Golden’s New Fossil TraceGolf Course Page 1

Reflectionsof aDepressionEraTeenagerPage 11

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Fossil Trace:Tracks Make a Big Impression

on New Golden links

Glimpses of History:Jefferson County’s

Places from the Past

Reflections of aDepression-Era Teenager

Jolly Rancher:Sweetness in Flux

Southwest Jeffco Trailsand Toll Roads

The National Historic RegisterThe Barnes-Peery House

Jefferson CountyHistoric Hall of FameRobert Williamson Steele

Robert W. “Bob” Richardson

Pleasant Park:In the Beginning

Ralston Remains

Starting from Scratch,Chicken Scratch

JCHCNews & Members

JCHC Publications CommitteeErlene Hulsey-Lutz, Chair,

Jerry Grunska, Editor of Historically Jeffco, Lorre Gibson,Lee Heideman, Lawrence Lotito and Milly Roeder

Published by The Jefferson County Historical Commission (JCHC)Volume 14, Issue 23, 2002 ISSN 1532-6047

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CONTENTS

Design & Layout FinePrint, Golden, CO

Tracks Make a Big Impressionon New Golden Links

Above: Digital rendering of Fossil Trace Golf CourseRight: Triceratops track

By Jerry Grunska

It’s possible to stroll up Dinosaur Ridge, a couple of milesnorth of Morrison and west of C470, and actually moveback figuratively through millions of years of geologic time.At the base of the hogback an extension of Alameda Park-way angles sideways up the ridge, passing along dinosaurtracks - right next to the road - mangrove fossils, and“frozen” water ripples, encased in rock.

Tropical mangroves? Ocean sands, tilted 40 degreesupwards? That’s not the only irony. These traces of fetidswamp life overlooking the city of Denver stretched out

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Upright fossil ridges

NEW FOSSIL TRACEGOLF COURSE

Proposed hiking/biking trail

Hwy 6 (6th Ave)

Jefferson County Court House

Old Golden Rd

N Golden Residential

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below are from the Cretaceousperiod of geologic history, some100 million years ago. Moving overthe “hump” and down the westside of this ridge takes the visitorback 150 million year ago, with fos-silized dinosaur bones sticking rightout of the rock. The nimble walkover this ridge represents a monu-mental shift in the earth’s history.The viewer has a right to be awed.

If these samples of early life onthe planet had been known beforethe late 1800s, Jefferson Countycould easily have been called Jurassic Park, the real one, notthe fantasy.

This is how “a day at the beach”became nearly vertical beds of sand-stone peering out over the range-land long before people came onthe scene. Much of this is hard toimagine. It’s hard to imagine a mil-lion years, let alone 150 million ofthem. It’s hard to imagine a stupen-dous sea, shallow (several hundred

feet deep) but extending thousandsof miles from the Arctic to theGulf of Mexico, right through themiddle of the continent.

The next phase of land buildingis also hard to comprehend. Layersof sediment, silt dropping for mil-lions of years, hardening into rock,albeit sand-like rock, not granite ormarble congealed by ferocious heat.Then, tectonic plates sliding milesbelow the earth’s surface, forcingup the Rocky Mountains, and inthe course of this uplift, the hog-back west of Denver is priedupward, toward the east, like giantslabs of wallboard. Only the beachand some near shore deposits inthe sea rise above ground on theeast side of the Ridge. The bulk of the sedimentary rock is forceddownward, at a 30-40 degree slant,and now rests two miles belowDenver. The hogback, stretchinghundreds of miles from Wyomingto New Mexico, is just the tip of

the tilt, so to speak.

The tiltedlayers of sediment are starklyexposed inthe I-70 cutthrough thehogback.

On thewest side of DinosaurRidge liesthe unmis-takable evi-dence thatdinosaursstompedalong riversbefore theuplift, leav-ing theirbones strewn

along those streams and their foot-prints embedded in the silt. Bonesfound now - there have been tenquarries in the Morrison vicinity -are fossilized remains. This meansthat like petrified wood, mineralshave seeped into the bone struc-ture, replacing marrow and calciumwith silicates so that what is stuckin the embalming sediment aremineralized replicas of the originalbony matter. These bones, some ofthem tons in weight, to be extract-ed need to be chipped out of therock that encases them. But theyare right there for everybody tosee at the side of Highway 26, the1937 road that drops down thewest side of the hogback. This wasthe original Highway 40 up intoMt. Vernon Canyon.

What kind of dinosaurs?Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, Iguanodon,Apatosaurus (a.k.a. Brontosaurus),and Diplodocus, to name a few.Stegosaurus is the giant with

These are thought to be impressions made by raindrops about 70 million years ago.

in the north-west corner of the state(1909), littlework wasdone touncover fur-ther evidenceof Cretaceouslife until the1930s. High-way construc-tion uncov-ered moreevidence: themangroveimprints, sandripples fromwave action,and huge foot-prints them-selves.

The readyaccessibility of pre-historicevidence, how-ever, is whatmakes thisexposure pre-carious. Theentire arrayis subject todamage bypeople whohave been inColorado lessthan 200years. Such isalso the casewith fossildinosaur footprints and plant fos-sils a few miles north of DinosaurRidge, where fossiliferous bedshave dived under U.S. Highways40 and 6 and where clay mininghas gradually uncovered them nearthe Jefferson County Courthousein Golden.

A series of parallel and verticalsandstone beds stick out of the

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triangular plates on its back,while Brontosaurus is the 40 foot monster lizard that is the “mascot” frequently seen at Sinclair service stations.

A new discoveryof old phenomenaFor a perspective on the JeffersonCounty site, it can be pointed outthat the very notion of dinosaursis only 150 years old. Carcasses ofhairy bison and wooly mammothshad been found intact in someplaces, in America, Europe, andAsia (along Federal Boulevardlocally!), but those specimens were only 10 or 15 thousand years old. That is like yesterdayin dinosaur time.

The Dinosaur Ridge prints andfossilized dinosaur bones northof Morrison constitute the firstmajor discovery of dinosaur bonesin western North America, in1877. A School of Mines collegeprofessor, Arthur Lakes, happenedacross them and alerted paleontol-ogists out East, in Philadelphiaand at Yale University. Lakesextracted some bones and shippedthem by rail to a Yale scientistnamed Othniel C. Marsh. Beforelong other paleontologists came to Colorado to inspect the finds,and the Ridge became “a kind ofMother Lode for people from allover the world,” according to JoeTempel, Director of Friends ofDinosaur Ridge. It still is a power-ful magnet attracting hundreds ofscientists regularly.

Surprisingly, though, after theinitial f lurry of excavating in thelate 1800s, plus an almost simulta-neous discovery north of CanonCity (also in 1877) and a 1900find near Grand Junction, in addition to the huge site atDinosaur National Monument

Palm frond impression approximately 13 feet long.

surface, right next to Highway 6,narrow buttes that are packed withpalm frond impressions in stone,leaf molds, and dinosaur tracks,from the Cretaceous period, justbefore whatever cataclysm blew theanimals away forever. Because thesefossils are younger than those atDinosaur Ridge, they consist ofentirely different species.

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W.T. Caneer, an affable retiredgeologist who acts as unofficialguardian of this treasure (he hashad an emu-like dinosaur namedfor him, Magnoavipes caneeri),believes it was a meteor hittingnear the Yucatan Peninsula inMexico that darkened the skiesand destroyed vegetation. Theresultant pall over the earth forseveral years, while blotting thesun and killing the plants, alsokilled those animals who wereherbivores and therefore deprivedthe meat eaters of sustenance also.“Only a few shrews and gnats sur-vived,” Caneer said, “Maybe someworms, things that could make iteating dead matter.” [Worm trailsare indeed visible in the sand-stone buttes.]

Fairway dangersBut a pall hangs over the possibili-ties of preservation too. The city ofGolden is turning this tract northof the county courthouse and eastof Highway 6 into an 18-hole golfcourse called Fossil Trace. Much ofthe land was previously mined forbrick-making clay by the Parfetfamily, three generations of them.T. Caneer – he prefers T – althoughlight-spirited and charming, is alsofeisty and persuasive. He has con-vinced the Golden City Counciland the construction company tospare the wedges looming up twostories or so. At one time there wasa proposal to bury some of theanimal tracks. The 13th fairway willskirt the formations, on the oppo-site side of the palm frond impres-

sions and dinosaur footprints.“Golfers won’t disturb them,

but the elements might,” Caneersays. The rock formations are ver-tical, clay having been extractedbetween them. Thus the sandstonetraces, exposed to dripping mois-ture and frost, and possible van-dalism, remain truly vulnerable.“Besides,” he says, “We have tofigure a way for the public toappreciate them.” To that end the380 member organization, calledFriends of Dinosaur Ridge, thatoversees the museum at the cor-ner of Alameda and Rooney Roadhas proposed a plan of frontingthe most fragile remains with Plex-iglas, constructing walkways to thesite, without encroaching on thegolf course, and providing inter-

The “wall” in the foreground contains palm fronds and Triceratops tracks (see previous page).All of the golf course is on the opposite sideof the wall, plus a little to the left of the end of the wall.Thus, there will be no interference between golfers and people viewing the fossils.

pretive panels in front of theimages, much like the present dis-plays on Dinosaur Ridge itself.

This effort to protect and revealhas not been formalized yet, andboth Caneer and Joe Tempel knowthat they still have a mission tocomplete. It’ll take imagination,fund-raising initiatives, and all thepersuasive powers the jauntyCaneer can muster.

In between the Cretaceous out-croppings off 6th Avenue (extend-ed) and Dinosaur Ridge are Her-itage Square and a gravel quarry.Colfax Avenue swings southtoward Interstate 70. High on thehogback across from the graveldiggings is a ridge topped withlarge plate-like boulders resembling

the back of thestate’s officialdinosaur,Stegosaurus. The imaginationcan transformthis into a sym-bol of JeffersonCounty’s ownheritage.

Anthropolo-gist DavidAttenborough inLife on Earthcontrived anoth-er form of trans-formation(slightly modi-fied), compress-ing the entirecontinuum oftime into a sin-gle year forcomparativeref lection. Ifthe age ofour solar sys-tem, with itsplanets andall, weresqueezed into

a single twelve-month period,the first three-quarters of theyear would be devoid of life.The earth would just be a roil-ing ball of volcanic extrusions,with almost continual rain andthe forming of continents, tec-tonic plates shifting about.

Rudimentary forms of lifewould first appear around thelatter part of September, mole-cules able to replicate themselves(initial DNA), algae and singlecell protozoans, amoebas andsuch. October would bring onhigher forms of life, creatureseasing out of the sea, then lum-bering animals, but by Novem-ber they’d be gone, only their

records secured in rock. Humanswouldn’t come on the scene untillate in the day, December 31st, 15seconds before the New Year. Theinvention of golf would probablyoccur a split second before thesinging of Auld Lang Syne.

SourcesAttenborough, David, Life on Earth,

A Natural History, Little, Brown & Co.,Boston, 1979

Hunt, Adrian, and Lockley, White, et al,Historic Quarries of the Dinosaur Ridge Area, Friends of Dinosaur Ridge,Denver, 2002

Lockley, Martin, A Field Guide toDinosaur Ridge, Friends of DinosaurRidge, Denver, 2001

Jenkins, John T., Jr., and Jannice L.,Colorado’s Dinosaurs, ColoradoGeological Survey, Denver, 1993

Ward, Nancy, “Dinosaur Ridge,” pp. 18-23,Jefferson, The Magazine, Golden,November, 1999-January, 2000

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The track above the hammer was probably madeby an ornithopod dinosaur (plant eater).The track(partially exposed) below the hammer handleappears to have claws, and it was most likely madeby a carnivorous theropod. Hammer is 12 in. long.

T. Caneer

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By Kathleen Norman

Historic buildings scattered throughoutJefferson County are reminders of earlyresidents. The plains and foothillsbegan as a conduit with prospectorsand pioneers traveling into the moun-tain mining districts to the west duringColorado’s initial gold rush. Soon,newcomers settled in the county, find-ing fertile soil for crops and forage forlivestock ranching. Scenic beautyattracted visitors too, who arrived bystagecoach, railroad, then automobile.Development of hotels, resorts, parks,and summer cabin subdivisions attract-ed people into the mountains. Taking acloser look at historic places can revealhow the county began and how itgrew. This article describes four proper-ties that help tell the story of earlyJefferson County.

Rockland SchoolRural Jefferson County was once scat-tered with small schoolhouses, built

by ranch families to provide educa-tion for their children. A few one-room schoolhouses remain, carefullypreserved, while many others havebeen moved, demolished, or convert-ed to other uses. Rockland School at24100 U.S. 40, south of the junctionwith Lookout Mountain Road, is areminder that Mount Vernon Canyonwas still a rural, sparsely populatedlocation when the schoolhouse was

built in 1939.Mount Vernon Canyon — now tra-

versed by I-70 and traveled daily bythousands of tourists, truckers, andcommuters — once contained aranching community. Nicknamed“Rockland” on account of the stonysoil, the area supported a dozen or so ranch families. During the 1870sthose families built a one-roomschool schoolhouse and a gabled

Glimpses of HistoryJefferson County’s Places from the Past

Above: Rockland School GeneseeBelow: Clifton House

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wood frame church and toserve the community. Duringthe initial gold rush MountVernon Canyon was a stageand wagon route to the goldfields, but by 1880 it featureda rugged road used mainly bylocal travelers. Washoutsplagued the rudimentarywagon trail, and in 1913 thecanyon was bypassed as anauto route into the mountainswhen the Lariat Loop roadwas built up Lookout Moun-tain instead.

Mount Vernon Canyonbecame more accessible in1937, when U.S. 40 was dyna-mited through the canyon.This coast-to-coast highwaybrought a steady stream of motoristsand also encouraged people to moveinto the foothills. The expandingcommunity outgrew the original1874 Rockland schoolhouse (torndown during the 1969 constructionof I-70). Local voters approved a$8,500 bond issue to constructanother schoolhouse of beige brickdesigned by well-known Denverarchitect Eugene G. Groves. Thehandsome building opened its doorsin fall 1939 for first through fifthgraders. Older students were drivento classes in Golden.

After World War II, the LookoutMountain vicinity continuedexpanding, and soon a larger schoolwas needed. The third RocklandSchool opened in 1955 and the orig-inal beige brick schoolhouse becamethe meeting hall for the GeneseeGrange #219. Founded in 1917 andbecoming defunct in 1936, theGenesee Grange re-activated in 1951as a community organization forrural residents. Membership grew to200 members, and the Grange Hallbecame the heart of the mountaincommunity, with potluck suppers,

square dance contests, group sings,and talent shows. The RocklandSchool-Genesee Grange today hostscommunity meetings, art classes,and the Grange’s annual pig roast.The little brick schoolhouse alsocontains the Rockland PianoSchool.

Clifton HouseIn the 1860s, thousands of goldprospectors rushed through Jeffer-son County on their way to goldstrikes at Central City, IdahoSprings, Fairplay, and Leadville.Gold seekers traveled along cruderoads dug by hand through thecounty’s narrow canyons — tollroads built and operated for a prof-it. Teams of straining mules hauledfreight wagons into the mountains.and passengers journeyed in stage-coaches pulled by four pairs of hors-es. Along the way, settlers openedstage stops, way stations, and road-side inns to provide food and shelterfor weary travelers and rest for foot-sore livestock.

