Archives Oral History Lewis

Wilbur “Butch” Lewis
interviewed by Linda Bjorklund

July, 2002 at Hartsel Library.

Tape 1 side A

This is Linda Bjorklund and Wilbur Lewis and we’re going to talk about Hartsel history.

We moved into this house across the street which was an old railroad house, and bitter cold winters and of course there was no plumbing, my father worked in Denver during the war, we come out of Fairplay and he rode down there in prefabricated barges. We moved back here and mom moved out of a nice house in Denver with all the plumbing and everything and of course this didn’t have any plumbing at all and the old outhouses in the back yard. And we about froze to death that winter. We moved back to where the post office is now. That was an old restaurant there at one time, but my granddad lived in there one time after it was a restaurant and my great grandmother a few years before she died. Anyway the town pump was there that furnished water to everybody in about every direction. Gene Klein had his own water and both of the Lockes had water and they were the few. And Mrs. Clevenger had water, but the rest of us had to use that town pump.

Now when you say they used the town pump, did they just bring a bucket over there and dip it out?

You just brought a bucket and you had a dipper in that bucket. My granddad was awful bad about taking the dipper out and drinking about half of it and throwing the water back in the bucket, which really grossed my mother out. She didn’t like that at all. The house right by the great big red barn that was an old livery barn. The house that sits in next to the hillside belonged to Carl Bagge. He worked for Frank Turner about 1917 and he was very deaf. He moved into Hartsel and just lived on an old age pension was all he ever had. My dad would cut his hair, and Carl didn’t smell real good, because he had no way of taking a bath. And my dad would cut his hair periodically; it was quite a trial for him. He took care of the old man that way. It’s hard to describe on tape the houses I’m talking about. To the right, west of here, the house that’s painted with red trim and the white. That was the post office at one time, probably in the thirties.

Who lived in there?

Mary McArthur lived there, and her daughter Julia is in one of these pictures and she had a son Eddie McArthur. He ranched for a while and they both disappeared. I don’t know where they are. And when I come to school here I was in the second grade. And there were two kids Bill Locke and Merrill Weeks in the fourth grade. And I think the Klein girls, Janet Klein was in about the sixth or seventh grade and Betty Jean would have been in high school in this building and the addition on the back of that old grade school building set in between. That’s the one that they brought in from out south; they called it the Sunny Slope.

I never figured out exactly where that was. Do you know?

I used to know and I don’t think I could honestly show you right now. It was out on 9 and on beyond the hill out there.

Was it anywhere near Balfour?

I was trying to think where it would be, in relation to Balfour, possibly beyond Balfour. And that was another thing I wanted to bring in to the issue, about the pond out at Balfour was not the water works for Balfour. Emil Worling dug that pond in 1946 with my granddad’s bulldozer. And there’s no–there’s an old homestead building but it wasn’t part of Balfour. But you can see where the building set out there. When Gene Klein was young he told me that there was part of a hotel left out there and they just left the papers all over the floor when they moved out, they just moved out, you know. Balfour was just kind of a promotional town; they were going to promote mining out there, as you may well know. They had rail cars over by the depot and they had bunting? On them and they had “Balfour Mining Company” painted on the side and it was just full of country rock but they said that was the west end of the Cripple Creek lode, and it wasn’t. They never had anything out there, it was all promotional.

No they had more liquor licenses than they had gold out there.

Yeah, there were little prospect holes and they tried prospecting, but it didn’t ever amount to anything. Back to the school–the first year I was here they still had high school in the building here, and we had the graduation up in the hotel and they cleaned out enough of the hotel--it had been abandoned for several years--and they kind of pushed the beer kegs back and there was booze, and still had the bottles on the table and they just kind of pushed everything back and set up chairs. I was in the second grade in the class of 1956 as they put in that brochure and I had a little piece to say. And of course they had the graduation, and they had the eighth grade graduation, which I think was Sally Poyner, I need to look in there to make sure I’m not reading somebody in there that wasn’t. But that’s about my earliest remembrance. The eighth grade graduates were JoAnn Makings, Martha Rose Poyner, which we called her Sally. Senior was Colleen Green. And there’s a picture of Colleen Green.

Does Colleen Green still live around here? Duley Canterbury talks about Curly Green.

No that was a different Green. Does Mary Green still live here? That was Curly’s wife. They come here and worked on the Hartsel Ranch. Mary was a hard worker. She was never bigger than a minute, but she was an awful hard worker. Curly was a talented fellow, he worked for the county for a little while when I worked for the county here a few years. He worked and was a welder and went on welding other places when they moved. Bill Locke was in school when I was here and Betty Anne. Betty Anne was his older sister and she went to Colorado Springs for part of her grade school education. Bill finished up here to the seventh grade like I did and we both went to Fairplay–took the school bus to Fairplay–and my dad died in 1953 and we moved back to Fairplay and then I moved back here in 1963 and went to work for the county. Got married in the house right behind the South Park Mercantile. It belonged to Ray and Bernice Mohr, at that time it was Harry Locke’s old house. Grandmother Locke was here when I first come. I know she has a name but it was Grandmother Locke to us. Rob Hill was her brother and he worked at the filling station across the street. He was very deaf and he sang very loud and he had a good voice but you could hear him from one end of town to the other. You always knew when Rob came in for the summer. He runs that filling station for them. And they hauled gasoline all over the country. Of course Lockes were already here. And over across in this little cabin by the red and white house a fellow there by the name of Dave Crouch; he was a government trapper, and he was with the bunch that got Old Mose down on Black Mountain, the big grizzly bear. And he had non-stop hiccups very bad. Mary McArthur lived next door and I made the mistake of calling him Mr. McArthur and not that he got mad about it, but my grandfather probably spit his cigar fifty feet when I told him how was Mr. McArthur. Dave had retired by then, he was too old to do anything, but he was a government trapper, and you probably know the story of Old Mose. There was a lady here at the time and her father was Horton Pettig and he was in on that. He was some of the bunch that killed Old Mose. Of course my granddad was commissioner here for thirty-two years.

Yah, I was going to ask about when he was commissioner and when he had the hotel.

Yes, he had the hotel. He got it about 1952. A fellow by the name of Bill Gaddis bought it and fixed it up, it was an old rambling wreck, and he fixed it up real nice. Bill was a uranium miner and he made big money probably two or three times in his life. The last time he struck it pretty good, and he moved out of Hartsel. They sold the hotel. My granddad sold his bulldozers and borrowed money from everybody in the country that he could because he didn’t have hardly any money. He bought that hotel; I think he gave $16,000 at the time. At that time they were living in Lake George and he went down and told his wife and I guess she was in tears for several days, because she knew at that time who was going to have to run the hotel. He wasn’t the greatest businessman in the world, but he had a couple of bulldozers and he did a lot of work around the area, and worked for the Hartsel Ranch. But anyway they were there several years. He was quite an outgoing, party type fella, he knew everybody in the world, you know. And of course, being commissioner, he knew everybody around and they had some pretty good dances up there, and he would have entertainment on the weekend. And that was when the skiing trade was really starting to pick up and he would hire a piano player and he’d have the bar, of course, and this was mid-way. And everybody’d stop at the Hartsel Hotel, which was called the Holiday Inn at that time; Bill Gaddis changed the name to the Holiday Inn, and that was before the hotel chains took over that name and guess there wasn’t any problem with that name–I never heard of a law suit or anything. But it went back to the Hartsel Hotel name after that. And he had that probably up until about 1960, somewhere in there, and they moved back to Lake George. Before he had the hotel, he lived up on the hill, what they called the Hillside Hotel, which is that big two-story building up there. It’s up on the side of the hill and that had a few rooms upstairs, and that’s all out of hewn logs, if you’re ever close enough to notice. I think it was built in 1909 from what history I can glean out of different books. And it was owned before he had it by a fellow named Scotty Gowell. Scotty had a laugh you could hear for several blocks. You could tell when Scotty was having a good time. They had the dining room and they served guests, and the people would be going through and look for a place to eat and they would serve out of the dining room.

