature was no problem but not everyone wanted to ski moguls.  This Bradley Packer was a way to reduce the mogul's and keep snow on the trails by flattening the snow.  "It was a pretty scary thing" supervisors claimed.  Grooming was soon transferred to a line of tracked vehicles now known a "Snowcats". 

 

Stephen served as President of the NSAA (National Ski Areas Association) and helped organize Colorado Ski Country USA and the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board before his death in Longmont November 13, 2002.  You can find him as an honored member of the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame and in the National Ski Hall of Fame.

 

Topic: Biographies

Redwood Fisher

Article contributed by Corinne Lively

There were two Redwood Fishers, grandfather and grandson, who made significant contributions to the development of the Grand Lake area. 

One of the earliest pioneers was the senior Redwood “Woody” Fisher, born in Urbana, IL in 1839.  He learned surveying skills in New Jersey, and received a degree in Civil Engineering in New York City, where he met his future wife, Louise Perrenoud.  He arrived in Denver in June 1860 and borrowed money to purchase his first surveying instruments.  His bride to be, her two sisters and widowed father arrived in Denver in July 1862 in a mule drawn ambulance. They had traveled for six weeks from Omaha to deliver the vehicle which was used as an ambulance and hearse.  The first marriage license in Denver was issued to Woody and Louise, and their wedding took place May 6, 1865. 

The day after his marriage to Louise, Woody joined General Hughes and E.L. Berthoud as Chief Surveyor in building the wagon road from Denver to Provo, Utah over Berthoud Pass.  The expedition followed a route laid out by Jim Bridger. 

Woody held the offices of Denver city and county surveyor and county commissioner.  He was foreman of Hook and Ladder Co. #1, and helped fight many Denver fires. 

In May 1870, Woody was killed attempting to stop a runaway team of horses at the corner of California and 14th Streets.  While trying to save the lives of several children, he fell and the wagon wheels ran over him.  Woody left his wife with three children, Louise, Charles and Ella.  He is buried in Riverside Cemetery.

Redwood must have spoken in glowing terms about his time in Grand County since his son Charles, only two when his father was killed, spent most of his life near Grand Lake, built a summer home on the North Inlet below the Rapids Lodge, purchased 160 acres on the east side of the Colorado River from the Fred Selak estate.  He died here in August 1945.  Charles and his wife Sara had a son in May 1907, whom they named Redwood.

The junior Redwood “Red” Fisher also spent most of his life in the Grand Lake area.  He was an early Park ranger and helped stock many of the high lakes on horseback.  After his marriage to Helen Schultz in 1928 he started ranching below the present Shadow Mountain dam on land purchased from Mrs. Cairns.  He later acquired the 7V/ on Stillwater Creek.  He was President of the Colorado Dude Ranch Association in 1947 and traveled to conventions in Chicago and elsewhere promoting Colorado’s guest ranches with displays of fancy roping and riding.  His own dude ranch, Fisherancho, was on the land below Shadow Mountain Dam and served guests until the 1950s.  The barn still stands, and is now part of the Arapahoe Recreation Area. 

Sources:
Lela McQueary, Widening Trails, World Press, 1962
Middle Park Times, August 12, 1945 and May 6, 1993
Colorado Families: A Territorial Heritage, CO Geneological Society, 1981
Brand Book, Middle Park Stock Growers Assn.
BLM General Land Office Records
Conversations with local decendant Toots Cherrington


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)                     

Volunteer Fire Departments