Transportation became a majorearly industry, as local ranchers har-vested hay and raised horses, mules,

and oxen that were then sold tofreighters and stagecoach companies.

Most signs of this animal-poweredtravel have vanished — the barns,stables, stock corrals, and roadsideinns. But three stage inns still standas links to Jefferson County’s pio-neer past — the stone CentennialHouse midway up Golden GateCanyon, the yellow Midway Houseon U.S. 285 east of Aspen Park, andthe Clifton House on U.S. 285 westof Conifer.

Owner Benjie Pitsker, who ispresently restoring the building as a bed and breakfast, rescued theClifton House at 12414 U.S. Hwy. 285 (off Foxton Road) fromdeterioration. The house was builtby Rudi Pollitz, who homesteadedon Elk Creek in 1870 raising live-stock, hay, and potatoes. Pollitzbuilt a small house that he expand-ed into a 14-room inn in the 1880s.He also erected an enormous barnto store hay harvested from themeadows to the south. Travelersand tourists frequented the CliftonHouse, and it also housed the area’sfirst telephone exchange and switch-board from 1888 to 1921. The

Clifton House Barn

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stylish two-story inn had clapboardsiding and had a two-story porchwith stunning views to the southeast.In 1916, Pollitz’s stepson CharlesLong opened the first auto garage onU.S. 285 beside the stagecoach road.Long’s sons, Harlan and Rudy, ranthe business as Long Brother’sGarage, which is still operated bymembers of the Long family near the Kings Valley subdivision.

In the 1990s, Benjie Pitskeracquired the Clifton House propertyfrom the Long family. The stagecoachinn had become a crumbling relic,but Pitsker is renovating it. He alsorents the huge old hay barn for wed-dings, dances, and other events.

Skankee-Nelson-Gruchy RanchMost of Jefferson County was firstsettled by farmers and ranchers. Set-tlers homesteaded on the county’seastern plains and creek valleys, whereirrigation ditches and canals wateredcattle herds, fruit orchards, and cropsof vegetables and grains. Peoplehomesteaded in the mountains too —as late as 1940. However, the longwinters, frigid temperatures, and rockyterrain made it difficult to cultivate

anything other than potatoes or let-tuce, and it took forty acres of sparsegrass to raise a single cow.

The 14,000-acre area now occupiedby Golden Gate Canyon State Parknorth of Golden is a patchwork quiltof sixty or so former homestead prop-erties. These high country ranchersraised beef, dairy products, and rootvegetables sold to the hungry minersin Black Hawk and Central City.Today most of the homestead cabins,claim shacks, ranch houses, and barnsin the park have been lost to deterio-ration or demolition.

Just north of Golden Gate CanyonState Park along the Jefferson-GilpinCounty line, the Skankee-NelsonRanch remains to tell the story ofranching in the rugged mountains.Martin Skankee homesteaded 160acres, moving his family into a logcabin made from trees felled on theproperty. The Skankees put up polefences and milled lumber from nativewood to build a large hay barn and acattle barn. Mr. Skankee was a cob-bler and spent each week in CentralCity repairing shoes while his wifeand children ran the ranch. Thehomestead cabin burned in 1900,

but the Skankees quicklyreplaced it with a modest woodframe ranch house.

In 1943 Chloe, Harold, andFlorence Nelson bought theSkankee Ranch at 34787 GapRoad. Because the three sib-lings were serving in the mili-tary, their parents, Carrie andTure Nelson plus grandfatherEdward Powers ran the ranch.For several decades the Nelsonfamily raised cattle and grew afew vegetables. Today, FlorenceNelson Gruchy and her hus-band David Gruchy own theranch property. The 1900 ranchhouse and the collection ofbarns, stables, and outbuildings

illustrate how ranching took place inthe early days. The Skankee-Nelson-Gruchy Ranch is one of the mostintact ranch properties remaining inJefferson County. It is also a favoriteplace for the Coal Creek CanyonSeniors’ group, which gathers thereeach summer for their annual picnic.

Justus Roehling HouseBy the 1920s, the west JeffersonCounty mountains had become Den-ver’s playgrounds. The City of Den-ver developed a network of land-scaped parks linked by scenic autoroads, and it advertised them to visi-tors, tourists, and local residents. Villages and mountain subdivisionssprang up as developers urged autotourists to “own your own mountainhome.” Charles and Anna Kittredgelaid out the town site of Kittredgealong Bear Creek in 1923 and pro-moted the former cattle ranch as atrout fishing resort. Charles Kittredgehad developed several Denver subdivi-sions east of Capitol Hill and erectedthe gray granite commercial buildingthat bears his name at 16th Street andWelton in the city. Charles and Annathen retired to Kittredge and devoted

Skankee-Nelson-Gruchy Ranch

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ABOUT THE AUTHORHistorian and author CathleenNorman has worked on culturalresource surveys for Lakewood,Lafayette,Victor, Longmont,Nederland, Canon City, and ManitouSprings. She holds a Bachelor’sdegree in English and a Master’sDegree in U.S. History, with a minorin historic preservation, from theUniversity of Colorado at Denver.Ms. Norman has written threebooks. Golden Old and New – AWalking Tour Guide, depicts thehistory of Golden told through its

historic places. In and Around ColoradoCity – A Walking Tour Guide describesthe pioneer settlement that grew intoa suburb located between ManitouSprings and Colorado Springs. ThePenroses,Tutts and El Pomar – A PikesPeak Partnership, co-authored with Dr.Thomas J. Noel, narrates the historyof Spencer Penrose, who builtColorado Springs’ Broadmoor Hoteland the auto highway up Pikes Peak.She also writes feature articles onhistory and historic places fornumerous publications. Cathleen haslived in Jefferson County for 22 years.

themselves to developing the town.Kittredge met a youthful German

carpenter in Evergreen, JustusRoehling, who was summering in amountain meadow cabin seeking theoutdoor cure for his tuberculosis.Roehling had gained carpentry skillsin Germany as a wagon maker’sapprentice, a “spokes shave” whohand crafted wagon wheels. Kittredgehired the young carpenter, afterwhich Roehling became the builderof Kittredge. Roehling constructedthe town’s first new house (otherthan a circa 1875 ranch houseremaining from the Luther Ranch) atthe northwest corner of Avenue Fand Columbine Street, as a modelhome to entice potential propertyowners. During the late 1920s andthe 1930s, Roehling built manyCraftsman style bungalows in Kit-tredge. To showcase his skills, thecarpenter-contractor constructed amore elaborate house for himself justwest of the model home. This wood-shingled beauty features decorativestone details, whimsical curvinggables, and a balcony overlookingBear Creek.

During his sixty-year career, theprolific German builder constructed

scores of houses, fromcabins to mansions, inthe Kittredge and Ever-green area. He also builtseveral stone churches.The Justus Roehling resi-dence is now owned bythe builder’s son, JohnJustus Roehling, and isstill situated west of theentrance off Avenue F in Kittredge.

The stories of thesefour properties were uncov-ered as part of a three-year projectfocusing on the historic places in Jef-ferson County. The CulturalResource Survey examined over4,000 historic (pre-1950) cabins,lodges, ranches, farms, and commer-cial buildings in unincorporated Jef-ferson County. The project identif iedaround 800 intact properties thatrepresent some aspect of county his-tory or serve as examples of distinc-tive architectural design. These fourproperties are among sixty that wereresearched in detail, photographed,and documented as part of the sur-vey project. The Survey Reports willbe available soon in Jefferson Coun-ty libraries. The Jefferson County

Historic Commission sponsored theproject with funding from State His-toric fund grants, a Scientific andCultural Facilities grant, and fromJefferson County. The author hasbeen the project historian.

AddressesFlorence and David Gruchy34787 Gap Road Golden, CO

John Roehling2753 South Depew Street Denver, CO

Benjie PitskerP. O. Box 141 Conifer, CO

Genesee-Lookout Mountain Foundation4750 South Dudley Street, Unit 8Littleton, CO

Justus Roehling House

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By Jerry Grunska, with Lawrence Lotito

If it weren’t for the ItalianMafia, Larry Lotito probablywouldn’t have been a U.S. citizen.Wait, that may be a bit strong.The fact that his grandfather killeda Mafia bully resulted in Lotito’sbeing born in Colorado. Does thatsound better?

Here’s the story. Larry’sgrandfather Vincenzo was the

overseer on a farm in Potenza,Italy, southeast of Naples. The yearwas 1886, and the grandmotherwas pregnant with Larry’s fatherRocco. A Mafia guy came callingon a shakedown mission,demanding protection money, andthe grandfather shot him. Becausethis was tantamount to his owndeath warrant, Vincenzo f led tothe United States, leaving hisfamily behind. He ended up inIdaho, working for the railroad

at a dollar a day. After Rocco Lotito was born in 1887, Larry’sgrandfather had enough saved to send for his family, and theysettled in Denver, where the elder Lotito became a fruit andvegetable peddler.

Young Rocco, apprenticed as asaddle and harness maker, tookover the route when Vincenzo diedin 1909. The next year an arrangedmarriage took place in May withConcetta Ruoti from the same

Reflections of a Depression Er a

village in Italy where Rocco wasborn. Four children came along,including Lawrence in 1921. Larryreminisced recently about growingup in the Depression. Lotito’s dadRocco, recognizing that chaingrocery combines such as PigglyWiggly would displace individualpeddlers, rented a five acre farmin Wheat Ridge to see if he andthe older sons could make a living growing their own fruits and vegetables.

This farm proving too small, in 1932 Rocco bought a 30 acreparcel at the southeast corner ofHowell Avenue (present Kipling)and Ridge Road in Arvada, southof the Coors railroad tracks.Eventually he had chickens andpigs, several cows for milk, threehorses for plowing, and a varietyof fruits and vegetables to sell tothe groceries.

First, though, he had to dig awell, build a home, and bring inpower and telephone hook-ups. By 1940 the horses were replacedby tractors.

The household needed water, asdid the crops, and to counteractthe drought Larry’s father had tohave the well. “In those days therewere ‘diviners’,” Lotito said,“People with magnetic power tolocate underground sources. Theyheld a forked willow branch, onesection in each hand and with thesingle stick outstretched, walkingcarefully over the terrain. Whenthey were over a hidden stream,some force would tilt the willowdownward. Then they walked over the area from another angleto pinpoint the likely spot for a well.”

How to dig a well? No high-powered drills in those days. Ahand auger would only delve a fewfeet. Larry described the process:“Two well diggers scooped a sixfoot square hole down 20 feet.Then, putting in 4-foot pre-castconcrete rings to prevent a cave-in,they went down another 12 feet.[That is three stories deep!] That’swhen their feet were in water… The well never has failed. It’sin use today.”

“Several years of droughtaccompanied those harsh timeswhen I was about eleven,” he said,“Those dust storms blew in from

the southeast, a solid bank of darkbrown clouds. We closed all thewindows, but the dust penetratedand covered all the furniture.Kansas and Oklahoma devastationis well known, prompting ‘blown-out’ folks to head for California,but many dispossessed peoplecame to Colorado where conditionswere only marginally better.

“We had Okies as hired hands,”Lotito recalled. “Good workers andgrateful for the opportunity,usually one or two at a time. Paywas supposed to be 25 cents anhour — government stipulation —but all dad could afford was a

Left: The cow manure from the dairywas piled on the fields until the time came for plowing (fall or spring), and then loaded in the horse drawn manurespreader that scattered the manureover the land. It had to be hand loaded,as shown, with Lawrence Lotito and JoeConte doing the job. Spot, the terrier,looks on from the seat of the spreader.

Below: Ronnie Lotito, grandson ofRocco, standing in a field of paperedpascal celery. Celery was prepared for the October-November market, and thefamous trenched celery was basically forthe Thanksgiving and Christmas periods.A sheet of the Denver Post was wrappedaround the celery plant, tied top andbottom with twine, and then the soil washeaped around the bottom. With thelight excluded, the celery “blanched.”Er a Teenager

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dollar a day. I fried up somepotatoes and eggs for lunch. Aslong as we had chickens and hogswe had eggs and meat. We greweverything we consumed.” Lotito’smother had passed away in 1933,after dwindling in health followinga bout of Spanish f lu, contactedduring WWI. Larry was the chefand housekeeper before he was a teenager.

So many things we take forgranted at present, such as anti-freeze in the car radiator and fuelfor heating and cooking. “Our1921 Dodge touring car didn’thave any windows, just openspaces. In winter we had to bundle

up in sheepskins to keep warm,heavy fabric coats with woolcollars. We had to put water in theradiator for a trip and then drainit when we reached our destinationso it wouldn’t freeze. We had topour water in it again when weheaded back,” Lotito explained.

He remembered the necessity toscavenge coal. “The only source ofheat was a fireplace in the livingroom and a stove in the kitchen.We had to cut 40 large cotton-woods that grew along SwadleyDitch that ran through ourproperty. But wood didn’t giveoff enough heat, and besides we’dbe running out. Consequently, we

picked up coal along the railroadtracks, putting it in buckets.Firemen on trains spilled coalwhile heaving it from the coal cars to the fire pit under theengine boiler.” The cost of coalwas prohibitive, seven dollars a ton from the Leyden mines.

“Christmas trees had little fourinch wax candles,” Lotito went on. “They fit in a little cup witha spring that was clipped to thebranches. The candles were litwhen we brought out the presents.One year the tree caught fire, and while everyone yelled, mygodfather Joe Trancredo’s sonJerry rushed to the kitchen and

Rocco Lotito planting raspberry canes in the mid thirties. Background: far left, stack of alfalfa that had been cut and dried for cattle food;barn, with corral extending to a little structure – a WPA two-holer constructed for $15, subsidized by the government to give peoplework in the Great Depression.“Although we had indoor facilities, this was useful for the hired help,” says Lotito.

came back with a bigpan of water that hedumped on theflaming tree. Whilehauling the burnt treeout to the yard welearned that Jerry hadpulled the pan off thestove. It had beenplaced there to makethe spaghetti.”

Larry Lotito recalledschool days andschoolteachers withfondness. He reported,“I was a freshman atArvada High in 1935.With $10 at ‘MonkeyWards’ (MontgomeryWard) my dad would outf it mewith a pair of shoes, corduroytrousers, a couple of shirts, and afinger-length lined ‘lumber jacket.’

“I learned the ‘Palmer Method’of penmanship from Miss EllenHambly, who, incidentally,invented the Smokey Bear symbol;and I learned a ton of practicalthings from our Agriculture teacherMr. Thomas D. Vanderhoof, suchas how to solder, how to dehorncalves, and how to castrate pigs —all of which I did on the farm.Vanderhoof has an elementaryschool named for him at 64th andWard. Mr. Joe Weber, junior highcoach, dealt with us surly andrambunctious boys this way. Atthe beginning of the school yearhe passed a large paddle aroundthe room, letting each person feelit. He never said he’d use it, and as far as I know he never did. Butgetting the heft of it was enough.We were a pretty docile bunchafter that.”