I’ve read in the Flume’s some references to a place they called the ‘Club’ –would that have been it, do you think?

That would be the only place that I would know.

It didn’t sound like they were referring to the Hotel, because that would have been a separate place.

That would no doubt be the Club because that would be the only building in town big enough to have any meeting of any type.

When they had dances did they have dances at the Hotel over here on the corner?

Yes, the dining room was big enough for dances and the bar room was just off that. Before Bill Gaddis redid it he just had on the south wall, booths along that wall. I’m not sure exactly whether they had a bar at one time, it seemed like it wasn’t partitioned, it was just kind of one area. And of course your rooms were all upstairs. And I was noticing the pictures in your book and the hotel was laid out a whole lot different than I ever thought it was. I thought it had another addition going north and south, but evidently that was all in behind what I remembered of the hotel. And then was built between Mrs. Hanlin’s house and the hotel as it was. You couldn’t call it a story and a half; it was taller than her house. I think you have a picture in your book of that. And that was evidently that went in the fire. And I didn’t know about the South Park Mercantile being used out of remnants of the hotel. When we come here–I had been in there one time before we moved here, an old soda fountain set in where the restaurant part is now. And the other was the Mercantile. It was always divided as far as I can remember. And there was old horse collars and everything; they had stuff that had probably been in there sixty years at that time and never sold.

Here’s something that I’ve been wondering about–the South Park Mercantile was there and the Hartsel Mercantile was here and both of them were there for many many years–is there a reason that there were two mercantiles right across the road from one another?

Well, I think the main reason was the Klein family and the Locke family–the Lockes originally come from the Colton Ranch, after his dad come out of Trinidad; his dad was a deputy in Trinidad. Another interesting thing along that line was he had a gun belt and an old 45, what they called a Peacemaker, a single action 45, and on the side of this was a stud like a bolt. Instead of hanging in the holster it slipped in a metal clamp and you could swivel it or you could release that clip and pull that pistol out and you could swivel and shoot from the clip, that was the design of it. Anyway George Locke that probably his son still does wherever he’s at. Anyway they built the South Park Mercantile on the edge of what was an old building belonging to the Swift & Company. Swift & Company had what we called the Badger Springs Ranch, which is on the way to Fairplay. That was owned by Swift & Company at that time. Lockes I think started that mercantile in 1912, 1914, along in there. And they had a nice store; it was a good store at that time. The Hartsel Ranch did a lot of business there. And then there was a lot of homesteads at that time. And the McQuaid ranch, there was always a good spread out there. Although Tom bought out most of the homesteaders, that’s how he got all of his spread, was at fifty cents to a dollar an acre and that gave him enough money to move to Buena Vista or wherever they would be able to move to so that’s where he got his start. His wife had the original place up there. Tom had a little homestead north of there towards Fairplay and it was called the Hall Ranch, where the Salt Works is. That was owned by his wife and his wife’s sister, and he inherited that. His wife died around the thirties, in there. A very stately, nice lady, she was; you wouldn’t have thought of her being on the ranch. But her sister was quite well to do in New York, in the theater. If you’ve heard of the Antoinette Perry awards. Well maybe you know that part of the history. That was her sister that was there, Antoinette Perry was her mother. Tom at the time, and this is from remembrance of my aunt, Irene Wilcox; Kenneth Wilcox taught here, he taught in this building. But anyway she remembers Tom McQuaid as looking very much like Buffalo Bill, he had a big white beard, and he was quite a husky man. Tom is a story in himself. I don’t know as you know a lot about Tom. You had to treat Tom with kid gloves, because he was never the same from one day to another. A good friend one day and maybe not the next; he’d be mad about something. But you treated him with kid gloves, and he probably would, whatever you needed, if wanted to go fishing, why, you hit the right day, and Tom would probably let you go fishing or whatever you wanted to do. But he was still able to ride a horse when I was young. You’d have to kind of help him on the horse but he’d sit up there in that old sweater. Cowboys wore a lot of sweaters in those days, you know. I remember him, and they were branding up there and castrating. And he told my dad, he says; don’t feed any of those things to that young buck. But he took the lead into the castrating and he did go home and eat them. I didn’t know that you ever ate anything like that.

I have–Rocky Mountain oysters?

Yes, very popular thing. But you got them in the raw there and cooked your own, cleaned them up. They just threw them off to one side.

What else do you know about the Colton Ranch? I didn’t realize that the Locke’s had lived there.

Yes they lived there. And I’m not sure who originally the Colton’s were. That was a sheep camp more or less after Lockes left. And shearing sheds, the sheds are still there and I don’t know whether you can even go in them. But it seemed like they all run off a belt, those shears, you know. There was a shaft that would run perent’ near the length of that building and then they would, their shears would run off that belt in through a series of, there were rods that went down to the shear. But anyway, I think part of that may still be up there, the remnants of that. But I don’t ever remember any families living there, only just temporary somebody would live there and the kids would come in to school. And of course the Hartsel Ranch kids would come up to school. But there were never very many kids here in school as you can tell by the size of the buildings. But it did service the immediate area, and then you would have smaller schools all over. And my uncle, I don’t think he was superintendent, but he did take care of some of the schools, they were scattered out towards the Elkhorn, and in there. And then on, I’m trying to remember some of them, and of course Trump had its school. And I did stop by that place (Antero junction), and perent’ near got attacked by the dogs, but that lady said the south end of that building is the incorporated old Trump school.

Oh you stopped and talked to them?

Yeah. The dogs come on over and so I wouldn’t get out, I’ve got a little sense left. They were out in the yard, the lady that’s on the place. I just talked to her to find out if that’s where the Trump school was and to look at it. That’s the only place that it could be incorporated in there, on that south end. But that was an old filling station for years. Joe Poyner was out there at one time and a fella by the name of Carl Derr.

Okay, I’ve seen that name.

And Joe Poyner, you know the Poyners. He lived out what they called Pleasant Valley road. And it may still be listed. There was a road between highway 59 and Trump. And that was Pleasant Valley road and he lived out along there. And they had what they called Jamestown out there. Now all Jamestown was was four homesteads come together in a cross like that and they would build in those corners so that the ladies had some resemblance at civilization instead of being on a little cabin out quite a ways from anybody else and they could visit or fight or whatever they wanted to do.