Other teachers Lotito recalled,some of whom also haveschools named for them, areSuperintendent Homer Peck,

Principal Ray Fitzmaurice, andteacher Marjorie Katz. Teachersalaries were approximately $1,000a year in the thirties, and theindividuals were fortunate if theygot anything at all as an increase.

“My favorite present as ayoungster was a .22 rif le,” Lotitotestified. “My brothers and I wentout to a place northeast ofKeenesburg and bagged as manyas 35 jackrabbits at a time. Theywere pests, you know. I couldsometimes hit one while it wasbounding furiously.”

It may be hard for currentreaders tofathom, butone mustrememberthat puttingin fields ofcelery, carrots,radishes,asparagus,raspberries,tomatoes,peppers, andsquash (notto mentionpansies!)

would be the same as providing aparadise for rabbits where beforethey could only hop around thesage brush and yucca. Threats tolivelihoods were dealt with instraightforward fashion.

Delicate sensibilities weren’tprevalent at the time. “Up nearHudson there were neighborhooddrives,” said Lotito. “‘Chasers’formed circles and clubbed therabbits as they skittered about,then gave them to poor people toskin and eat.” Getting on duringthose rough days 70 years agowasn’t for the squeamish.

Hunting jackrabbits near Roggen, Northeast Colorado. Jack Lewis, left, and Lawrence Lotito, about1939.Three or four hunters could bag 30 or 40 rabbits in a day. November was the best month.

A moment of relaxation. Lawrence Lotito, 12, and sisterLucille, 9, on Beauty, a lovely, intelligent Percheron marethat was with the family for many years.

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By Jerry Grunska

In Meredith Willson’s musical “TheMusic Man” an anvil salesman isportrayed as an object of derision,because his sample case has con-siderable heft. The notion that anvilsaren’t exactly quick selling items isalso part of the gag.

When 33 year-old Bill Harmsengave up f lying in 1949, he foundhimself selling safes to make endsmeet, and his satchel must have beenpretty burdensome too, with littleroom for mirth. He was on the roadone day in Wyoming when his wife

called and said she had just bought anice cream store on Washington Streetin Golden. “You’d better come home.We’ve got a business to run,” she said.

Future President John F. Kennedycame to Denver on his campaign trailin 1960 where he was greeted as hecame off the plane by Dorothy andBill Harmsen. They handed him acowboy hat, cowboy boots, and a boxof candy. The candy was theHarmsen’s “brand,” Jolly Ranchermelt-in-the-mouth sweets, and theboots had the firm’s hand-tooled logoembossed on the shanks.

That’s how a local business gained

international renown: by showypromotion of regional gear and by handing out gobs of addictiveconfections with their tongue-smarting f lavor.

Just like any other enterprise thatgrew to significant proportions, JollyRancher started small, in a ranchhouse kitchen, to be exact. “Theypacked the candy in my bedroom,”son Bill, Jr. said of his mother andfather’s early cookery. “I woke upevery morning to the smell of candyand these huge candy boxes all overthe bedroom. Now I’m not so fond of candy.”

THE JOLLY RANCHERSweetness in Flux

John F. Kennedy visits Denver during his election campaign. He is warmly greeted by Dorothy and Bill Harmsenwith gifts of cowboy hat, candy, and boots. Kennedy’s plane,“The Caroline,” is in the background.

At its peak, before being boughtout by Beatrice Foods in 1967, theJolly Rancher plant on Ward Road inWheat Ridge (just north of I-70)worked two daily shifts, had 250employees, and produced up to125,000 pounds of candy a day -that’s over 65 tons. They had fleetsof trucks distributing candy all over the country, plus supplyinginternational customers in Europe,Australia, and China.

As business pioneers - theHarmsens later called themselves“Twentieth Century 49ers” - Dorothyand Bill moved in fits and starts.They lived in Minneapolis in theearly 40s where Bill was a pilot forContinental Airlines. But theydreamed of moving West “to snap upa portion of paradise.” Although theyhad no idea how to operate a truckfarm when they bought the Johnston

Ranch ten miles west of Denver in1942, they began growing raspberriesand strawberries, plus 250,000gladiolas. They were determined to be in business as a team.

In Colorado Bill continued flyingfor a while and then groundedhimself and sold the “heavy stuff,safes.” But when the berry and flower enterprise failed to produce asufficient profit, he transformed thehayloft in the barn into a woodshopwhere he made doll beds and shippedthem all over the country. Materialshortages forced the couple toabandon this venture and layoff the eight employees theyhad accumulated.

Then the naive Harmsens shortlydiscovered that ice cream was onlya seasonal treat for Coloradans. Sothey took on a line of chocolates,made by a supplier in Denver. In

addition to their store at the base of the welcoming arch in Golden,they set up franchises in Cheyenne,Denver, and Pueblo. Bill was nothingif not creative, and doggedly deter-mined. He began experimenting with taffy, cooking up batches in the barn loft, adding generous portions of Colorado beet sugar(“That was the secret ingredient,”he later said), and sprinkling in heavy doses of cinnamon.

They called the candy “Fire Stix,”and they named their firm the JollyRancher. “The name was borrowedfrom the Jolly Miller Hotel inMinneapolis,” a town well known forprocessing grain. Someone said thestinging candy “tasted like amouthful of branding iron.”

Aggressive promoting was themainspring for success. Severalthousand school children have

Box line for candy Stix, boxed according to flavor.

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inched through the plant each year,leaving with handfuls of wrappedcandy. Five citrus f lavors wereintroduced, later expanded to“Smoke Stix” (licorice), Jell-O,lollipops, and saltwater taffy. In the50s Governor Dan Thornton waspersuaded to send candy boxes tothe governors of every state asChristmas presents. Harmsen alsosponsored rodeos and drag racingcars. Politicians of every stripe were

given bundles of candy to pass out.The Harmsens made sure that

Halloween was a sugar-and-corn-syrup bonanza for all youngsters inthe surrounding area, handing outthousands of bags of the nickelsticks gratis. The prominent truck inthe movie “Smokey and the Bandit”is a Jolly Rancher semi (carryingCoors beer). The 13 f lavor sticksnow retail for 50 cents apiece, andthey include butterscotch, green

apple, and water melon f lavors. Nothingheavy for salesmen there.

For fourteen years after its foundingthe plant on Ward Avenue, called SugarBar Ranch after it was refurbished fromtruck farm headquarters into a candy-making facility, operated assembly-linestyle with hand cutters and peoplewrappers. Then in 1963, with orderscoming in faster than they could befilled, the Harmsens contracted withengineers from England, Germany, andItaly to build machines for automation.When the bulky devices were f lown toDenver, they shifted in the plane uponlanding, the cargo sliding down to thetail of the craft. This load shift liftedthe wings and front wheels off theground, nose pointing skyward, so thatthe plane froze in a take-off posture.But automation and IBM computers fortallying payroll, billing, and deliveryturned the Jolly Rancher operation intoa thoroughly high-powered moderncompany.

When hard candy sales overtook theirline of fine-dipped chocolates in themid-sixties, the Harmsens shiftedexclusively to the “hard stuff,” and gotout of the “Willy Wonka” business.

Bill Harmsen’s son Bob took over aspresident when conglomerate BeatriceFoods bought the company in 1967.Bob said, “I was on a mountain hikingtrail in Peru. I looked down and saw aJolly Rancher wrapper on the ground.That’s when I knew for sure that wewere an international presence.”

This past summer Michelle Zupan,curator of the Golden Pioneer Museum at923 10th Street, said, “Colorado is losing apiece of its industrial heritage,” in lament-ing Jolly Rancher’s impending move outof state. Hershey Foods purchased thebusiness in 1997, and Bob Harmsenstepped aside as president. Father Billpassed away at age 89 in 2001, and thatautumn Hershey announced the transferof Jolly Rancher production either to Illi-nois, Pennsylvania, or Canada. But the

Above: Business being ahead of production, Kiss machines were flown infrom Europe in 1963. Forgrove high speed Kiss machines flew high until land-ing, when they broke their moorings and tilted the nose of the DC6 in the air.Below: Denver Western Stock Show. Probably in the 1950s.

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went to his ‘lab’ upstairs every nightafter delivering candy to franchisestores and kept adding morecinnamon to achieve the ultimate‘zing’,” Michelle added. “It’s probablythe second most successful businessto start in Golden, next to thebrewery.” Michelle Zupan alsomused, “When the wind is right,wafting over from Wheat Ridge, the aroma from the candy-makingprocess at Jolly Rancher mingles withthe smell of the Coors complex. Thefragrance is unusual to say the least,the combination of candy and hops.”

move hasn’t been finalized because Her-shey itself may merge with a candy makerfrom Europe. Nestle has been identifiedas a possible suitor. (Two hundred fortyworkers were dismissed, and HersheyFoods closed the Jolly Rancher plant on October 18, 2002.)

The Harmsen family donatedpictures, original implements, and earlyproduction apparatus such as cookingdrums to the Pioneer Museum, wherecurator Zupan has set up a full-roomdisplay of memorabilia. “I even wentover to the factory and peeled off achip of red paint so that I could match

it for the backdrop,” Michelle saidproudly. Ms. Zupan has titled herexhibit “The Pot of Gold at the Endof the Rainbow,” referring to thespectrum of citrus and other fruitflavorings of the savory products.

Zupan also said that the reasonthe hard candy rose so rapidly inpopularity in the fifties is that theproduct was a true novelty.“Nobody else in America wasmaking anything like it,” she said.She said too that Bill and Dorothywere literally obsessed withdeveloping intense f lavors. “Bill

Caption of original photograph, published in the 1950s by Jolly Rancher:The Jolly Rancher Family of FineEmployees, top row – children, too – Bill, Jr., Mike, Bob, Bill, Sr., and Candy Cowboys. Left below –Dorothy Harmsen and attractively uniformed Candy Cowgirls. Sabre, the guard dog. 1954

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By Lee Heideman

In 1859 the cry of “Gold, discoveredat Tarryall,” started a large scalemigration to South Park and themountains. Potential prospectors,sometimes accompanied by theirfamilies, trundled up gulches anddrainages to gold diggings. Somewere actually on their way to thedistant California Gold Mines, andsome were headed to Leadville,Colorado.

They came in covered wagonsdrawn by oxen, on horseback, and afew walked, following trails left bywagons or by the Indians on theirway to their hunting grounds. Many,however, became so intrigued by thebeauty of ascending the first fewmiles that they just stopped andsettled before getting too far intothe high country.

Joseph Legault was one such man.In 1869 he came from Montreal,Canada to seek his fortune. He tooka stage coach to Denver City, and

walked up Turkey Creek Canyon(past present Tiny Town) on his wayto the gold fields. But he stopped atMcIntyre’s sawmill (now MeyerRanch) to make a little moneybefore continuing on. Hiking overthe hill across the road fromMcIntyre’s place, he found abeautiful area. Reportedly, it was soattractive that he decided it wouldbe a “pleasant place to park.” Thenhe sent for his family, homesteadeda parcel, and settled in that locale.The Legault family was largelyresponsible for settling the AspenPark and Pleasant Park areas.

But travel was slow and cumber-some, and the need for a road toreplace the worn tracks being usedfor that purpose became apparentto a Denver businessman. Entrepre-neur Robert B. Bradford petitionedthe Territorial Government for acharter to build a toll road fromAuraria (across the creek from Den-ver) to the mountains.

Even at that time, politics played

a very important part in contractawards. Because Bradford hadreceived a military commission asBrigadier General and was appointedstaff aide to the Honorable RobertW. Steele, of the Assembly ofJefferson Territory in December of1859, Steele awarded a grant toBradford to establish the toll road,allowing him to take in as manypartners as necessary.

At about the same time Steele alsocreated twelve counties for theterritory and three judicial districts,incorporated Denver City, andpassed many laws including a one-dollar poll tax to help finance thegovernment. The miners refused to accept this “unauthorizedgovernment” and created their own,rendering the Jefferson Territorialgovernment powerless.

Bradford’s road ran southwesttoward the Dakota Hogback nearpresent C470. Parts of it, faint butwith some rock base still visible, canbe seen along the east side of the

Southwest Jeffco Trails and Toll Roads

Overview of the Pleasant Park area from the top of Legault Mountain.

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hogback south ofMorrison. This skimpytrail, hardly more thana two-rutted byway,entered what is nowKen Caryl Ranch andeased up over therugged hills to the west of the BradfordMansion. It probablycame out on what isnow South TurkeyCreek Road in thevicinity of the WestKen Caryl gatedentrance.

A company named Meyers,Bradford and Williams wasestablished and granted a charter tobuild this road to the mountains. Itangled from the Platte Valley pastMississippi and Sheridan and on upto Morrison, then over to what isnow the Ken Caryl Ranch. This wasthe Denver, Auraria and South ParkWagon road, south and east ofcurrent Highway 285, probablyrunning through Homewood Park,Phillipsburg, and Fender’s, endingwhere the Intercanyon FireDepartment is now. Bradfordestablished a town named BradfordCity there. The terrain on this roadwas so steep and the road so narrowand in such poor condition thatwagons had a terrible timecrossing the foothills on it.

To illustrate the difficultiesencountered on this road, DanBerrian, a freighter, told this story.“On the Mt. Carbon road theteamsters would go together, so asto double each other out of ahole. One of the boys in a wagonhad only a single team, and hewas pretty well behind. I wasahead with four horses and twowagons. You had to load themlight, so they wouldn’t sink. Onewagon wouldn’t take all you could

put on it at that time. If you put allon one wagon you never would getto town. This fellow with a singleteam was stuck. Couldn’t go noplace. We put on four horses andwe couldn’t pull it. We put ontwelve head and we couldn’t pull it.We put on four head more andpulled the wagon in two. The hindend stayed there and we had to digwith pick and shovel to get it outof that old muck and stuff. Yesiree,we had to do it! We unloaded allhis lumber and then couldn’t getthe gears out. It just cementedaround them wheels, you know. Wepulled the thing out and got itpropped up, and put his lumber onfor him. We all got to Midway that

night, sevenmiles further oninto Denver.”

Travel wasnot all sweetharmony onthose roadseither. TheGoldenTranscriptpublished thisstory onSeptember 23,1868: “As Mr.Earle and MajorBradford, both

of Bradford, Jefferson County,neared the upper Platte bridge, Mr.Earle kept driving across the road infront of the Major’s team, and theMajor took it as an insult. Wantinghim to quit, the Major tried to pullEarle out of his wagon. Earlenaturally resisted but almost had hisclothing torn off. The Major drewhis revolver and shot Earle throughthe abdomen. Seeing a shotgunstanding by a stump near the road,Earle jumped out of his wagon andgot it, and then shot the Majorthrough the arm and leg.” It seemsmighty convenient that a gun wasjust “standing by a stump,” but thesummary in the newspaper was evenmore peculiar: “Neither are seriously

hurt. Mr. Earle went onhome and the Major, atthe time of writing this, isat the Planter’s House.”Either guns did not havequite the fire power thatthey do now, or else theshots were merely surfacewounds.

In 1859 to 1860,another toll road was builtfrom Mount Vernon,which was called theDenver City Mt Vernon

Settlers coming to the mountains.

Alden & Betty Legault home, homestead of JosephLegault. Original outside log walls are still visible.