I’ve seen that on a map, so I think I can pinpoint it. Were you in Trump?

No, Trump I know very little about.

Wasn’t there a store there?

Yes there was a store there at one time. And there are only remnants, there may be a log or two left. The last time I was out to Trump we used a road, not the one you’re using now, but just as you go just past the two peaks, there’s a little gate, and the Trump road took off right there. And it went in between seemed like maybe there was a dugout; there were two buildings that were left that I remember and you couldn’t tell what they were, by that time they were pretty well fallen down. But the Poyners, if you could get a hold of Sally Poyner, I’m not sure, but the last I knew she was in Glenwood Springs. If you can get to that Trump old-timers picnic, that’s the only way you’re going to get anything on Trump, because it was abandoned probably twenty years by the time we even moved here. So it’s just a memory.

What do you know about Glentivar?

There were two Glentivars. The one that’s on the highway now. Then you go south about half a mile and you’ll intersect the old road, before they built 24, that was the old road. And there should be maybe remnants of a building there, and that was the old Glentivar.

Oh, so there were two of them. Wasn’t there a furniture repair shop in earlier days?

That I don’t know, it could have been earlier. The only person I knew that was around that store that was out on 24, was Herman Krauth, Herman and Martha Krauth. Where they came in from I don’t know, but they run that store. Her father was a candy maker and she would make that type of fancy candy occasionally for Christmas. But they run a little old gas station there and he worked on cars a little bit and they had four kids that I knew of and they may have had another. There was a girl and three boys. They later moved to Canon City, but I don’t think anybody had the store after that. And it burnt down. I worked on the highway out here and I picked up a fella, he was wanting to come into Hartsel to get some help, he had broke down out there. For some reason we discussed the Makings place, and he said, you know, one of these days that’s going to burn, too. And you know I thought that was a really funny thing for somebody passing through to say. And I thought, I wonder if that was part of the reason it burned, but he probably just said that in passing because nothing burned out there. I just thought it was a strange to say–why this burned, I don’t know. Probably somebody just fiddling around in the old store, you know, and caught it on fire, maybe smoking or something. But there wasn’t much left of the old Glentivar that I ever seen when I was a kid. There was a kind of an old remnant of a store building and then kind of a log building that set beside it which could have been an old garage or horse shed or something like that. That’s all I remember of Glentivar. Then off towards Sulphur Mountain I think I mentioned that’s where that old hotel set. I think it was just bigger than the average house. But it dates way back because I read in a book where fossil hunters came into Colorado in the 1870's and they stopped at that hotel and stayed three or four days. I’ll find that book and give you the reference. They mentioned a place on farther down towards Eleven Mile, and it wasn’t familiar to me but I’m sure that from the 1870's to the 1940's and 50's it either disappeared or nobody knew anything about it. But he named the ranch, and I’m not sure whether he named the Spinneys. There was two Spinney places, upper and lower, and the lower is in the lake now, I guess. One time I was told and I believe it was by Mrs. Buckley that all those houses were built with two stories.

Tape 1 side B

They could see from one house to another at night and if their lights were out they knew there was something wrong. And when her family moved in here, of course, there were still Indians. They come over Kenosha Pass in 1871, and moved down to the Harrington place. It’s that big long building, set in the hill; it was a white building. Buckley set up this way from it. There were three brothers that I know of: Chester, Arthur and Doc Buckley. Arthur had the bigger place, its still the white house sitting there. And then these cabins across in back of the fire house–they were moved in from the Buckley place down there, they moved them in. And I talked to the lady that owned those and I couldn’t tell her if they were older than the frame house or not. I remember them setting there, but I never knew why there were cabins along with the house. Maybe somebody else lived there at the time, one of his brothers or something. But on to the east there are remnants of little cabins right by the creek, that was what they called the Doc Buckley place. And then the Chester Buckley place was on the river. And they were sheep people. Mrs. Harrington come from cattle men. There’s a Harrington place that belonged to her brothers over on highway 285. The big building is gone. There’s a log cabin there which I think was part of the original buildings, and then there’s a newer–I think a trailer set in there. But I never heard that they looked down on the sheep end of the family. But Arthur and Mrs. Buckley would spend winters in Florida and I don’t think the Harrington’s ever had that luxury. They stayed with the cattle and I think they did fine. But at that time sheep were really good. And the three brothers had run sheep and I think they run probably both sides of the road down there because McDannel didn’t have it at the time. He bought it later on. About the time that Art was old enough to retire, and McDannel started buying everybody out that he could to extend his ranch out.

Didn’ t one of the Harringtons marry a Buckley?

Yes Mrs. Buckley was a Harrington, was a sister to the two brothers that were over on 285. Like I said, her folks come over Kenosha Pass in 1871, and they had the old ox bow, where it went I don’t know, it hung in the garage for years. And there was a grandson, and he might have inherited that. There was a son that lived in Colorado Springs, I don’t know whether he’s still alive, they called him Bud Buckley. And there was a daughter, and that daughter moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and her son would come up in the summer time and he might have inherited that old thing. Or maybe the son did, I don’t know whether they had children. I didn’t know them very well because they had moved out of here by the time we were acquainted with the Buckleys.

Duley Canterbury tells that the main part of the Buckley house was forded across the river, it used to be on the other side of the river, is that true?

Yeah, All of those houses were down on the river, including somehow that Harrington place. And I just took it that that main part that is by the highway is what they moved. I think that big long part was built after they moved there. The smaller end of it that would be kind of sitting east and west with the road there. I think that’s the part they moved in. They lined up with the Spinney. The Spinney house was down there at that time. They moved the Spinney house, which was quite a good sized house. But it lined up with the lower Spinney, and they were all on that line. Why they moved them I don’t know, whether the river was moving around or what, but anyway they moved them up onto better ground. They’re all old places at Spinney. I don’t know the history of the Spinney people except that doing my family history I corresponded with a lady and was talking about my great grandmother, and they lived in Colorado Springs, and my great grandfather was a wagon maker down there. But anyway, she mentioned that Mrs. Spinney was a good friend of hers. I said that I didn’t know that they had lived in Colorado Springs, and maybe it wasn’t the same people. She looked it up and on the census it listed them in Colorado Springs and also South Park. So I don’t know whether they went back and forth, maybe the ladies didn’t like the ranches, I don’t know.

The Spinneys were close to Howbert, weren’t they?

Lower Spinney it would have been. The Upper Spinney was close, just below the Hartsel Ranch in that big building down there. There were evidently two brothers from what we got out of the census. And so the main house that’s at the Hartsel ranch now was moved and it was pretty close–I don’t think it was at Howbert–but it was pretty close.

It seems like the ranch was close to Howbert, maybe not in Howbert but close to it.

Yah, I can’t tell you exactly where Howbert is, but when you go down that county road right by the south side of Eleven Mile, and you turn and you go south up over the hill, and there’s quite a curve and the railroad grade keeps going. Well, right about in that area, if you would look straight to the north, was where Howbert was. Of course, it’s long since been buried under water. And it was one they just pulled up and abandoned and stuff left in the houses, and everything, nothing valuable but papers.

Now you mentioned the main house. There are two houses there now on the Hartsel ranch. There’s the house that the caretakers live in and then there’s what they call the club house, and it’s got rooms that they rent out.

I’d have to look but I think the one as you go right in the gate, that was the Rogers ranch–Harvey Rogers. Harvey was another interesting guy and then his son Henry was just as interesting. I don’t know whether it was true, but Harvey had a couple of hands and evidently didn’t get along with them too well. They got mad and they quit and they found Harvey tied to a post down there; they tied him up and tied him to a post and just took off. Now I don’t know whether his boys found him or not. But there was two Rogers boys and I only knew Henry when he was an old man. He gave me an old Frazer saddle that belonged to his dad. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Frazer, but that was a big deal saddle company out of Pueblo. Frazer and Gallup–they were together at one time, and Frazer saddles were–there are still a lot of Frazer saddles. He started in 1880 and Gallup started in 1870. But I’m getting out of the country now.

So anyway the two houses on the Hartsel ranch–one of them is the Rogers house and the other one was moved in, too, right?

Most of them all but one or two buildings were moved in there. I think one little house set there that I can remember not being moved. But McDannald moved a whole lot of them in. He hired a, I’ll say a contractor, I guess he was, he had an old truck and they had a set of logs out there, a set of wheels and he moved cabins in and there was a fellow by the name of Ed Brown would come in and he’d carpenter and he fixed up all the houses as they brought them in. He stayed on as long as there was a Hartsel ranch. Harvey Fickle was a mechanic and he moved down, when McDannald sold out he still had that ranch down there by Denver, the Ken Caryl. That was a showplace, it was a real showplace. And they both went down there with him as I recall. And of course he sold the whole works. I think he got about six and a half million maybe seven out of the Ken Caryl, and that was big money at that time. Because somebody had offered him five, and he said well, if they offered me five they’ll offer me six. It wasn’t that a million dollars meant anything to McDannald, it didn’t. He sold six hundred thousand acres in old Mexico at one time, for probably fifty cents an acre, you know, nobody gave much. McDannald was an interesting man, he was a roughneck in the oil fields and he took up leases and he sold those leases and he become a millionaire in the oil fields. He lived in Houston in the Shamrock Hotel which was quite a big thing at the time, he had the penthouse up on top. And he had houses all over. He fixed up the old original Hartsel house down on the main ranch, and of course it burned completely up, but he had marble floors and a big marble fireplace and it was a real show house, at that time worth fifty thousand and of course nobody had a house worth fifty thousand except McDannald.

When did that burn?

You know I don’t want to tell you a year and be off, but it was probably in the late fifties, because it was before they moved the Rogers place in there, that burned down. It set a different direction than the buildings, now its more north and south, kind of a long, narrower house. There ought to be pictures someplace, I wish I could tell you somebody that had these pictures.

Dick Grommet says that he has a bunch of pictures of the old Hartsel place, but I’ve been a year trying to get them from him. We toured the place and you can see where the foundation was for the old house, so I was just curious when it burned, and then the Rogers house got moved in there. Where did you say the other house came from?

The other I don’t know.

He did say the cabins all came from Howbert.

You know I would question that. No they didn’t come from Howbert. Howbert was gone at that time. Those cabins came from all over. They might have been in that area, I wouldn’t question that they came from that area down in there. But Eleven Mile was there for probably twenty-five years at the time. But they extended the dam on the Eleven Mile; they raised it, and that’s why they moved the Rogers house. Now there could have been two or three of those cabins in there. I wouldn’t question that part of it. I don’t remember them, but there is a lot I don’t remember about cabins that set all over the area. Because there were a lot of homesteaders, you know, and those cabins set all over the place. And he moved them in. He destroyed a lot of cabins because he didn’t want to pay taxes on them. If it had a roof on it you payed taxes like it was a house. Well, he didn’t want to do that. He pushed down a lot of them and maybe just tore the roof off of them. Those weren’t--some had been moved before.

Dick’s not real good on history.

And somebody could have told him that, but Howbert was not–there was nothing left, it was the earliest I can remember and I couldn’t tell you when they put Eleven Mile in.

Well, I’ve gotten as far as 1933 in the Flume’s and that’s when they bought the last property for the Eleven Mile project. It had pretty much been abandoned by then.

That’s probably about right. I hauled gravel–I worked for a contractor named Clare Hall–and I hauled gravel from the pit up across from Alma, and I hauled it down there and that’s when they extended the height of Eleven Mile. And that was the time that they would have taken in the house that’s down on the Hartsel ranch, and that’s why they moved it. It would have been partially under water, at least because the lake had come up quite a ways.

It’s pretty interesting the way they moved houses and buildings all over the county.

Yah, it is when you get to thinking about it. Because there’s a lot of them here, you know. Of course that set right in back of where that seven-eleven type place is over here.

Somebody else had written something about Hartsel in the thirties, and she said this building used to be the old laundry building for the hotel, that would have been around 1915.

That could be, and then they had the school house in there later. That could be because it set right in that complex.

She also said that they moved it when the hotel got a liquor license. But it’s really interesting that they had the little Sunny Slope school in the middle here.

Yah, it sat in there.

And do you know why they attached it to the back of the other one?

They wanted bathrooms, I think it was at the time they started using that for–well that was even while they had school there that they put that in there. It was after I left. I went to the eighth grade, that was in ‘52. Yah, in ‘52 I went up to Fairplay. We were still living here and my dad died in ‘53 and then mom and I moved up to Fairplay again. But they didn’t have the bathrooms on, it still set in the middle. The exact date they moved that I don’t know. And the windows–I tried to tell the fellow that did the history on the school–and I don’t know as I could really put the date on when they changed those windows. They were old windows kind of like that one setting in there. That type of window–it seemed like, in theory, that lower part would have raised at one time. But that was the type of windows that were in there. And then they had this type of blackboard and they did change that before I left. And it was all old and crinkly, they just painted over, probably like a beaver-board. And that was our blackboards. And I think the cabinets with some of the books are still in there, as I recall last I walked in the door.

There are some of the older books from the fifties there.

We didn’t have the luxury of having books that were made in the fifties–we had them twenties, thirties, probably early forties would have been a new book to us. Well, it would have been at the time of course. But even into the fifties we kept the Dick and Jane. I should have a song book from--This was District 8, Hartsel. There was names in there I had no idea, but they were homesteader people, and they had come and gone. Most of them moved out, like I said, they gave them a dollar an acre and that was not too bad a money to move someplace on. Because they had no water like they do now. They didn’t have the springs that were piped in and the stock tanks, and it was a real starve-stead. They just didn’t have anything.

You mentioned to me on the phone about that water wheel, that that wasn’t Hartsel that put that water wheel.

No, Gene Klein did that to put electricity into Hartsel. Part of that is sitting in the middle of the railroad grade which didn’t come out till 1918. And you said that maybe there were some of the wooden pipes left?