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and Gregory Toll Road, sometimescalled the Mt Vernon Road, and itran over the hogback nearly parallelwith current I-70. This road went to “Bergen’s House.” It ran toapproximately where El Rancho is now, through Bergen Park anddown to Post(Evergreen).That roadfollowed whatold timersreferred toas the UteTrail. It wasbelieved thatthe UteIndians under ChiefColorow usedthat trail toget to theirhuntinggrounds. Later it wasextended towhat is nowthe Coniferarea “on theroad toTarryall,”present Highway 73.

In 1860 Bradford againpetitioned the territorialgovernment for a charter to buildthe Denver, Bradford and BlueRiver Road. This was granted andthe road was built to continue from Bradford City, to join the Mt.Vernon road, creating a junction,(Barkley road and Highway 73).Then Bradford bought 320 acres at that site, improved the land andnamed it Bradford Junction,modern day Conifer.

Bradford further capitalized onhis ventures by building a hotel and“saloon.” This soon became a stagestop, and he put in a restaurant ofsorts and grocery store. In 1862,

Bradford dug a well in the center ofthe two roads to “water both menand animals.” The road was movedslightly in l937 and the well nowstands close to the yellow barn onwhat was Bradford’s property.

In 1865 another charter was

granted to build a new toll roadfrom Denver through Morrison,over less rugged terrain, to becompleted in one year, at the riskof defaulting on the plan. John D.Parmalee agreed to work on thisBradford-sponsored road inexchange for a percentage of thetoll collections. But the road wasnot completed in the allotted time, putting Parmalee in a prime position to take over theproject himself.

Once again politics becameimportant. Because John Parmaleehad been elected to the JeffersonCounty Republican CentralCommittee and had become aresident of Mount Vernon, he was

the one granted a charter from theterritorial legislature on February 1,1866, to build the Turkey CreekWagon Road from Denver upTurkey Creek Canyon.

On that charter this road wascalled Denver, Turkey Creek and

South ParkRoad, but itis now justcalled TurkeyCreekCanyonRoad. Thegrades weremilder, sincethis roadfollowed thebase of themountainsalong TurkeyCreek, ratherthan tryingto cross overthe top offormidablehills. Becauseof theconvenience,traffic shiftedonce again

to this new road.Then in l869 Parmalee and

several other men petitionedJefferson County to connect theTurkey Creek Road to Bergen’sHouse in what is now Bergen Park,and that rudimentary trail throughKittridge and up TroublesomeCreek continued on to IdahoSprings. This permit was grantedand the road built, which is stillknown as Parmalee Gulch Road.

The charter for the Denver,South Park Wagon road was granted in 1872 and the road wasconstructed from Bradford Junctionto Urmstrom, (now Shaffer’sCrossing). Ostensibly, this road was to continue on to Tarryall and

Mountain Stage Coach

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Leadville, but that is another story.In l873, the ambitious Bradford

and his uncle, William BradfordWaddell (who organized the PonyExpress) and Alexander Majorsstarted a freighting business.Bradford then sold his interest in his property at Bradford Junction to a Col. James Nassar. But onSeptember 27, 1878, the DenverDaily Times, reported that the hotelburned down. According to thatarticle, it had been used as a “stagestation and watering place and a

convenient stopping place fortravelers. The f ire started in thelaundry and because of high winds,it burned quickly. Only the barfixtures, two sacks of f lour and abarrel of sugar were saved.”

Many places became stage stopsat that time. Several two-storybuildings were built and used ashotels. Generally, a place wasneeded for the horses to be wateredand cared for, as well as to havepassengers fed and bedded down.

The Trading Post in Shawnee

(Park County), the Clifton House(across from Long’s Garage), theEllis Hotel (Elk Creek Road),Conifer Hotel (built by theKennedys of Beaver Ranchprominence in 1860 across fromFoxton Road), the Midway House,(Meyer Ranch, Aspen Park), Twelve-Mile House (Bradford City,Intercanyon Fire Department locale)and Bradford Junction (BarkleyRoad and Highway 73), weresome of the popular stage stops.

Riding in a stagecoach in those

Southwest Jefferso n County1870 & 1880

ABOUT THEAUTHORLee Heidemanis a member ofthe JeffersonCounty

Historical Commission andwrites a history column for theMountain Connection. Retiredfrom the National Park Service,where she was a writer/editor,she has also taught history,language arts, and Spanish insecondary schools. At the adult level she has taught classes in creative and memoirwriting. She has a book inprogress, scheduled forpublication in 2003.

In 1877, the Omaha Heraldpublished Hints for Plains Travelers.

“The best seat inside a stagecoach isthe one next to the driver... withback to the horses, which with somepeople, produces... seasickness, butin a long journey this will wear off,and you will get...less than half thebumps and jars than on any otherseat.When any old ‘sly Eph,’ whotraveled thousands of miles oncoaches offers through sympathyto exchange his back or middle seat with you, don’t do it.

“Never ride in cold weather withtight boots or shoes, nor close-fitting gloves. Bathe your feet beforestarting in cold water and wearloose overshoes and gloves twoor three sizes too large.

“When the driver asks you to get offand walk, do it without grumbling. Hewill not request it unless absolutelynecessary. If a team runs away, sit still

and take your chances; if you jump,nine times out of ten you will be hurt.

In very cold weather, abstain entirelyfrom liquor while on the road; aman will freeze twice as quick whileunder its influence.

“Don’t growl at food stations; stagecompanies generally provide thebest they can get. Don’t keep thestage waiting; many a virtuous manhas lost his character by so doing.

“Don’t smoke a strong pipe insideespecially early in the morning. Spiton the leeward side of the coach.If you have anything to take in abottle, pass it around; a man whodrinks by himself in such a case islost to all human feeling. Providestimulants before starting; ranchwhiskey is not always nectar.

“Don’t swear, nor lop over on yourneighbor when sleeping. Don’t askhow far it is until the next stationuntil you get there.

HINTS FOR PLAINS TRAVELERS

days must have been quite anadventure. In addition to dealingwith deep mud and snow, thesestage riders and drivers had to fend

“Never attempt to fire a gun or pistol while on the road, it mayfrighten the team; and the carelesshandling and cocking of the weaponmakes people nervous. Don’t dis-cuss politics or religion, nor pointout places on the road where horri-ble murders have been committed.

“Don’t linger too long at thepewter wash basin at the station.Don’t grease your hair beforestarting out or dust will stick therein sufficient quantities to make arespectable ‘tater’ patch.Tie a silkhandkerchief around your neck to keep out dust and preventsunburns... A little glycerine is good in case of chapped hands.

“Don’t imagine for a moment you are going to a picnic; expectannoyance, discomfort, and somehardships. If you are disappointed,thank heaven.”

off the Indians, while bumpingalong on hard wooden seats.

Sources:Bentley, M. Upper Side of the Pie Crust,

Jefferson County Historical Society,Evergreen, CO, pp. 10-22.

Berrian, Dan, Interview, Oral History Tapes,Jefferson County Historical Society.

Denver Daily Times, September 27, 1878.

Heideman, Lee “Bradford Junction,”Mountain Connection, Conifer, CO,September 2001.

Lomond, Carole, City and Mountain Views,spring 2001.

Warren, Harold, Bits and Pieces of History,KR Publications, Bailey, Co, 1994, p. 8.

Photo by Karen Land Cranford

Pleasant Park School, now a Grange Hall,as it looks today. Also used by thePleasant Park Neighborhood Association.

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THE NATIONAL HISTORIC REGISTERThe Barnes-Peery House

By Charles Hanson

The Barnes-Peery House is one of the earliest extant dwellings inGolden, dating to 1865. Possiblythe first two-story brick house in Golden using a coherentarchitectural style,newspaper reportsof the day con-sidered the houseone of the f inestresidences in thetown. The house isa notable exampleof a local inter-pretation ofItalianate styling in Golden. It hassurvived remarkablywell with theprominent originalfeatures and thestreetscape relativelyunchanged and the two genericadditions discretelyplaced at the rear of the building.

In the mid-1860s, the town ofGolden witnessed a transitionfrom a transportation hubservicing the Clear Creek goldtowns to a settled communitywith its own agricultural andindustrial economy. Wealthymerchants like David Barnescontributed to the growth of thiscommunity by investing in theirresidences and businesses. Barneswas the owner of a large f lourmill, the Golden Mill, located justone block away at Ford Street. A

Pennsylvania native, Barnes cameto Colorado’s Russell Gulch in1861. In 1864, he relocated toGolden, where he built his largemill on the banks of Clear Creek.At least two other f lour mills wereestablished in Golden by the

1880s, but the Golden Mill wasthe first one.

In 1865 Barnes constructed hismansion at 622 Water Street as asymbol of his growing prosperity.Barnes chose to build usingEuropean elements common inthe more developed parts of thecountry but possibly unseen in afrontier town such as Golden inthe mid 1860s. His constructionof this large home used a coherentarchitectural style and likely was astatement of his presence andpermanence in this community.

As a recent immigrant toColorado from the East coast,Barnes may have wanted tointroduce an Eastern sense ofculture and sophistication to theWest, using his mansion as atangible statement of his own

good taste. Not to be upstaged

by a neighbor’sbuilding a nearbyhouse in 1867, Barnesbegan constructingthe north addition inAugust of that year.This statement ofconfidence in thetown probably was animportant gesture tothe communitybecause Golden hadrecently lost its claimas territorial capitalto upstart Denver.

David Barnes’shouse was a standardbearer for a growing

merchant class that built landmarkstructures, widely imitated,contributing a sense of Easterncultural refinement and per-manence to the community.

The Peery family occupied the house during much of thetwentieth century.

In 1993, the Golden HistoricPreservation Board approved theBarnes Mansion at 622 WaterStreet as a Golden landmark and historic site.

The Barnes-Peery House

Robert Williamson Steele was bornJanuary 14, 1820, on a farm nearChillicothe, Ohio. He attendeddistrict schools, later taught in arural school and saved money tobegin his studies for a law degree.He married Susan Nevin onSeptember 6, 1848. After hisgraduation from theCincinnati Law School, theysettled in Warren County,Iowa. In 1855 they movedto Omaha, Nebraskawhere he entered intothe real estate business.He was elected to theNebraska legislature andserved from 1858-59.Attracted by the news ofthe discovery of gold inthis region, Steele broughthis family to settle at Mount Vernon, and was elected Governor of aprovisional government in October 1859. Steele was the first and only governor of Jefferson Territory, which formedseveral counties, including Jefferson County and stretchingfrom Henderson to Central City.

He was re-elected and served as governor until the JeffersonTerritory was replaced when

the Colorado Territory was formedin June of 1861.

Although he “ruled” for less

than two years, those who followedSteele were inf luenced by hisdignity, scholarly dedication andintegrity. Steele moved his familyto Georgetown in 1865 where helived a relatively uneventful and

frugal life prospecting for goldand practicing law until he

died in 1901. According toVolume I of the “Historyof Nebraska” by Morton,Steele is the “Father ofColorado.”

In 1926 theDaughters ofColorado, placed a granite markersurrounded by an ironfence at Mount Vernon.

The marker states:"Homesite of R.W. Steele –

Governor of the ProvisionalTerritory of Jefferson 1859-

1860 – From which theTerritory of Colorado was

created February 26, 1861."Robert Williamson Steele

was elected to the Jefferson County Historical Commission Hall of Fame in 2002.

Robert Williamson Steele Jefferson Territory Governor

JEFFERSON COUNTY

Robert Williamson Steele

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HALL OF FAMERobert W. “Bob” Richardson

Railroad Author and Preservationist

Robert W. "Bob" Richardson haschased trains all over the world.from Ohio to Colorado to Iran.He has photographed nearlyevery train he has come across,beginning in 1931. When looking for a permanent homefor his collection of railroadartifacts, he chose Golden,Colorado. Founded inAlamosa, Colorado, in 1948,Richardson’s museum hasgrown from a personalcollection of locomotives and cars to the premierrailroad history repository inthe Rocky Mountain Region.He has gone from being an "eccentric" collector ofdiscarded railroad flotsam(including documents, maps,correspondence, photographs,station signs, and otherhardware) to recognition as aforesightful preservationist ofthe state’s railroad history.

Born in Rochester,Pennsylvania, May 21, 1910,Richardson was reared in Akron,Ohio. Robert came to rail-roadingalmost by accident. He was hiredby a group of homing-pigeonenthusiasts to carry birds todistant points for release. This job

gave him the opportunity to ridepassenger trains and electric inter-urban cars around northeasternOhio. Serving in the Army SignalCorps during World War II, hewas sent to Iran where he

dispatched trains to Russia andspent free time photographingwartime locomotives. After thewar, he moved from Ohio toAlamosa, where he opened the

Narrow Gauge Motel and beganto collect rapidly vanishingremains of the state’s narrowgauge railroad history. Hefounded the Colorado RailroadMuseum in Golden in 1958,

located at 17155 W. 44thAvenue, and until hisretirement he served as the museum curator andexecutive director.

Richardson’s efforts gobeyond railroading. He wasactive during his museum yearsin promoting and encouragingtourism in Golden. In 1991,the Colorado HistoricalSociety awarded him itsprestigious Stephen H. HartAward for Historic Preservation.In his review of Richardson’sChasing Trains, Dick Kreck ofThe Denver Post wrote, "EveryColorado railroad fan shouldface Golden once a day and say a blessing for RobertRichardson. It is thanks to himthat so much of Colorado’srail history has survived."Robert Richardson was elected

to the Jefferson County HistoricalCommission Hall of Fame in 2002.

Robert W.“Bob” Richardson

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Pleasant Park: In the BeginningFirst Place, Writers’ Award Contestby Karen Land Cranford

It is probably hard for mostpeople to visualize an emptylandscape where today throngs ofpeople go about their daily living.It may be equally hard to envisionpeople trekking along singly or insmall clusters, moving up water-courses into the mountains, benton making a satisfactory life.Some individuals headed for thegold diggings but stopped alongthe way and found an appealingalternative. The pioneers whosettled the picturesque territory

south of Conifer may not haveconsidered their own fortitudeextraordinary, but their descen-dants have long admired thededication of their forbearers.

A founding patriarchHarvey Leander Corbin, a youngConfederate soldier, had beentaken prisoner at the battle ofGettysburg. After the close of thewar, his release meant a chance for a new life, and he headed west. Reaching the territory ofColorado, he passed up thevaluable and productive landbelow the foothills of Jefferson

County and instead ascended aways into the mountains. Hisgrandson, Torrence W. Corbin, a popular Jefferson CountyCourthouse figure, said in a 1972interview that Harvey probablydid this “because he and hisfriends and relatives were allmountain people in NorthCarolina.”