I have not been able to see any.

They were about six foot in length, tapered on the end, and the taper would fit into the next one. They had a boring bar. And they would make that taper. And they ran all the way to the Hartsel ranch, and they dug up a bunch of them at one time. And the last one I knew I had when I worked on the county over there, just part of one, and I didn’t take it home, which was a mistake. Next thing I looked it was sawed up and used for firewood.

I think they’re all gone. Now where did that wheel sit–right in the middle of the river?

They run a channel right in there. The river kind of turned in there. But they had a box and they channeled the water through there. Is the metal part still over there?

Yah, there’s not much of it, but yah.

That set kind of–there was a frame and it set in there. And the wood part set to one side. And I’m not exactly sure what Gene had fixed up there. But I know he put a generator, and whether he actually had any success in getting electricity over here or not, I don’t know, but that’s where it set. And then there was an old highway bridge, a road bridge just right across–I just went over there and looked and I don’t know whether I can see remnants of where it used to be, but there was a little bit to the top of it–you couldn’t have drove across. But that was the old highway that set in there. And then I was going to tell you over by the bath house the carriage road that come and it went past the depot and over to the bath house. There was a cross piece setting in there on three uprights. It looked more or less like an oxbow, but anyway that was a bridge that he put in there. And that was put together with wooden pins. It was that early. And the remnants may still be laying in the swamp there. The water didn’t used to be built up that way. There was a pipe that went across that irrigation ditch–underneath–that was a cast iron pipe, as I recall, at least a metal pipe. And it went out and went across the river, and then it went into the wooden pipe from there on. It turned and went towards the Hartsel ranch, but they piped it. But you didn’t have that buildup of water. It all drained. It drained from–there was a cement slab where that little bath house set–it drained from that ditch. And it went across the road in the culvert and into that other pipe. There’s a cement trough that sits down from the big bath house and according to the pictures I’ve seen there was a building over that at one time. I don’t remember, and there’s a round place where the spring bubbles out. But it bubbled up there and then it also bubbled up by the little bath house. And I think that was the one that they piped down to the ranch from there on. I think this other may have run out and run over into that, I can’t remember.

We should get over there and take a look at it. We’ll have to open a gate, but I think that’s okay. And if you can tell me where all the little bath houses were. Because there’s like a caved in pile of lumber on one spot. And there’s a concrete platform, it looks like where they might have put chairs, where the spring still bubbles up. And then in back of that on the river, there’s some more looks like something that caved in.

Yah, they said the original bath house set down in the bottom right straight north and down over the hill from where the big one is. I’m just kind of drawing what used to be there. This is the big bath house. Cement tank up on the hill. They pumped water at one time up to that and cooled it. And that was your was your cool water for this. Okay over here is probably the remnants of the slab you were talking about. Now this is where they said the original–what they had--I don’t think it was a bath house, I think you set there and soaked your feet in that mud.

They actually sold mud from what I read.

It’s a really oozy terrible mud. Now this they tell me is the older bath house, and it had two tubs set over in this end kind of up on the higher part of it. And then there was a lower part over in here. And there was a pump that set down in here. And even when I moved back–I went to the army in ‘61-‘63, and I come back, and I could still go over there and start that pump and take a bath. I lived up on the hill by the big house or the old hotel and there was no way of taking a bath up there. But I’d go over there and the Hartsel ranch guys would do that a lot, too. They kept it there, they kept those two cast iron tubs.

That may be one of the ones that’s sitting in the middle of the river over there now.

Before I think there was a ladies side which was the east side. The men’s side was the west side. It was divided in the middle. And they had three or four tubs and there was just little wooden dividers and you had a bench and everything. And there was a little porch, an inside porch in here and then an outside porch, kind of like this. Kind of even in the back, but this was enclosed and they would take the money in there and there were old wicker chairs. And then these were divided. I know there were three, if not four, in each side. And you would have a little entrance here with a curtain. And then a big old cast iron tub in either one. This one as far as I know–it wasn’t big enough to have anything other than two tubs.

The lumber I was telling you about is kind of right here, where it looks caved in. Maybe if you take a look at it you can tell what it was. Now the cemetery is on top of the hill–was anybody buried there when you were living here?

No the only stone there was the old gray one, Florence Donaldson, I think that was 1909 if my memory serves me. There is a later one, there was a lady and she died out at Balfour.

Balfour,

I found her obituary, but I could never find Florence Donaldson’s obituary. Did you know the Donaldsons?

No, I don’t know if they were related to anybody. They later moved the Hartsel people. They were buried there and moved out. Now that may have been where the little fences–there was a bigger fence and a smaller fence.

I assume the fence that’s all broken down used to be the Hartsel plot.

I never had anybody tell me for sure, but I just figured it was. I don’t know of anybody else that would have taken the care to do that.

But it seems like 1908 or thereabouts was the last time anybody was buried there.

We were cutting down that hill by the Hartsel barn, the county barn, the old barn was in there at the time. We were cutting that down and some people came in they had a pickup and they were unloading that tombstone and they asked where the cemetery was, and I said its on top of that hill. And they said, boy we’ve got a job, we’ve got to take this up there. And they had sacks of cement. And I said, no you don’t. And I motioned the loader driver over and we loaded it in the bucket and the cement and he took them on top of the hill. And it’s just placed–they don’t know where the grave is, it’s just a location.

So which one was that?

It would have been the lady that died in Balfour. It wasn’t Florence.

Morse.

Morse, is that the name? I only seen the stone once when they were moving it up there. I think it was probably a great-aunt of his.

There is a fellow related to the Morse’s that lives up in Boulder or thereabouts and I’ve traded emails with him, but I can’t find anything about Donaldson. The obituary wasn’t in the paper that year.

Well so many years they didn’t have anything out of Hartsel. They would come and go.

Mrs. Spencer did it later on. She lived up on the hill.

She lived up on the hill? Near what used to be a hotel?

No, it would be this side of it. Not the first building as you top the hill, but the second. There’s kind of a garage built on it and everything.

We should drive around.

Yah, we’ll make a tour and I’ll try to make sense out of what I’ve been trying to tell you. Because it’s hard to sit here and tell you where somebody lived, you know and make any sense.

Which house is the Kleinknecht’s?

It’s the one that actually looks pretty decent. It’s the yellow one. Then the one on south over this side of where the hotel set. Do they have a gift shop, I see open signs in there?

The gas station?

This place is all junked up now.

Oh, it’s a real estate office now.

The Kleinknecht sisters used to live in there.

The owner of the red buildings used to be Betty Jean Klein–her name is DePietro now.

Tape 2 side A

Looking up you’re already close, when there’s a mansion

You know, I’ve heard some things from Duley Canterbury and I’m going interview Betty Jean–and do you know Marie Chisolm? I’ve interviewed her. It’s so interesting when they all come together.

Did Marie and Betty Jean go to school together?

Yes, and Marie gave me Betty Jean’s number.

Marie lived right in back of us, her and her husband and I worked with Don.

In Fairplay?

Yes, My grandfolks had a filling station there and a cabin camp and they lived right to the north of them. And then both of their children grew up there. I didn’t know Marie too well, just occasionally talked back and forth. And I didn’t know her school history, I didn’t know who she went to school with, and so many of them I didn’t know at that time. And I didn’t know Betty Jean. But anyway back to Betty Jean’s husband, he was a coach and not in great health, and he died at a fairly early age. And I can’t remember what they had for children. But she will fill you in on her history. But Betty Jean was still in school when I first came here and her younger sister Janet was here in the pictures. And JoAnn Brownlee was a daughter of Alice. Alice was a Klein, Olga was a Klein. But she will fill you in on that. Trying to think where to go from here. Harold Douglas--Harold and Marge Douglas bought Klein’s store. Harold was a hard worker and he bought the Klein house where the sisters lived over next to that little roadway. He fixed it up quite a bit. Harold never had a lot of money but he worked hard. And they kept the restaurant going in there and a little bit of store goods. And he would haul coal clear from Canon City and they had a coal furnace in there and it had a stoker. And a friend of mine and I would fill it at night. We would unload the coal for him. I don’t think that part is even on the store anymore. But he had the cabins and put in a well house and I think probably the well house still serves the store at least. And you could go get a bucket of water for the houses and the cabins, they were never modern, at that time, at least. I notice one of the cabins is moved someplace over here in town. But they were fisherman cabins. Mrs. Caylor lived right across here and she taught school. She taught several years when the grade school was still here, before Marilyn Smith. And I don’t know whether Marilyn came down right after Mrs. Caylor left or not. Mrs. Caylor taught at another school, if the map is right and my recollection is right, on beyond Glentivar and a little bit to the north. There’s some people in there by the name of Heisler. Both Heisler boys came to school here, I don’t know why they came to Hartsel to school, but my uncle had them in school, because–I don’t think this will bother anybody telling it now–they were very poor. They were on a homestead out there. The one Heisler boy that was in school at this time–this would have been in the thirties–he would never eat with the rest of them. And finally my uncle got a little bit nosy, and he would kind of saunter by. And day after day all that boy had was a boiled potato. And so my uncle just happened to have an extra part of a sandwich. You know I don’t dare take this home, the wife will be mad if I do, would you go ahead and eat it for me. The kid knew what was up but he didn’t say. When they got out of school he brought my aunt a nice little old yellow arrowhead, that was all he had to give her, you know, but he knew where those extra sandwiches came from and why they did. People were poor at that time, but he just was ashamed of that potato. But I don’t know why they came to Hartsel. Maybe they lived a little closer at that time, but I think they’ve got a development in where the old house used to be, the homestead. And there was a sister of the Heislers and they had a store in Lake George. I think there may be a brother left. Henry Heisler was alive the last I knew living in Lake George. But that was ten years ago. Mrs. Caylor had her ninetieth birthday, I went down to that. And they lived down at the edge of Eleven Mile and they would stay in the cabin during the week and her sons stayed here and went to school in Fairplay. They both graduated in Fairplay. I don’t know how long she taught after the boys graduated. Bobby would have graduated around 1952 and that may have ended that. Marilyn may have took it after that, I think they have some history on Marilyn.

Marilyn married a Johnson, and she was supposed to have been the last teacher who stayed here when it was a teacherage. Do I have the facts right? Was this used as a teacherage after the high school went up to Fairplay?

I couldn’t dispute that, but I don’t know that it was. It just seemed like it was kind of abandoned. I don’t recall–maybe somebody did live here, but I don’t know.

She supposedly was the last teacher to be here, and she lived in here. Apparently there were some outhouses in the back.

I think that may have been one of the original ones. There were two just alike. And there was a bigger one, and it sat about where this one sits. I don’t think that’s the right location. This is changed, because our ball field was right out here, the ball park in Hartsel.

About where the fire station is?

Yes. The screen set right out here. We had a screen, and there were three or four big poles and they had chicken wire to keep it. And I think it was originally–see all the towns had a team. Harry and George Locke were on it and I think probably Gene Klein. And that was their ball field and it kind of angled out that way. There was a fence–that would have set inside of the schoolhouse fence.

They talk a lot about track meets–was that over here, too?

Yes, I think it was probably out in that area if it was big enough. When my uncle was here–Kenneth Wilcox and John Wilcox–they had the county track meet here one year because they didn’t have a good track anyplace else. That was probably originally where they had the teams come in from Fairplay. (Brought out pictures of Fairplay and the dredge and the Fairplay ball team, and of the South Park City.) I’ve got a lot of Fairplay pictures, it’s just Hartsel that I don’t have.

(Pause to go to the school house next door for the bathroom.)

You know when we’d have an art project. We did art even when this was a high school building. This was our art–when we had a class on like Friday afternoons, you come over here and did what you did. I recall making one little old scene that had deer in it and everything you cut out. I thought they looked like deer at the time. I think I’ve still got them and they look like very bad stick animals, way thicker than they ought to be. Okay, what can I tell you that you may be wondering about?

A couple of things came to mind. When I was looking for Trump–you know where Ranch of the Rockies is? Clear at the south end of it, there is what looks like a homestead that looks like it could have been a store. There is a sign on it that says “Gibson.” Did you know any Gibson’s?

No that name really escapes me.

JoAnn, when we emailed back and forth, said she went to a school called “Fairview,” when they lived in Glentivar and that would have been where you were describing earlier.

I think that was where Mrs. Caylor taught. I made a copy of that, and I could kick myself, because I made some copies to bring up. It didn’t show the highway, but it showed the teachers in this area. It showed Mrs. Caylor out there and somebody at Trump. I also made a copy of the listing of schools at that time. And they listed the teachers at Trump, there are two listings of them. If you’ll give me your mailing address I’ll get this stuff to you. And I’ll try to make notes on the back.

Another guy that does history, Jerry Davis, has pointed out a building down by the Buckley ranch, just on the other side of it, there is a cluster of outbuildings, they’re abandoned now. One looks different than the rest of them. It has kind of a rounded roof. Jerry thinks that is the old Fairview school. Would you have any recollection of that?

If I don’t have my Buckley’s mixed up, that was possibly Doc Buckleys. There were two Buckleys. Art had the big house and Doc and Chester–I’m not sure which came first–Doc or Chester, but they both lived kind of along the river. And maybe that school is in there. Those things happen.

That may have been Doc’s place then. Okay, back to the schools. Tell me what the inside was laid out like. The desks, and there was a piano, I understand.

Just comparing it to this room. You come in and we had the little hallway where we hung up our coats, the rope hung down to ring the bell. There was a blackboard right across here, about where those photos were taken of the kids in the grade school. There was a blackboard in there, the cabinets, the piano set right about in that area at that time. Now maybe it set different at other times, but that’s where Mrs. Caylor had it. The desks would have set in the far right hand end of the room. There was a stove in the middle on the east end. That little table would have set on the south end. Now that’s just how we arranged it when I was there. I’m sure it moved a million times. Your rows of desks came back, there were about three rows. Of course the old cabinets are still there. There are cabinets on either side as I recall, I believe they’re both still there. And the songbooks set over here. But the piano would have set on beyond this cabinet.