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It’s reported that Corbinreached the beautiful valleylocated on the east side ofHighway 285 between Conifer and Critchell and observed, “This looks like a pleasant placeto park,” and gave it its name.2

Elsie Gray feeding calves in front of the grainery in 1916. Photo courtesy of Jefferson County Historical Society

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In reality Corbin settled on thisproperty by squatting in 1868,then returned to North Carolinafor his family and moved outpermanently in 1870 or 1871. Thename Pleasant Park may actuallyhave been in place as early as1860. Even then it wasn’t its firstname. The Western Mountaineerhad an article on January 25, 1860,headlined “Illian” and said “Theabove is the very pretty name of anew town which has just been laidout on Bergen Hill... ourinformant says there is plenty ofbuilding and saw timber andlimestone in the vicinity and alsogood farming and ranching claimswithin a few miles and good millsites on Bear Creek five milesdistant. Success to Illian.”3

A month later, February 15,1860, the same paper ran this: “Wenoticed a new town two or threeweeks ago by name of Illian...Since then the name has beenchanged to Pleasant Park. Thetown includes 320 acres consistingof prairie and timber land and hasbeen surveyed and partly platted.There are several living springsupon the town site, which willafford an ample supply of water.Already several houses are started.We paid a visit to the pleasantvalley where Pleasant Park issituated and were much pleasedwith the location... Liberaldonations we understand will bemade to those who will build.”4

A third name for this area came by way of the 1881 Atlas of Colorado by F. V. Hayden, the U.S. Geological Survey of theTerritories. Margaret Bentley, inher book The Upper Side of thePie Crust, says this map shows thesketchy beginnings of south-western Jefferson County, and on

it is a place called “Junction Ho,”which would sit today at thecrossroads of Highway 73 andBarkley Road in Conifer. She says “southeast of this Junction is a trail extending several milesthrough ‘Hay Claim Park,’ nowknown as Pleasant Park.”5 Haywas an important crop there.

When Harvey Corbin returnedto Colorado with his wife andthree sons, they built a log cabinand named their new home “EchoValley Ranch,” because of theresounding echos that resultedfrom every loud noise.6 In 1878Harvey purchased additional land

down the valley, not consideredPleasant Park, that came to beknown as Resort Creek. Oneparticularly hard winter he’doversold his hay, leavinginsufficient feed for his ownanimals, and then he decided as a last resort to move the cattle tothat nearby lower valley. The movesaved his herd, which promptedhim to name that next locale“Resort Creek.” After his first wifeLucinda died, Corbin remarriedand moved his new wife andfamily to this Resort Creek. Heeventually had seven children.

In 1898, Harvey Corbin sold

Harvey and Lucinda Corbin – 1878.Photo courtesy of Dean Corbin

Echo Valley Ranch, the PleasantPark property, to his eldest sonHenry Pinkney Corbin. Henry,although a rancher, was welleducated and became involved inpolitics. In 1914 President Wilsonappointed him to head the UnitedStates Boundary Commission. Hedied in 1922 in El Paso, Texas,still serving in that capacity.

The Pleasant Park ranch nextwent to Henry’s son, Torrence“Doc” Corbin. In 1972 this tractof land was selected by theColorado State Fair as the oldestcontinued ownership of a farm orranch land in Jefferson county. Aninterview back then found “Doc”remembering the original loghouse where “deer hides, scrapedpaper thin, substituted for glass in the windows and the familycooked in a four-foot wide stoneand mud fireplace.” He alsoremembered his dad and grand-father using deer tallow to moldcandles for light and cooking inbear grease.7

January 1940 brought disasterupon the family, however, becausethat same log house burned to theground. “Doc” and his youngestson Hank were both in the

hospital at the time. According to“Doc’s” wife Madge, a wood stovehad been jarred the night before,knocking the chimney pipe loose.Thinking they’d fixed it, theywent to bed and next morningtended chores as usual. When theygathered for breakfast and openedthe door to the other room,though, they found that part ofthe house on fire. There was noway to douse the blaze, and theylost everything. They then movedinto an old bunkhouse up the hillwith sons Dean and Hank,

sleeping in an old trailer housenext to them. It took them twoyears to build a new home.8

By the time “Doc” Corbin diedin 1979, he had had a major impacton Jefferson County. He’d been acowboy, a ranch hand, a blacksmithand even a bronc rider, as was hisUncle Ned. “Doc” started workingon the roads for Jefferson Countyin 1930. He served as bailiff for theCounty Court and election judgefor Elk Creek and Pleasant Parkprecincts. He was President of Jef-ferson County Schools, District 35,for three years and Secretary of Dis-trict 19 for nine. In spite of losingboth his legs in the early ‘50’s dueto complications from a loggingaccident, he began full timeemployment with Jefferson Countyin 1951. From 1959 to his retire-ment in 1973 he was Deputy Asses-sor for the county.9

“Doc” and Madge sold EchoValley Ranch in 1977. Today,Madge still lives in Golden next to her daughter Arlene Munyon.Tom Koehler, owner of The Mor-rison Inn in Morrison, has ownedthe original Ranch property since

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Harvey and Lucinda Corbin - 1878.Photo courtesy of Dean Corbin

Glen Gray on horse working for Huff Corbin.Photo courtesy Jefferson County Historical Society

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1995 and has built abeautiful home there.

“Doc” got his nick-name because he wasnaturally talented atproviding vet servicesfor the animals andlivestock in the area,licensed veterinariansnot being numerousback then.10

LegaultThe promise of gold iswhat brought JosephLegault of Canada to PleasantPark. Legault, (pro-nounced Loo-go) left the stage in Denver andwalked up South Turkey CreekCanyon around 1870. A quickaffection for this special valleyreplaced his dream of findingriches. In 1871 he sent for his wifeDelphine and son Noah. By 1875he had obtained a loan for $610 tosecure a homestead made up of160 acres.11 Joseph also convincedtwo of his grown sons by his firstmarriage to come to Colorado atthat time; and one of them,Alphonse, established anotherhomestead adjoining his father’s.Today’s Legault Mountain stands9,074 feet just north of the twohomesteads. Eventually, ElmerLegault, the youngest son ofJoseph Sr. and Delphine, acquiredboth properties, and from therethey ended up belonging toElmer’s two sons, Adrian andAlden Legault. Later, Alden bought out Adrian’s share.

Although Alden passed awayin 1984, his wife Betty still lives in the house that contains theoriginal homestead. The cellar hasstone work done by Alphonse,who was a stone cutter by trade.Over the years remodeling has

been done to keep up with agrowing family, but some of the original outside log walls are still visible.

Alphonse did timber work andalso drove a stagecoach betweenDenver and Leadville. He and hiswife Cornelia had ten childrenaltogether. All the family’s clotheswere hand-sewn by her. But she’salso remembered for the tenacityshe showed when a big stormcame one day late in the fall.Cornelia had just given birth toone of their children, but withintwo hours she was out in the fieldpicking up potatoes to keep fromlosing their cash crop.

Legault family members also lefttheir mark on this state. Alphonsehelped cut the stone for theCapitol Building in Denver andfor the first City Hall of Denver,and he also helped build theTurkey Creek and Deer Creekroads. He listed his occupation in the 1900 Census Records as“mining of ores.” He did own amine on Richmond Hill Road thatheld some gold, silver and copper,but it never amounted to much.12

Alden Legault was born in 1906and remained on the Pleasant Parkranch for all but four years during

World War II. He retired at age66 from Jefferson County Main-tenance. Alden Legault’s wife Bettysays life on the ranch is sometimes“isolated” but she still likes livingthere. She and Alden have fourdaughters. One of them and agrandson still live nearby on theoriginal property.13

GrayTom and Elsie Gray came to thearea with their family in 1913.They bought 480 acres next toLegault’s property from Albert R.Fisher who had bought itoriginally from one Jesse Ray.Tom, born in 1850, and Elsie, in1869, had homesteaded propertyin Oklahoma and then spent ayear and-a-half in Kansas; butPleasant Park captivated them too.14

The Grays had six children...Olive and Anna, and sons Sharonor “Buzz,” Othal D., T. Glenn andJ. Harold. Glenn was 13 years oldwhen they moved to the.foothills.In a 1977 interview Glenn Grayremembered working for theCorbins around 1920 when theirtwo ranches were “tied together.”Glenn said it was Henry Corbin’sproperty but son “Huff” wasrunning it, and “they took a lot

1897 – Ned Corbin – Bronco busting contest. Overland Park Denver Mtn. & Plain.Photo courtesy Jefferson County Historical Society

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of hay out ofPleasant Park” forResort Creek. Abig snowstormin April of 1920 caused the Corbins tolose a lot of cattlebecause they justcouldn’t get feedto them. “Oh, itwas snowing likethe dickens and itsnowed for threedays and nights.”It was a monthbefore the roadsopened up again.

Glenn’s fathermostly raised hay.He said they alsoplowed and planted crops suchas rye, barley, and oats, but theyalways had plenty of hay andpotatoes. Several years he said theyhad 50 to 60 tons of potatoes inthe basement. There were timesthey got as high as $6.00 ahundred and others when theygot as low as 50 cents a hundred.Glenn said they finally stoppedgrowing potatoes because theweather changed. “It just gotso dry...”15

Today, BuzzGray’s son Billlives in the redhouse on thewest side ofLegault Laneon propertynamed AngelAcres thattheir familybought in1970. Bill’sbrother Edlives on theeast side ofLegault Lane in

the original log cabin that Buzz builtback in 1923. Bill serves as Treasurerfor the Pleasant Park CemeteryAssociation.16

Kuehster and HuebnerAnother prominent name in thearea is Kuehster. Frederick Kuehstercame to America in 1848 andworked in the mines in CentralCity. He married Caroline Strehlke in 1872, and in 1875 they homesteaded the property

at the end ofKuehster Roadwhich runssouth fromCritchell. ThesettlementcalledCritchell was about six milessoutheast ofpresent dayConifer,on currentPleasant ParkRoad. TheKuehsters hadfour children,with Carlbeing bornin 1881. Carl

later married Gertrude Huebner,daughter of Joseph and ClaraShaffer Huebner of Pleasant Park.Carl and Gertrude became a partof Pleasant Park history when theybuilt a house in 1915 on propertythat had been owned by I. B.Green. This ranch sat halfwaybetween their parents’ places.Gertrude’s father Joseph Huebnerbuilt Pleasant Park School House,and Huebner Peak is named forthis family.17

Rogers –GranzellaThe Corbinproperty saton the southside at theend ofOehlmannPark Road,and theFrederickRogers’property sat on thenorth side.

Henry Corbin – Pitching hay onto a wagon.

Rogers Home – Earl, Ethel, Fredrick Rogers holdingRuth, Helen (Thompson) Rogers and Avis.

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Frederick and HelenThompson Rogers home-steaded their land in 1898.They had two children whenthey first came to PleasantPark and eventually had eight more, with one dying in infancy. The most wellknown of these children isMargaret, fifth in order of birth. She married James Granzella.

In a 1977 interviewMargaret said her dad built a log house and barns thatdon’t exist anymore. Theyraised cattle, kept workhorses, grew vegetables intheir own garden, and raisedchickens and pigs. Theychurned their own butter,and as soon as Margaretwas old enough to hold thebucket, she milked cows too. Likemany of the youngsters in the area,Margaret and her siblings attendedPleasant Park School duringsummers. “With so much snowand everything in the wintertime,and people lived so far awaythat the kids had to go in thesummertime in order to get theremost of the time.” Margaret’sbrother Fred, known as Fritz, diedin 1949 from pneumonia and isburied in the Pleasant ParkCemetery. Margaret and herhusband are also buried therealong with a number of otherfamily members.18

Pleasant Park SchoolBefore the existing Pleasant ParkSchool building was constructedon Pleasant Park Road, there wasan earlier school. In fact, this wasthe first school in District 19 andwas a half “dug-in” and half logstructure not far from highway 88on Oehlmann Park Road. John

Webb, the oldest former pupil toattend the alumni picnic held in1960, said his mother asked theneighbors in the area to help herbuild a school. Jess Ray had asawmill in what is now Aspen Parkand he donated all the logs andlumber while the men in the areabuilt it in a day! Wedged in theside of a hill meant that the backand part of the sides wereprotected by earth. One windowin the front was the only lightavailable, and the door could be left open for air circulation whenweather permitted.

When a bigger school wasneeded, the structure that standstoday was built in 1894 by JoeHuebner. It was one of the fewschools in Jefferson County tohave summer sessions only. In the late 1930’s Mrs. Bonnie Pickell, a teacher, got the schoolyear changed.

Phebe Granzella, author of A Century of Jefferson CountyMountain Schools, said her mother

taught at the school from 1940 to1942. Phebe then taught six weeksthe next fall until another teacherwas found. Many of these teachersboarded with the Huebners or the Legaults.

The school closed in 1946 dueto the decrease in population butwas opened again from 1953 to1955 for grades four through sixbecause of overcrowding at theConifer school. Pleasant ParkGrange No. 156, which was formedin 1907, took over the school in1956 and has kept it in good repairto this day. It has been used forcommunity meetings and events.19

Pleasant Park CemeteryMost early day communities hadtheir own cemeteries that could beeasily spotted from roadsides. ThePleasant Park Cemetery is difficultto find, though, because it sits onprivate land. This burial ground islocated within Legault propertylines, but at one time it belongedto the Gray family. According to

Pleasant Park School – 1919Photo courtesy of Jefferson County Historical Society

Glenn, his dad, T. M. Gray, deededthe cemetery in 1919 to the Pleas-ant Park Cemetery Association.Years later his folks sold that northquarter to Elmer Legault. ArleneMunyon, Torrence Corbin’s daugh-ter and Secretary of the CemeteryAssociation, says Alden and BettyLegault donated another half acreadjoining the southern end of thecemetery to the association in thelate ‘70s.20

A reference in the book FromScratch by the Jefferson CountyHistorical Society says the first

person buried there was aMrs. Brown, who passedaway in 1875.21 After thatit became sort of anunofficial neighborhoodcemetery with the familiarnames mentioned earlieron markers and head-stones. At one time, four grave sites in thiscemetery would have costa total of $2.50.22 It’s alsothe final resting place formany infants and youngchildren. A sign at theentrance to the cemeteryasks visitors to please

chain up the gate when leaving.“Doc” and Madge Corbin’s

daughter Arlene Munyon said thatabout ten members of theassociation, all people who haverelatives buried there, gather eachJune for their annual meeting andto help clean up the area.

A soldier, a miner, and a farmerbrought life to the attractive valleyof Pleasant Park. The impressiveviews, the proud pines and the fer-tile ground held them there. Theseseveral enterprising pioneer fami-

lies saw promise in the pristine envi-ronment, and through creative dili-gence they built solid if unspectacu-lar lives. Their offspring considerthem adventuresome and resource-ful. Many of them rest in the placethey found ultimately satisfying.

Sources1. “Golden Man’s Land Kept in Family,”

Golden Daily Transcript, September 1, 1972.2. A Century of Jefferson County Mountain

Area Schools, Phebe Granzella, p. 14.3. “Illian,” Western Mountaineer, January 25,

1860.4. “Changed to Pleasant Park,” Western

Mountaineer, February 15, 1860.5. The Upper Side of the Pie Crust, Margaret V.