There’s a window pretty close to there.

I think it possibly set not at a straight angle. It wasn’t flat against the wall as I recall. We didn’t use the cabinets much. We used the little yellow songbooks. I think they were in pretty bad shape.

When you were there, were the floors wood?

Yes, much like this.

And what was the ceiling?

I think the ceiling was your typical wood ceiling about the same height, but it looked a good deal like wainscoting.

I thought it might have been plaster, but it was wood, huh?

Yes it was wood, I don’t think there was ever plaster there, unless it was later on.

Eventually we’d like to get grant money to refurbish back to the way it was, but we didn’t know what the ceilings and walls were. Of course there’s wainscoting there, but were the walls plaster?

Now I may be wrong, there may have been some plaster, in between the blackboards. I can’t remember wainscoting going but about the height that wainscoting normally went.

Were the same blackboards in there?

You know it runs in my feeble mind that we got green blackboards in there. And they originally were–like what was called a beaver board. They were painted black. You couldn’t hardly write on them. They were replaced and there were better blackboards when I left.

And you said there was a stove in the corner. Was it a wood burning stove?

There was a wood burning stove when I first went there. Because this shed that sits on beyond your fence. That was our wood shed and it set inside the compound. And it was kind of divided and it was full of block wood. But they put an oil stove in there and it absolutely wouldn’t put out enough heat to heat a small room let alone that, and we’d go over to the cabin over here; she’d just bundle us up and we’d go across the street because her cabin was warm. We’d have our classes over there. You know when you’d get a thirty-two below zero morning you weren’t going to warm that building up.

No it’s pretty drafty in there still. We’ve got a furnace in there now, but it still takes a bit to heat it up.

It was just bitter cold in there. You’d just sit around with your big coats just like you came to school. Everybody wore two pair of pants and shirts and a big old sheepskin coat and that’s how you’d sit and have your class in. Your hands would get so cold you couldn’t write.

What was the lighting? There are fluorescent lights there now, but what was there then.

I think there were probably just bulbs, but for some reason I can’t remember the lighting. But I’m sure they were just probably a socket and bulbs, with a pull switch.

They’ve got that cork board now that I guess they might have had in the fifties, because didn’t they move to Fairplay in the early sixties?

I went into the army in 1961, but I was working down here. I don’t recall the school busses at that time.

I think they consolidated in 1961, but for a couple of years had overflow classes here. We’d eventually like to get the building back to what it was, because we’d like to get the schools on the historic register.

It seemed like we eventually got the fluorescent lights that hung down. I don’t know why I can’t remember the lighting. It seems like for as backward as we were at that time, it would have been really modern to have that kind of lighting. We were very backward here. You didn’t get a lot of good stuff in the Hartsel schools. You had what they had in the thirties and that was about it.

When the school was still being used, they talked in the newspaper about a community center. What building do you think that might have been? They still talked about the schools, and I can’t place where the community center might have been.

You know I can’t either. Because the hotel wasn’t used at that time. I’m talking about the late forties. There were no big buildings at that time that’s not here now. The stores were about as big and the hotel.

Would they have used this building, do you think?

That’s the only one I can think of. I think that would have been the only thing, that it would have been right here.

That makes sense, because they talk about the school and then they talk about the community center so it seems like it might have been a different building.

They did use this I’m thinking–I come down and I don’t know whether they were having a little dance or a just a party or something, but it was already in progress, and there were several cars here and I remember coming in and talking to a few people. But there was some function going on and that would have been in about the late fifties. This would have had to have been here. Everything was a private residence other than the stores, and the hotel–but it would have been listed as the hotel and not as a community center.

Were you around when the hotel burned in 1972?

We had moved to Fairplay by then. I remember when it burned all right, and was really shocked. The hotel was Hartsel, you know.

Looking at history, it just seems that Hartsel kind of died after that.

Yeah, it really did. You didn’t have all this crud around that you’ve got now. It wasn’t a great town, but you didn’t have junk cars and backhoes and this other kind of stuff that you’ve got now. See Dora Clevenger, and I’ll point out her house when we make our rounds, she owned this white and red house and the ones behind where the post office is now and the one to the north, I don’t know who’s living there, it’s in behind where that telephone place is that newer building. She owned kind of that block. Gene Klein owned the other end of town here plus out beyond here and these lots where the state barn is. And I bought, we lived over here in this little, I guess its still a white house, just beyond the fence here. We lived over there and I think I bought three more lots, I think I was on two lots and bought the three lots. And then he sold to the state and then he had out the old Richardson’s place, and I’m trying to think what Mr. Richardson’s name is. They lived as you go out highway 9, and 53 branches off to the right and you start up that hill, there is an angled road that angled back towards the river again. And their homestead, I think they brought some of the older buildings from that homestead and then he built the house. They lived out there for years. And he carried the mail between here and, he’d go up to Fairplay and get it and bring it to Hartsel and back and forth. And I know he’s got a name, but Richardson was the last name. I can’t remember the exact year he died, but I was pallbearer at the funeral.

I know that after 1907 or 1908 they didn’t use the Hartsel cemetery, but did they go to Fairplay, or where? Maybe wherever their relatives were. There are quite a few up in Fairplay, actually. And the Fannings went to Buena Vista.

I’m not sure if Gene’s buried over there or not, Gene Klein. Alice Klein was a Fanning.

I think the Klein’s may have gone more towards Canon City.

Possibly yes. It seems like there’s a Klein plot up in Fairplay. I think Gene’s dad is buried there. I can’t remember exactly where my grandfolks are buried and they’re buried in there.

In Fairplay?

Uh, huh. Angelos were their name, they come to Fairplay in 1932. They had a little filling station, it’s a residence now. The road used to go right where the highway is now, but it would go up through town and over the hill, by the Legion Hut, beyond there and to the left there was a little cabin camp there’s still a few cabins there. You’ll see where there is still a typical cabin.....

Tape 2 side B

Sometime in the seventies. I forgot to bring those papers. My mother’s sister married a fellow by the name of Wilcox and his dad built the monument to Prunes burro. Burt Wilcox was his name. I tried to save some of the little articles–my aunt had a scrapbook, and there were articles of when he taught down here. And listings of the teacherages and where the teachers were. And I especially wanted it because it did list the ones at Trump and they listed a high school at Trump, but somebody came in out of Buena Vista and probably used Lord knows what building, but they had a high school in it. It looked at that time like they didn’t have a grade school. Now that doesn’t make sense, but I’ll have to send you those listings and you can figure out better than I can, but it lists the teachers from Trump and Howbert and the different areas around.

Now you mentioned the Coopers–weren’t they from Trump?