Bentley, p. 244.6. Biography of Harvey Leander Corbin, Hiwan

Homestead Museum.7. “Golden Man’s Land Kept in Family,”

Golden Daily Transcript, September 1, 1972.8. “Madge’s Story,” as told to her daughter,

Arlene Munyon, 2001.9. Obituary, Torrence Corbin, provided by

Dean Corbin10. Interview with Arlene Munyon, 4/29/02.11. The Upper Side of the Pie Crust, Bentley,

pp. 111-112.12. The Upper Side of the Pie Crust, Bentley,

pp. 116-118.13. Interview with Betty Legault, 4/22/02.14. The Upper Side of the Pie Crust, Bentley, p. 95.15. Transcribed interview with Glenn Gray,

1977, Hiwan Homestead Museum.16. Interview with Bill Gray, 4/26/02.17. Mountain Memories, Betty Moynihan and

Helen W. Waters, pp. 108-109.18. Transcribed interview with Margaret

Granzella, 1977, Hiwan Homestead Museum.19. A Century of Jefferson County Mountain

Area Schools, Granzella, pp. 14-18.20. Interview with Arlene Munyon, 4/25/02.21. From Scratch, A History of Jefferson County,

Colorado by Members of the Jefferson CountyHistorical Association, p. 128.

22. Mountain Memories, Moynihan and Waters, p.110.

Torrence “Doc” Corbin’s headstone in Pleasant ParkCemetery one of the largest family plots here.

Headstone for Lenora Gray, Ed Gray’s wife, in the Gray family

area in Pleasant Park Cemetery.Photo by Karen Land Cranford

ABOUT THE AUTHORKaren Land Cranfordspent twelve years inthe broadcastingindustry during whichtime she and herhusband owned andoperated radio stationsin Colorado andNebraska. She wonnumerous awards forher news stories and commercials,and she spent a years as TV newsanchor for the ABC affiliate inKearney, NE. Karen is past chairmanof the Board for Mt. San Rafaelhospital in southern Colorado and

was named one offifty OutstandingWorking Women byColorado’s Councilon Working Women.She is also a pastpresident of theEnglewood BPW.She was selectedMiss Colorado 1976and still travels the

country as a judge.Today she is afull-time mom to her eight- year-old son, Cory, is involved in PTAand works as a freelance writer.She and her husband Tony livein Morrison.

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Second Place, Writers’ Award ContestBy Martha Martin

Ralston Creek rises in the center ofGilpin County, a few miles north ofBlackhawk, near Dory Hill, and itcourses east-southeast past Goldenand through Arvada, joining ClearCreek at present Sheridan Boulevard.Its approximate length is 20 miles.The Ralston Creek valley west ofArvada is a f lood plain north ofNorth Table Mountain, a volcanicoutcropping. Today Ralston Creek is impounded just west of stateHighway 93 in Ralston Reservoir.Ralston Buttes and Little Rocky Flat,also called Leyden Flats, border thiswatershed on the north, whileGolden Gate Canyon also spills outtoward it from the west. At onepoint thousands of years ago ClearCreek overflowed – from the south –

and left traces of gold in RalstonCreek. Flecks of this gold were thefirst samples of the precious metalfound in Colorado, by a LewisRalston from Georgia in 1850, who basically ignored his find andreturned home, unlike so manythousands of others who becameinflamed with the prospect ofscooping up nuggets and “making it rich.” This valley also containedcoal, however, still mined today,plus traces of uranium. The Leyden, Murphy, and Ralston coal mines were notable localproducers, with the Leyden CoalMine still continuing production.

In the late 19th century thevalley’s agricultural crops and fruitssupplied inhabitants of the miningdistricts, forming a second tiebetween Ralston Valley pioneers andthese districts. Ranching was a third

profitable link. Ranchers broughttheir cattle in from the summermountain pastures to Glencoe, nearthe base of the buttes mentionedabove. Alfalfa fields and haystacksfilled sections of the valley,providing both fodder and income.

At one time several smallcommunities dotted Ralston Valleyfrom Glencoe to Ralston Crossingon Arvada’s Pioneer Highway 72,east to Denver View. At varioustimes in Ralston Valley’s historythe name Ralston was used inconjunction with railroad depots and stations along the Ralston line.A Ralston settlement may have beenassociated with the Ralston CoalMine, which was located south ofGlencoe on Little Dry Creek (VanBibber). Other Ralston Valleycommunities were Murphyville,Tindale and Leyden, named for their

Ralston RemainsDenver and Rio Grande Western with Ralston Depot far right, 1939. Otto Perry photographer, courtesy Denver Public Library

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related coal mines.The Glencoe Land Company at

one time owned property in GlencoeValley with holdings at White Ranchand the entrance to Ralston Canyon.By 1926 parcels of land encom-passing the smaller hogback for-mations were purchased by CoorsBrewery Company for porcelainmining. Later Coors’ acquisitionsincluded acreage on Ralston Creek.Public travel along the RalstonWagon Road was effectively halted by the Ralston Dam construction in1937. When Ralston Reservoir wasfilled, the settlement at Glencoe wasinundated, although occasionallystructures are still visible under a low waterline. Remains of the brickbridge supports for a creek crossingat Glencoe probably supported awagon road or the Ralston Railroad,which ran to Glencoe Station.

Ralston Wagon Toll Road wasincorporated in 1865.1 The wagonroad started in Arvada as RalstonAvenue, became a toll road at thebuttes, and roughly followed RalstonCreek to Gilpin County, passingthrough portions of today’s GoldenGate Canyon State Park. Golden andBoulder connections on a Golden toCheyenne Road led hopeful miners to

Ralston Canyon. The Golden route,Pine Ridge Road, followed a broadvalley behind the lower hogbackformations northwest from the townsof Golden and Golden Gate Cityalong the eastern border of JeffersonCounty’s White Ranch Open Spaceholdings, near Pine Cliff Stable.

Ralston Valley pioneers couldtravel to and from the Gilpin andClear Creek County gold miningdistricts along numerous toll roads,one being the Ralston Wagon Road.Another name for the Ralston WagonRoad was the Freighters and FarmersRoad. Today a graded service roadhas replaced the original wagon road.That pioneer route up the stream isstill visible and is eventraversable in places. Thefirst route left RalstonCreek, and its narrowpath climbed a hillopposite Ralston Buttesfollowing an unnamedintermittent spring’scourse down a tree-linedravine. A tight switch-back would causeproblems for a vehicletoday, but one canimagine narrow-beamedfreight wagons

negotiating the turn. According toMary Ramstetter in her book JohnGregory Country, much of theRalston Wagon Road throughRalston Canyon is eroded andovergrown as could be expected of a crude route carved out of clay androck over one hundred years ago.

Ralston Crossing was the name of the community on Indiana Streetbetween 64th and 80th Avenues,extending east to Simms Street andwest to Churches Ranch. Prior toArvada’s official naming by Mrs. B.F. Wadsworth, that settlement wasvariously known as Ralston, RalstonPoint, and Ralston Station. RalstonCrossing was an important junctionon Pioneer Highway 72. Here,Ralston Road branched from a main highway that went north toLouisville, Marshall, and Boulder.Ralston Road continued west pastMcIntyre, Quaker, and Easley Roads.

Small jumbles of rocks and scat-tered aged timber mark the shafts of numerous hard rock mines in theRalston Mining District. Uraniumsurface deposits were also noted bythe early miners, and signif icant high-grade hard rock uranium ore depositswere subsequently rediscovered in thePrecambrian rock at the onset of theCold War, whereupon the entrance to Ralston Canyon moved under the

Ralston Crossing School House, 1894-1895.

Ralston Cemetery plaque and marker.

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authority of the Atomic EnergyCommission. Ralston Canyonbecame a “Secret Garden,” theentrance hidden behind the f lankof the Ralston Buttes’ upliftedhogback.

Ralston Creek bisects RalstonCrossing near 68th Avenue andIndiana Street. Homes and barnsdating to the early settlement arestill standing, many in need ofpaint and repairs. The RalstonCrossing Church at 7400 IndianaStreet has been restored asRandall’s Photography Studio. TheWest family barn standing northof Ralston Creek on the east sideof Indiana in more recent historyserved as a temporary foster homefor Colorado Horse Rescue chargesawaiting placement.2 Numerousfires have destroyed structures at the junction of Ralston Road andIndiana. The burnt remains werebulldozed when the road was widenedto accommodate increased usage.

Arapahoe City is Jefferson County’searliest settlement, part of Fairmountdistrict. It was a close neighbor duesouth of Ralston Crossing and north ofClear Creek at the base of North TableMountain. The Ralston Railroad linediverted from the Colorado CentralRailroad main line from Denver toGolden at Arapahoe City, strikingnorthwesterly through Fairmount. TheGolden City and Ralston Ditch and the Arapahoe Ditch diverted water from the north bank of Clear Creek,with courses traversing the east f lankcontours on North Table Mountainnear this line. Railroad grades and dryditch lines remain.

Joyce Manley’s interpretation of a 1939 USGS map of the Denver toGolden railroad and tramway tracklines through Fairmount, in herArapahoe City to Fairmount, showsan active track line running an EasleyRoad alignment, crossing 64th and

Easley and running northwest. Themap indicates that at some timebetween 1889 and 1935 track was re-laid from the first cutoff throughFairmount to Churches Ranch.According to Lynn Yehle, a geologistwho has been mapping the course ofthe Ralston Railroad and area schoollocations, this cutoff shouldn’t be onthe map because the track had beenabandoned. He maintains that anactive line should have been runningnortheast to assume a McIntyrealignment, then crossing RalstonCreek two blocks west of Indiana.Railroad ties now imbedded in theembankment mark the crossing andare easily seen from the RalstonCreek trail.

If the 1939 map is correct, this line seems to have been a “mysteryrailroad.” Yehle almost jokinglyretells the folklore of the “mysteryrailroad’s” existence. Apparently theincline into Golden on the Denver-Golden line was steep. This was aplace of frequent accidents involvingrailroad cars running into eachother, and sometimes catching menunawares, causing debilitating injuries

and deaths. Therefore, the cutofffrom 44th and McIntyre mayhave been used as a preferred butundocumented alternate track,bypassing Golden.

Slag used for the Ralston Railroadfill at the Churches Ranch/VanBibber Creek crossing remains one of the few evidences of the railroad’spresence. Lynn Yehle believes theRalston Railroad had two depotlocations, the first being moved 400feet when the tracks were movedfrom the east side of North TableMountain to the west side. Othersections of track fill had been visiblebefore being replaced by the LongLake Regional Park soccer fields.

An abundant water supply beingnecessary for mining, farming, andranching, as well as for steampowered trains, the ‘59ers establishedpriorities on Ralston Creek and ClearCreek. Extensive ditch and canalsystems were developed, resulting in ponds and irrigation channels.Among the first Ralston Creek filingswas the Ballinger and Bunny Ditch,incorporated in 1862 and drawingwater from the south bank of Ralston

Original homestead of Henry J. Juchem, 1890. Ray on Johnny the donkey, Minnie, Guy E.,Henry J., Rover the dog and Harold H.Taken at what is now 52nd and Independence, 1904.

Photo courtesy Denver Public Library

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Creek. The Ralston WagonRoad Ditch Company alsofiled rights on RalstonCreek in 1865.

Jefferson County’s firstditch, the Arapahoe Ditch,diverted water from ClearCreek near Golden adistance of two miles, tothe Arapahoe Bar placergold mining operations.3

Today, the Arapahoe Ditchis known as the Farmer’sand High Line Canal and ReservoirCompany, with thirty-eight miles of ditch line servicing Ralston Valley and Arvada.

Additional water priorities wereestablished with claimants changingwhen rights were transferred or sold.Ditch lines took the names of thelocal settlers, with the followingamong the earliest priorities: Tucker,Churches, Picquette, Haines, Juchem-Reno, Swadley, and WannamakerDitches. Today most of the channelsare dry, with traces still discerniblecircling around the f lattops andsnaking through Ralston Valley andArvada. In addition to the Farmer’sand High Line Canal, the AgriculturalDitch, Churches Ditch, and CrokeCanal are presently in service.

Today, draining off high anddistant Dory Hill, once rural RalstonCreek curls through sedate and clean-looking Arvada neighborhoods,behind manicured back yards,accompanied by a sylvan path forbikers and pedestrians. In this dryyear parts of it seep beneath thesurface, so that it too resembles a ditch, trickling intermittentlyinstead of murmuring.

Much of what remains of theRalston settlement is either underwater or has been paved over.Jefferson County’s site listingsidentify the town of Ralston insection 33 as abandoned by 1900,

and in another reference it is clas-sif ied as a previous settlement onRalston Creek. The Ralston Railroadand the Golden to Cheyenne Roadcrossed Ralston Creek at thisephemeral town site and proceededwest to Ralston Buttes. The crossingis most likely under Highway 93.Despite this “ghostly” record,however, the Jefferson CountyRepublican newspaper continued to carry news from the Ralstoncommunity until the 1940’s. Eventssuch as choir performances, dances,and meetings at the Ralston CrossingSchool were reported, indicating thatthe schoolhouse continued serving asa social community center, actingmuch like a grange hall.

The Ralston Crossing School-house in district #12 represents apreservation success story in the sagaof Ralston remains. The white woodenschoolhouse, active at RalstonCrossing from the 1870s until the1950s, outlived the district #7 brickschoolhouse east of Highway 93 and64th Avenue that was dismantledaround 1900.4 Arvada historicalrecords indicate that the RalstonCrossing structure may have beenused as a church in the late 1860swith a M.F. McQuinstan as thedeeded landowner. In the early1970s when the Arvada HistoricalCommission wrote the history ofArvada, it was assumed that the

Ralston CrossingSchool had beenmoved to FreemontElementary School off Ralston and Ward Roads. Because of this confusion in the identification ofArvada area schools,the Ralston CrossingSchool’s whereabouts at that time wereunknown.

However, in 1956 the pioneerschoolhouse was moved from theeast side of 68th and Indiana Streetto the grounds of the John F. VivianElementary School near 25th andKipling, where it served until 1983 asa temporary classroom. Millie Roederof the Jefferson County HistoricalCommission recalled that thisstructure was moved in two sectionsdown Kipling and across Alameda to the Lakewood Heritage Center atBelmar. Surviving as an example of arural Jefferson County schoolhouse,it has been well cared for, a graciousand fitting retirement for its hundredyears of service.

Records for both the RalstonCrossing Schoolhouse and John F.Vivian Elementary School showwhy the Ralston Crossing Schoolrelocated to Wheat Ridge, and why itresides presently in Lakewood. TheVivian family had a close attachmentto the structure, and when scheduledfor demolition it was moved to thegrounds of the newly constructedJohn F. Vivian Elementary School.Former Colorado Governor John C.Vivian sold property to the schooldistrict in 1954 for the school namedin his father’s honor. His mother,Addie Higgins, surely attended theRalston Crossing School inasmuch asher father, John Higgins, served onthe first recorded school board.

Ralston Valley High School at

Ralston Crossing Schoolhouse, Lakewood Heritage Center at Belmar, 2002.

80th Avenue and Alkire Street nearLeyden, is Ralston’s first high school.Opened in 2000, Ralston Valley HighSchool’s site south of the railroadtracks occupies the last recorded areaassociated with the name Ralston.The Alkire House, a foursquare brickfarmhouse owned at one time byWayne Harkness of Ralston, wasmoved west on 80th Avenue duringthe school’s construction and isbeing restored.

The Ralston pioneers left animpression on the landscape withtheir roads, ditches, mines, andsettlements, but they themselves didn’tstay. Many people moved back andforth between mining strikes, andsome returned to their homes inother states. A few families, includingthe Belgins and Tuckers, remained inthe Ralston area, their descendentsliving on the same ground theirgrandfathers homesteaded.

The Ralston Cemetery is slightlysouthwest of 64th Avenue andEldridge Street, on a knoll withthe Golden City and Ralston Ditchand the Farmer’s High Line Canalmeandering nearby. The earliestrecorded burials date to the late1860s, with the last interments before1910. Some folks believe this sitebegan as an Indian graveyard. The1899 Willets Farm Map labels itsimply as a graveyard above HyattLake. Children who perished in thenearby communities at Ralston

Crossing and Fairmount are amongthe earliest recorded burials. The list of burials at the cemetery isincomplete, because many families ofthese pioneers had remains relocatedto other cemeteries, including Mt.Olivet, Crown Hill, and the Arvadaand Golden cemeteries. Having beenrescued from a planned housingdevelopment, the Ralston Cemeterywas enclosed in 1995 by a woodenrail fence, and numerous vandalizedmarkers have also been restored. Amarker and plaque have been erectedand dedicated to the early pioneerswho rest there.

1 Gold mining dredging operations onArapahoe Bar resumed at the turn of the pastcentury and during the Depression. A markerand plaque dedicated in 1946 to honor theoriginal settlement at Arapahoe City can beviewed on 44th Ave. west of McIntyre St. 2 This may have been either the Ballinger orHaines School. The Leyden Schoolhouse isrecorded as serving after 1900 and givendesignation district #7. For the past decade itsat in a clearing west of Indiana and 64th Ave.

SourcesArvada, Just Between You and Me: A History of

Arvada, Colorado, During the Period 1904-1941. Boulder: Johnson Pub. Co., for theArvada Historical Society, 1985.

Arvada Cemetery. List of burials for RalstonCemetery. Courtesy Arvada Cemetery staff.

Colorado Railroad Museum. Records and Files;Ralston Railroad. Courtesy Kenton Forrestand volunteer staff. Spring 2002.

Colorado State Archives. Colorado Departmentof Personnel & Administration: ColoradoCorporations 1861-1875. Online website.h t t p : / / w w w. a rch i ve s . sta te . c o . u s / c o rp /rc o rp . h t m. Feb. 2002.

Denver Public Library. Western History/Genealogy Department. Western HistoryPhotos. Copyright: Denver Public Library,Colorado Historical Society, and Denver ArtMuseum, 2002.

Lakewood Heritage Center. Permission tophotograph Ralston Crossing Schoolhouse.Spring 2002.

Jefferson County. Archives and Records; Clerkand Recorder; Millie Roeder, Jefferson CountyHistorical Commission telephone interviews.Spring 2001.

Jefferson County Open Space. Natural ResourcesSpecial Usage Access Permit: Ralston CanyonHoldings. Apr. 9, 2002.

Jefferson County Public Library. Special MapsCollection; Northwestern Jefferson County.Courtesy Karen Jones. Summer 2002.

John F. Vivian Elementary School. Jeffco PublicSchools. Communication Services: SchoolProf ile. Apr. 2001.

Manley, Joyce. Arapahoe City to Fairmount:From a Ghost Town to a Community.Copyright: Joyce Manley, 1989.

More Than Gold: A History of Arvada, Colorado,During the Period 1870-1904. Arvada: ArvadaHistorical Society, 1976.

Ralston Valley High School. Jeffco PublicSchools. Communication Services: SchoolProf ile, May 2002.

Ramstetter, Charles and Mary. John GregoryCountry: Place Names and History of RalstonButtes Quadrangle Jefferson County,Colorado. Charles and Mary RamstetterEditors. Golden: C Lazy Three Press, forCharles and Mary Ramstetter, 1996.

Steele, Rick. “From DSP&P to C&S: C&S NarrowGauge History.” Online webpage.http://www.railway-eng.com/dspp/dsphst.htm.Feb. 2002.

Waters of Gold: The History of Arvada, ColoradoDuring the Period 1850-1870.

Arvada: Arvada Historical Society, 1973. “Waters of Gold” reference used with permission

of Marcetta Lutz, Arvada Historical Society,Apr. 2002.

Yehle, Lynn. Telephone interviews Mar.- Apr.2002. Ralston Railroad Van Bibber CreekCrossing Field Exploration-Churches Ranch,Apr. 15, 2002.

ABOUT THE AUTHORJuly 1, 2002 marked my fifth anniversarywith Jefferson County Public Library. Mydaughter is planning for college, so I ampreparing for life as an empty-nester at thetale end of the baby-boomer generation. I

have two pet ferrets. My great-grandfather hunted with aferret in Indiana. I remember stories of his adventures inthe woods hunting rabbit, possum, raccoon, and squirrel.On one occasion his dogs followed something in the darkafter the lantern had been knocked over, and they werenever seen again. He accidentally clubbed his hunting ferret

when the prey escaped through another burrow, and I’m toldhe always grieved his mistake.

Last year’s essay, “County of Vivian,” supports the nucleusfor a thesis on Jefferson County history. I’d never wanted toundertake such an endeavor before because the fright of afifty-page paper has been too much to contemplate.Colleagues have told me I should write a book to which Ireply, “Who’d read it?” However, the more research Iconduct, the more I’m finding the story I’m relating in bitsand pieces every year lends itself nicely to a book andchapter format. Future essays will cover bootlegging andFederal Prohibition enforcement in Jefferson County.

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Special Award, Writers’ Award ContestBy Fran Hackethal

Based on their contribution to thecommerce and industry in JeffersonCounty, Roxy and Frances Vendenaare true pioneers The way they con-ceived and built their businessesidentifies them as resolute entrepre-neurs of the WWII years and themid-century.

Until the 1940s the county wasdefinitely rural. Then, farms,orchards, green- houses, developingsuburban commercial clusters, andnew industries signaled exceptionalgrowth. The far east end of thecounty was unincorporated, andwithin this sparsely settled area wasa place called Columbia Gardens. Itsboundaries bordered West 33rd

Avenue to the north, SheridanBoulevard on the east, Fenton Streeton the west, and the north side ofWest 29th Avenue on the south.The adjacent south side of West29th Avenue was considered a “no man’s land.”

Roxy and Frances Vendena settledin this area in 1942 and started theRidge Valley Poultry and Perma-green Plant Food, two businessesthat have continued to offer prod-ucts and services to Jefferson Coun-ty and its surrounding communitiesfor the past sixty years. This is astory about the Vendenas and theirsuccessful journey, starting fromvery modest beginnings.

Roxy Vendena was born RoccoVendegna at the family home innorth Denver on January 4, 1916.

His parents were Italian immigrantswho had arrived in this country atthe turn of the century and settledin north Denver near Mt. CarmelCatholic Church. He was the mid-dle of nine children. When Roxywas five the family moved to thenortheast area of Jefferson Countyin Arvada on Rhea Avenue, nowcalled 60th Avenue, between LamarStreet and Sheridan Boulevard.

Roxy’s parents operated a truckfarm, growing celery, carrots, beets,and lettuce. His father sold produceto local grocers in and around Den-ver as well as at Denver’s busyDenargo Market, an every daywholesale outlet for fresh fruits andvegetables that sold to grocers fromin and out of the state. The marketencompassed an area several blocks

STARTING FROM SCRATCHChicken Scratch

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square and was located under thepresent 23rd Street viaduct in lower downtown.

Roxy’s formal schooling ended at the eighth grade, which was notunusual for farm children in the mid1920s. At about age fourteen he lefthome to live with one of his olderbrothers and did odd jobs for peoplein and around Arvada and Golden.That included building brick andmortar ash pits which were used forcollecting burnt ashes from cookstoves and wood burning fire places.These conical structures consisted ofbricks mortared in a circle with anopening at the ground level so thatburned ashes could be removed. Asthis procedure continued with onerow of brick attached to the next,the design closed in to form a domewith a large opening at the top. Ittook Roxy several days to constructone ash pit. He recalls being paid“around $5.00 and that included thematerials.” It is possible that an ashpit or two may still be standingtoday, perhaps as a planter in some-one’s back yard.

In addition to building ash pits,Roxy Vendena worked occasionally atthe Piggly Wiggly grocery in Arvada.In his 1914 Model “T” Ford pickuphe also delivered and spread mush-room compost that he purchasedfrom Savory Mushroom Farms, andmanure that he bought from outly-ing farms around Denver. This was his f irst venture in independententerprise. Eventually, though, hefound full time work in a grocerymarket in east Denver and learnedabout retailing. Around 1935, age 19, about five years after he left home and was on his own, hemet Frances Lucille Feese and wasinstantly smitten.

Frances was born on January 1,1918 in Alma, Nebraska. She was ofIrish/German heritage. Her father

had beentown sherifffor manyyears and,her parentsoperated adairy farm.Her mater-nal grand-motherlived withthe familymuch of the time.Francesrecalls hav-ing a livelychildhood.She was aspellingchampionin elemen-tary schooland a cheer-leader inhigh school,in additionto studyingpiano andvoice. Uponhigh schoolgraduationin 1935,accompa-nied byher motherLucy,Frances took the train to Denver forclasses in cosmetology at the DenverBeauty School. She was joined aweek later by her grandmother Eliza,who was to stay with her duringFrances’ schooling. Just nine hoursafter her arrival in Denver she andher mother and some Nebraskafriends who were already living inDenver went to the Denver DancingAcademy for the evening. Thereshe met Roxy Vendena, and therewas an immediate magnetism in

the encounter for her too. Roxy and Frances describe their

courtship as ordinary. He was work-ing hard and she was in school forlong hours, but they spent timetogether on weekends. Roxy owned ablack 1929 Model “A” Roadster. Hehad it painted white with red flamesthat cascaded over the hood anddown to the running boards, andthere was a Gilmore lion head decalon each door. The couple went ondrives in the mountains, and theyate out on Saturday nights, and went

Above: A caricature of Roxy that appeared in a local news-paper in the 1950’s.Left: Brooder houses (in the background) were built to house and shelter mature turkeys as well as for their roosting at night.

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dancing. Along with Frances’s grand-mother, they went to church onSunday and visited Roxy’s parentsand family. He recalls that they alsowent to Lakeside and Elitch’s amuse-ment parks and to Eldorado Springs,and they also motored to Inspira-tion Point in North Denver, wherehe “just held her tight.”

Frances finished her beautycourse, took the state cosmetologyboard exam, and went back toNebraska to wait for her grades,after which she returned to Denver

to begin her first job. In the mean-time, Roxy had secured a positionwith Safeway Stores and was ready to propose marriage. They weremarried on May 1, 1937 at Mt.Carmel Catholic Church in Denver.

With scant funds in the midst ofthe Depression they had no honey-moon, just a hamburger and maltand dancing at the Rainbow ball-room. In the fall of 1937 theylearned that their first daughterwould arrive the following June.Frances abandoned a career in a

beauty salon, and grandma Elizaagreed to remain to help withthe family.

What Came First, the Idea or the Opportunity?After working for Safeway stores for about three years and with theadded responsibility of a seconddaughter in 1939, Roxy decided todevelop a private business of hisown. Recognizing an opportunity tosupply dealers on busy Market Streetin Denver, he began hauling livepoultry. With his 1932 Chevy four-door sedan and $50 borrowed froma friend, Roxy and Frances begantheir poultry business. First, Roxycontrived a “frontbed” for theChevy sedan. Using wooden palletsthat he attached to the front of thecar, he was able to secure a fewchicken coops, each coop holdingtwenty-four chickens. Eggs he trans-ported inside the vehicle. He beganeach day at 5:00 a.m. by placing the empty chicken coops on the“frontbed.” He borrowed additionalfunds from Eliza, and drove to out-lying towns north and east of Den-ver where he bought live poultry.Then he returned to Market Streetin downtown Denver to sell his daily “haul.”

Roxy quickly realized the benefitof direct sales, because eager cus-tomers approached him for freshpoultry right off his truck. Soon hewas able to afford another vehicle,and he purchased a 1937 Reo pick-up truck. He fashioned a post onthe back of the truck to hang ascale for weighing the poultry thathe would buy by the pound. Herecalls that he paid 5 cents perpound for old roosters. Hens, ducks,geese, turkeys, whatever the farmerswould have and what he could carrybecame his load for the day. Hewould catch about f ive chickens at a

The 1937 Reo pick-up filled with chickens.

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time, place them on the hangingscale to report their weight, paythe farmer, place the chickens inthe coops, then then hoist themonto the “frontbed” and returnto Denver to sell his quota forthe day.

Having lived in the northDenver area for the previousthree years, in 1942 the Vendenasmoved to the Columbia Gardenscommunity in east JeffersonCounty. Because of complica-tions due to Roxy’s father pass-ing away, a place to locate theirgrowing business was delayed,but at length for a borrowed$300 down payment they pur-chased a home at 2893 DepewStreet with its detached singlecar garage and five additional 25 ft.lots. This property allowed them tobegin their venture in a businessthat would become known through-out Denver and its surrounding sub-urbs as Ridge Valley Poultry. Alongwith launching a brand new busi-ness in 1942, their last child was alsoborn, a son.

At their new property the singlecar garage became the processingfacility as well as a retail store. TheVendenas’ enterprise rapidly devel-oped into the production of freshdressed poultry and fresh eggs.Dressed poultry means slaughteredand scalded, feathers plucked,entrails removed, whole or with thecarcass quartered, cooled in icewater and then refrigerated. Roxytaught Frances the process. While hewas on buying trips, Frances attend-ed to business matters, answeringthe phone, taking orders, and onSaturdays waiting on customers.Grandmother Eliza helped withcooking meals, doing laundry, andhelping with the children. Eliza con-tinued living with the family fornine more years, until 1949 when

she returned to her daughter’s homein Nebraska.

For their holiday business in 1942Roxy bought fifty turkeys at about15 cents per pound - live weight tothe farmer. At Thanksgiving thatfirst year they sold the birds oven-ready, dressed weight for 49 centsper pound. After this sample ofsuccess for their first Thanksgivingand Christmas season, they rewardedthemselves with a brand new 1943two-ton Chevrolet f latbed truckthat made buying trips much moreefficient. Before long they hired ahelper or two, including Roxy’syounger brother as well as a coupleof part-time people to candle eggs.

Egg candling featured a box-likeapparatus with a rubber-rimmed one inch hole and a light bulb onthe inside. Each egg was held tothe light and observed for its airspace (which indicated the age ofthe egg or other irregularities.)Selling fresh eggs, meant makingsure they were perfect. The smallersized eggs were considered “seconds”and were sold to several nearbyinstitutions. Egg candling was a very meticulous job.