Coopers were in the Trump area. They were out a little farther towards–between Trump and Antero Junction, in what they called Kaufmann Ridge. I’m sure I’ve been up there to their homestead but I didn’t know it at the time because they had moved out at that time. There were something like eight boys and three girls. Oral was living in Alamosa, and I copied his address so you could get his phone number. Because he is the only one I know his address. But he knows where the others are. There was an outfit out there by the name of Cashe Locke. If you run on across it that would have been a little bit east of Antero Junction and over Kidalva? Ridge over there. Leo Locke was his son and he moved to Buena Vista. He’s long since gone. But I mentioned him as being an old-timer and homesteading end of it. He would have been in the Trump area, probably went to Trump school. At least Leo would at one time

I definitely need to make the Trump reunion.

Yes that’s really important because I don’t where you’ll get anything on Trump otherwise. The Coopers and Leo and Betty Jean Klein would probably remember some of the people. And the Makings girls. I’m trying to remember which is Joanne and which is Bernice, if they were sisters. There were two Makings brothers that lived out there. Now Joanne was gone.

She gave me an email address of what she said was her cousin–was there a Kenneth Makings?

Yeah, I didn’t know him, but now that you mention it.

Wasn’t her dad Lew? He apparently owned that little building that’s abandoned now, but it used to be a service station that was on highway 24. Was it in operation when you were there?

The pumps were there and they were living there. I keep wanting to get Bernice in there. She is in that one picture. And I don’t know if they were cousins or sisters. I can’t remember that far back, because the year I came here, I think Bernice may have been in her last year. I don’t see Bernice on here but I see Joanne.

Bernice would have been a Makings? I’ll watch for that name.

Bernice married a little old fellow, what was his name, he was a musician. He was a live wire, and Bernice may be on her second word, by now, she didn’t talk much. He was a little old live wire, I’ll think of it here pretty soon, it doesn’t make a lot of difference but he played for a lot of bands–Jack Sparks. Her name may yet be Sparks if somebody hasn’t died and remarried there. Like I say, he was a little live wire, played the mandolin, just talking all the time. Bernice was probably bored after about the three hundredth dance, so she would just kind of sit there. She was good and she would sit through the whole works. At two o’clock in the morning she probably drove home, which was Colorado Springs at the time. I’m trying to see if there was any other name. Lester Ownbey, that would have been the Santa Maria ranch. I couldn’t have told you his name, except its down here.

Maurice?

Maurice’s father. You know Maurice?

One of the other gals did an interview with Maurice he’s in Guffey now.

Still in Guffey? Guffey’s interesting–it’s a really interesting town. Ownbey’s, let’s see, who else was there. Fought like cats and dogs. West, there were three West brothers. Charlene and Frank Ownbey’s wife agreed to disagree a long time ago. I went to school with his wife and I can’t tell you her first name now. Maybe you shouldn’t put this down, but she threatened to kick the West girls rear end up clear up between her shoulder blades that’s how good they got along. (Both laugh)

I haven’t listened to that interview, but it should be really interesting.

It should be good, because they were living out here at the Santa Maria. Frank hauled hay, and I was–this was at the Hartsel Hotel–this sounds a little far fetched, but I was there when he got the phone call. He was hauling hay for the different ranches around and he got a call from England, the racing stables, and he had to get so many ton down to Denver to be shipped to England for the racing stables, and I’m not sure what was in the hay–some mineral–but they paid to have it shipped clear to England, but I was there when he took the call.

This was hay from the Santa Maria?

Yeah, I would say it was the Santa Maria, I think they still had that at the time. It would have been South Park hay, regardless of where it was at, and it didn’t come from the Hartsel Ranch. It could have been Turners, but it would have been in this area.

So did you know Turners?

I knew Frank and his wife. They had moved up to Garo and they lived on that old place up there. Of course my granddad knew them from way back. There was Frank and there was Fred. They were still living at the store with their folks, and the boys were out, and for some reason Fred got caught in a trap someplace, got his hand caught and Frank couldn’t get him out, and it was about supper time, and they didn’t dare miss supper. He run on home and Mom “get in here and get to eatin’.” Well he did, and kinda spaced out.. “Where’s Fred?” “Oh, he’s in a trap up here.” This is after he’d ate about half his supper. And the girls, this is the interesting part about Garo. One of the girls married a fella by the name of Lilley, I think he was a cowboy. But one never married. And they run that old store. And when you’d go in that store it would probably take you about thirty minutes to get what you needed because they talked so slow. Old man Turner run that store. Walt Merritt was telling me this: he went down to buy a rope; there was a lariat rope hanging from the ceiling–about 25 foot, about enough to make a lariat. “So Mr. Turner I’d like to buy that rope, my lariat is about shot.” Turner says, “That’s the last I got left, somebody may want to come in and buy that.” And he wouldn’t sell it to him. That’s the way the old man was.

Marie Chisolm was telling me that same story, but she said it was the two ladies that ran the store.

They were just exactly the same, but this was the old man. Lilleys were old up there, but I didn’t know any of them. Sentley was another one that come in on the railroad. And he finally became county commissioner, but he was a sheep man and Sentley did all right. McDowells, they’re gone, but they had the old original Garo place.

Is that the one that’s still there?

Yes.

Now there’s a little house right across the road from the old Garo store that people tell me is the old Spurlock house. Did you know any of the Spurlocks?

Yes, I knew of them. I have met one. They had a ranch–if I’m not mistaken there’s a road that goes out past the store and then goes clear on over to highway 285. The main ranch over there and there’s a pretty big ranch, and I was going to stop and ask just for the heck of it, but I think that was the Spurlock place. There was Guy Spurlock. And Guy, I guess, liked to go to dances and do a lot of fighting. I never knew other than him, and I knew him as an old man. There were two kinda of a two-story houses set across there, and I think the one you’re talking about is the remnants of one of them. There was a square homesteader style. They were kind of your typical–kind of like the one across there–maybe a little taller and they might have had a second story. Most of them were abandoned by the time I knew anything about Garo. But the sisters were still in the store.

Did they live in the store?

Uh, huh. I think in that side. The store is kind of sitting–it’s not sitting with the road, anyway it would be what I’d call the south side, kind of a lean-to.

They lived back in there?

Yeah.

I went in there once, it was full of junk, and there was a big hole in the floor to the main area, but you can look down and see a huge old furnace. It looked like there were rooms all around and upstairs so they must have let out rooms there, too.

Well they could have. You know that’s an old store. Somebody told me that that house set over at Newitt. You know where Newitt is?

That story is the most interesting story. It seems that Chubb Newitt, built his own town that had this store to cater to miners, and it was right by the railroad. It was in 1879 and he thought the railroad was going to have a terminus there so he was going to rent out rooms, and that’s why there are rooms in the building. But he was going to sell things to the miners and he had corral. But the railroad instead of stopping there went right on into Buena Vista and on up to Leadville. So his town went kind went–anyway, then he loaded that store up–and I don’t think it was the whole store–

Yeah, I think probably that center part, because that would have been a real undertaking, that was a long way across there, and no roads.

But the tale is that he set it on two flatbed railroad cars and moved it to where it is now and ran that store for a number of years. Then in 1891 he got elected county commissioner, but he was still running that store. He was in the store one day and some fellow came in and they were looking at the guns, and they happened to drop one that had ammunition it, and it went off and shot poor old Chubb in the butt, and he died of blood poisoning.

End