Water, Water AnywhereAlong with the increasing volume ofbusiness, the Vendenas were upagainst an obstacle that meant aproblem for their processing proce-dure. As mentioned earlier, thesouth side of West 29th. Avenue wasa “no mans land,” not consideredpart of the Columbia Gardens. Thewater supply for this side of theavenue came from the AshlandReservoir on West 29th Avenue atFenton Street, moving through apipe in a gravity f low. Consequently,there was little volume and pressurein the running water, and with theVendenas’ needs for dressing freshpoultry it became a problem. Know-ing that Columbia Gardens receivedits water from Denver, Roxyexplained his water difficulties tothe president of the Columbia Gar-dens Association, asking for a hook-up to the Denver water main. Whenthis request was taken to the board,an interesting trade-off transpired.The Columbia Gardens VolunteerFire Department was short of day-time manpower, and because Roxywas close-by and many of the maleresidents worked elsewhere during

The 1932 Chevy four-door sedan – before it became the “frontbed.” Roxyat his parents home on Rhea Ave. in Arvada. He was about 24 years old.

the day, they asked him if he couldjoin the force and help with firecalls. Although still working ten ormore hours each day, with the helpthat he now had Roxy then begangoing out on fire calls.

The Columbia Gardens Associa-tion disconnected him from the oldwater source and hooked the busi-ness onto the high pressure system,supplying the volume of water need-ed to process the fresh poultry.Today Roxy Vendena is proud of the Captain’s badge that he earnedfor his years of service in the fire department.

The business grew so rapidlyduring the 40s that Roxy knew hewould have to find easier and betterways to do things. He constructedadditions to the original singlegarage to provide more room forboth the processing area and theretail outlet. He designed, built, andinstalled machines to automate thedressing plant. Then he added scald-ing tanks, a room-sized walk-inrefrigerator, and he developed anautomated device for bleeding thepoultry. He opened up the atticwith a pulley-type elevator that gaveadded storage, and by 1949 he andFrances made plans to build a newhome on a parcel of their land on

Depew Street, just south of the busi-ness. In Roxy’s and Frances’s newhome in 1950 Frances sewed cloth-ing for the children, went weekly todowntown Denver to do the bank-ing, played the piano accompani-ment for the dancing school whereher daughters studied, and finallycould be involved in PTA and play-ing the organ at church.

Diversify, Diversify Later the Vendena’s were able todiversify by purchasing several prop-erties in the adjacent block on West29th Avenue as investments. Evereconomically creative, in 1950 Roxyexperimented with another idea,processing fertilizer to bag and sell.From his former days of haulingand spreading manure, he knewthat fertilizer was a product thatcould be in demand. He had an eye on a property in Arvada at 55thand Harlan Street, a big old barnwith an acre of land, envisioning itfor a fertilizer plant.

Another of the Vendena ventureswas producing a pet food that hecalled, Chick’n Dinner - For YourPets. He used ground chicken partspacked in cottage cheese cartonsand sold frozen. The demandbecame so great that he discontin-

ued the product because “there werenot enough hours in the day.”

Along with regular buying tripsfor poultry and eggs, he began buy-ing chicken, cow, and horse manure.He bought some used paper sugarbags from Pepsi Cola and CocaCola. In an area behind the poultryprocessing plant, he and his workersmixed the concoction, filled 200 ofthe sugar bags and displayed themin the front of the retail store to seehow they would move, selling themfor 79 cents per bag on Saturday,always their busiest day. They soldout so quickly that they were oblig-ed to stop production after experi-menting for two or three weeks.This success convinced Vendena that he could succeed selling fertilizer for a profit.

Another problem surfaced in1950, however, that signaled majorchanges in buying live poultry.Because of competition with grocerystores in the city, many poultryfarms ceased operating. After thewar buying trips took Roxy furtheraway to eastern plains towns such asBrush, Ft. Morgan, Sterling, Akron,and Wray and even to some westernNebraska villages. He became disap-pointed, however, with the diminish-ing quality of poultry from thesefarms. Compared to turkeys avail-able in the grocery stores, the farmturkeys lacked f lavor and plumpnessbecause of inadequate feeding prac-tices. Therefore, he decided to raisehis own turkeys and began easing“off the road” for good. As far aspurchasing other poultry for thestore, he would buy it “readydressed” from local poultry process-ing plants. Eggs could be purchasedfrom the Market Street egg dealers.In that same year he bought fourmore acres of land adjacent to theHarlan Street property to raiseturkeys and to process fertilizer.

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Left: Roxy and Frances in 2001.Right: Roxy and Frances a week or so after their marriage in 1937.

Roxy named the product Perma -green by combining the words per -manently and green. The “barn” asthe family called it, became a multi-purpose establishment. One end ofthe building was used for processingthe fertilizer and the other end wasremodeled for raising baby turkeys.About 3000 young turkeys were pur-chased early in the year for theThanksgiving holiday in 1950. Theywere housed on the inside until theywere about six weeks old, and thenthey were turned out into the fieldsto mature.

Permagreen, like Ridge Valley Poul-try, became an immediate success andgrew very quickly. A full-time crew of8 to 10 people was hired during thepeak of the season. A couple ofheavy duty trucks were purchased fortransporting manure from farmyardsas well as for taking deliveries, afterwhich Roxy again invented machinesfor a faster, more efficient produc-tion. Accounts were established inhardware, grocery, and discountstores in Colorado, Wyoming,Nebraska, New Mexico, Utah, andTexas. Soon, Vendena also processedand bagged mountain peat mossfrom a bog in Jefferson, Colorado.He blended products and added a

potting soil for house plants. In ashort time the truck f leet multipliedto six or seven.

Expanding, ExpandingBy 1960, the Vendenas had expandedtheir trade to include a shoppette onthe corner of 29th and Depew. Thebusinesses at the shoppette as well asthose on the adjacent block of West29th Avenue included a bakery, adairy, a laundromat, a beauty shop, a dry cleaning establishment, a pizzaparlor, and a dance studio. TheVendenas also added on and remod-eled the Ridge Valley Poultry retailstore for the f inal time

Today Permagreen Products Com-pany, owned and operated by theVendenas’ son, offers a variety oflandscape services and garden prod-ucts. The Ridge Valley Poultry on thecorner of 29th & Depew Streetremains a tribute to the family andtheir years of hard work. During theholidays in their first year of businessin 1942, Roxy Vendena sold f iftyturkeys at Thanksgiving and Christ-mas, but by the time of their retire-ment in 1976 they were selling sixthousand turkeys during the holidays.Prices for poultry over the yearsreally have not escalated to a great

degree. In 1942 Roxy sold turkeysfor 49 cents per pound. When theyretired in 1976 they were sellingturkeys for 59 cents per pound. Theirprices were always a little higher thanthe super markets, though. Freshnessand high quality were key factors inselling out a couple of weeks beforeeach holiday.

In 1976, the Vendenas retired andsold the poultry business. They con-tinued, however, to own and lease theperipheral properties until 1990 whenthe Ridge Valley Poultry sold again. Itthen became known as Wheat RidgePoultry and Meat, which today con-tinues to market fresh poultry andeggs as well as beef. This firm alsoprocesses about 1,000 head of deer,elk, and bear each year. In 1994 theVendenas liquidated all of their West29th properties.

When the Vendenas left their thriving businesses, they built a home high above Clear Creek nearthe west end of Inspiration Point,and they remain residents of WheatRidge, At 86 and 84 years of age,they enjoy their home, three children,six grandchildren and three greatgrandchildren. This year was veryspecial; they celebrated their 65thwedding anniversary on May 1, 2002.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORFrancille E.Vendena Hackethal is a nativeof Jefferson County, having lived in theColumbia Gardens area as a child until1958 and in Wheat Ridge for thefollowing 37 years. She is the first-borndaughter of Roxy and Frances Vendena. In1996 Francille and her husband moved to

the Applewood area in Lakewood. She was in the first graduatingclass of Jefferson High School in 1956, and she and her husbandClem were married in 1958.They have one son, Clem III, and agrandchild, Stefan.

Mostly a stay-at-home mom when her son was young, Franlater worked part time giving organ lessons for several

institutions and in her home. In 1973 she began work at WheatRidge Junior High School as an educational assistant. Early on shedeveloped a program for enhancing self esteem in adolescents.Along with a team teacher and an educational grant through theColorado Education Association and the Jefferson County SchoolDistrict, she worked with students over a five-year period toimplement this curriculum. She also co-authored a teachingmanual that was published in 1980. In the following 14 years Franworked in the gifted and talented program while continuing toinstruct life-skills studies. She was also the cheerleading coach andstudent government sponsor.After 26 years she retired in 1999, atthat time serving as event coordinator.

Fran is pleased that the Historical Commission is publishingthis tribute to her parents.

Jefferson County Historical Commission

JCHC NEWSCathleen Norman’s article “Glimpses of the Past” in this issue contains at the end an explanation of hermission in identifying and researching over 4,000 properties in the county that have significant historicvalue. This three-year cultural survey has been sponsored by the Jefferson County Historical Commissionand funded by grants from the Colorado State Historic Fund.

The Commission continues its program of identifying historic sites with its Place Names Directoryproject, headed by Chuck Hanson.The Commission website contains over 3,000 place names of countyhistorical sites: http://www.co.jefferson.co.us/archives/search.cfm

Hanson and another Commission member, Jack Raven, have also spoken at various service clubs,explaining the function of the Commission and offering tidbits of county history. Commission memberDon Ebner’s wife Dolores and Commission member Milly Roeder also appeared on public television, givinginterviews on historic preservation of the Bradford House in Ken Caryl Ranch and the Foxton Post Office.

Preservation and education continue to be main thrusts of Commission activity, and toward that end members have helped plan a Rocky Flats Cold War Museum (most notably Chairman Max Haug’sinvolvement) and have assisted grants’ applications that resulted in $868,000 distributed for eleven projects, among which are building restoration efforts at the Hiwan Homestead Museum in Evergreen.Commission member Ebner has reported that additional programs awarded grants from the StateHistorical Fund include interpretive signage at Red Rocks Park and log repair at the Chief Hosa Lodges.

Results of other Commission activities appear in this magazine: writers’ award contest winning articles,Hall of Fame selections, an addition to the National Register of Historic Places (the Barnes-Peery house in Golden), and even compelling childhood memories of member Lawrence Lotito.

DeborahAndrewsFounderAndrews &AndersonArchitecture,Historicrestorationspecialist

Lucy BambreyTeachesAnthropology,Archaeology,Earth Sciences,EnvironmentalLaw & PropertyLaw.

Denzil (Denny)BoekaRetired, JeffcoSheriff ’s Dept.;Received MetroLaw EnforcementAssociationHumanitarianAward

Jerry GrunskaRetired Englishteacher andsports referee,author ofsportsofficiating books

Liz GradyHas served many charitableorganizations

JEFFCO HISTORICAL COMMISSION MEMBERS

JEFFCO HISTORICAL COMMISSION MEMBERS (continued) COMMISSION STAFF

Max HaugPast PresidentOlde TownArvada Assoc,ArvadaHistoricalSociety. Realtor

Donald E.EbnerRetiredexecutiveChronicler ofhistory, KenCaryl Ranch

Lorre GibsonRecent Olympictorchbearer;Chemo Angelsvolunteer;program assistantat CNI Centerfor Brain & SpinalTumors

Jack RavenPresident ArvadaHistorical Society,Arvada LionsClub,ArvadaCemeteryAssociation.Retired SafewayManager

Richard Simmons.Writers’ AwardChair;Pilot, flightinstructor;Manager &PrincipalSunamericaSecurities

Joyce WeedonFormer memberHistorical &ArchitecturalSites Commissionand othercommunityorganizations

DuncanMcCollumJeffersonCountyArchives &RecordsManager

SusanCasteleneto Archives &RecordsManagementsecretary

Rita PetersonAmerican CancerSociety andSenior ResourceCenter boards.Real estateappraiser

Milly RoederEnglish-Germantranslator,consultant forUrban Design;historicalresearcher; grantwriter

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The Jefferson County Historical Commission membersare appointed by the Board of County Commissioners.The current County Commissioners are (from left):Richard Sheehan, Michelle Lawrence and Pat Holloway.

Jefferson County Historical Commissioninvites writers of all ages to participatein its Writers’ Award Contest. All topicsmust relate directly to the factual historyof Jefferson County. For new contestrules and application forms, pleasecontact Duncan McCollum at Archivesand Records Management Departmentat 303-271-8446.

JEFFCO WRITERS AWARD CONTEST

Viona "Vi" MaeHaderHistorian. PastManager GoldenChamber ofCommerce,Astor House &Foothills ArtCenter

Charles HansonArchitecturalHistorian,HistoryGraduatestudent CUDenver,Certified PublicAccountant

Carole LomondPublisher City &Mountain Viewsmagazine andbook: "HistoricalTour of LariatLoop HeritageArea

Erlene Hulsey-LutzReal EstateBroker

Norman MeyerPilot, rancher,journalist,developer. Muchof Meyer familyranch now JeffcoOpen SpacePark. ColoradoNative; lives nearConifer.

Tim MontgomeryActive in ArvadaCity Council,Planning & Zon-ing Commission.Certified PublicAccountant &ManagementConsultant

COUNTY COMMISSIONERS

Larry LotitoRetired U.S.Army 1981,Weather Officerin Europe andKorea, civiliancareer in Europe& US

Lee HeidemanFormer writer/editor, taughthistory in jr/srhigh school,writes historycolumn in“MountainConnection”

Six Commission members participated in a weekend Historic PreservationConference held by Colorado Preservation, Inc. at the end of January. Amongthe sessions summarized was a report on “ghost signs” by Erlene Hulsey-Lutz.These are not religious graffiti but instead are faded or partially coveredcommercial emblems from the past which signal a new use for a building, suchas a railroad’s depot being transformed into a boutique or an old schoolhousebecoming a grange hall.

An ongoing record of county history is on display in the courthouse atrium,with panels being renewed each month. Attractively presented topics this yearhave included backgrounds of pioneer families in the Morrison area (mountedby Sally White, on behalf of the Morrison Heritage Museum) and illustrations of early railroading, by the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, Charles Albi,President, and Kenton Forrest, Historian. One month’s presentation alsofeatured a portrayal of Commission projects.

Further examples of the Commission’s own efforts at discovery are LeeHeideman’s story in this magazine about early wagon roads and Norm Meyer’sfollow-up efforts to find remnants of early trails. Heideman used maps of late1800s toll road construction, while Meyer flew his Cessna over the route fromSouth Turkey Creek to the Ken Caryl Ranch, photographing the steep forestedterrain to see if faint trail markings were still evident.

DISCLAIMERThe information in this magazine is solelyprovided by the authors. JCHC, the Board ofCounty Commissioners and the Historically Jeffcocommittee are not responsible for the opinionsof authors and the content of their articles.

OBTAINING COPIESCopies can be purchased for $5 at the Depart-ment of Archives and Records Management.Themagazine is available free of charge to membersof Jefferson County Historical Societies.

FOR MORE INFORMATIONThe Archives and Records ManagementDepartment has further information for those interested in history and historicpreservation in Jefferson County, plusapplications for Commission membership.Call Duncan McCollum at 303-271-8446.

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Jefferson County Historical CommissionArchives & Records Management, Rm 1500100 Jefferson County ParkwayGolden, CO 80419

ISSN 153-6047-4

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A Glimpse of Jeffco History – FromDinosaurs toCovered Wagonsand Candymaking

Above:“Tracks Make a Big Impression on New GoldenLinks,” page 1; below “Southwest Jeffco Trails and TollRoads,” page 20; right: “Jolly Rancher,” page 16.