Gulling Offerson and The Giant Potatoes 

by Kathy Heicher

 

The ridiculous photo was made over 120 years ago and has been lurking in the Eagle County Historical Society archives for decades. It never fails to draw attention.

The black-and white image shows a Beaver Creek rancher/farmer, Gulling Offerson, wearing a stoic expression as he pushes a wheelbarrow filled with a single potato. It’s a giant potato, the size of a full-grown pig. Similar-sized potatoes rest on the ground nearby. The mountain slopes of Beaver Creek loom in the background.

Historical archives and genealogy records reveal that Gulling Offerson was a very successful rancher and community leader who once owned much of what is now Beaver Creek. Most Beaver Creek visitors have at some point driven Offerson Road, which threads along the southeast edge of the resort. Anybody who has enjoyed dining at Mirabelle’s Restaurant at the base of Beaver Creek is actually eating in Offerson’s first house in the valley.

The giant potatoes are not as simply explained.

 

Gulling Offerson

Born in Vrigsted Parish, Denmark on April 15, 1872, Offerson was an infant when his family immigrated to a farm in Kansas in 1873. He had a sixth grade education. Offerson moved west in about 1889, when the silver mining camps in Colorado were booming. He first landed in Black Hawk, then moved to Leadville.

Many Eagle County pioneers arrived via Leadville. Nearly all dabbled in mining (Offerson had a financial interest in a lode for years), but most figured out how to make a dollar by catering to the needs of mining camp residents.

Eggs and milk were among those needs.  Gulling established the Carbonate Dairy farm on Arkansas Gulch where he raised chickens and dairy cows. Leadville was at that time the second biggest city in Colorado, so business was brisk.

The young dairy man was socially prominent. In April 1899, he married a local woman, Olive Dedrick. The morning wedding was followed by  a reception that ended with the celebrants dancing until the small hours of the following morning. For the honeymoon, Gulling took his bride to Kansas to meet his parents, whom he had not seen since moving west 10 years earlier.

By 1900, census records indicate that Offerson’s parents were living with the young couple on the diary farm, along with a brother-in-law and three “servants” (likely hired hands).

The boom-and-bust mining economy was challenging. In 1903, Offerson was seeking a change. He headed down the Eagle River Valley and purchased John Howard’s 500 acre “Avondale” ranch at Avon (at the base of Beaver Creek) for $10,000. And just like that, Offerson became a cattle rancher and a farmer for the next 40 years in Eagle County.

The Offerson’s first home in the valley was on the site of a log cabin that had been built by the original Beaver Creek settler, George Townsend, in 1881-1882. Townsend sold to Howard, who replaced the cabin in 1889 with a house that is now the core of the Mirabelle’s restaurant. Offersons added rooms and a porch that now comprise the front part of the restaurant. It was the largest residence in the heart of old Avon.

Ranchers dabbled in a little of everything. In 1910, Offerson was shipping logs via railroad to Leadville for use as mining timbers. One year later, the newspapers were praising Offerson’s timothy hay as “the finest that can be grown,” with six-foot long stalks and heads over nine inches long.

In 1911, he ran as a Republican candidate for Eagle County Commissioner. Newspaper ads suggest that his campaign slogan was a single word: Reliable. He won, serving for four years with a reputation for keeping a close watch on the county finances.

In 1915, the Offerson’s only child, a son named Austin, was born.

For decades, Gulling Offerson remained prominent in the county’s ranching community. He worked as a State Potato Inspector, dealing with farmers who shipped crops from Wolcott, Edwards, and Avon. He was the president of the valley’s Lettuce Association., which held meetings at his home.He helped market the crops. He was active in the Eagle County Livestock Grower’s Association. He purchased small neighboring ranches and consolidated them into a larger operation.

A community activist, he served on the Avon School Board for 15 years, and on the Board of Directors for the First Bank of Eagle County. He loved baseball, playing for the Avon team in his younger years, and sponsoring teams in his later years.

In 1927, he was again elected to a four-year county commissioner term. His ranching success made him the man people wanted to lead the county.

His life abruptly ended in 1941 after he was accidentally struck by a car while walking the road about a mile from his home. His ranch later sold to the Nottingham family, then eventually became part of the Beaver Creek resort.

 

The Potato Photo  

It was most likely Offerson’s persistent interest in marketing his crops (and the county’s crops in general) that led to the giant potato photo. Even as far back as 1902, the people who printed photos in chemical-filled darkrooms had mastered techniques for altering images.

Farmers with crops to sell need to attract the attention of the buyers. In the early 1900s, postcards were  the quickest, easiest, and least expensive means of communication. Creating eye-catching and sometimes outlandish images became a bit of a postcard marketing trend.

Gulling Offerson’s giant potato photo was likely created for a postcard. By marketing standards, it was a great strategy. The attention-grabbing photo would be remembered by potential buyers. These days, Eagle County Historical Society uses the photo when teaching 4th graders about the county’s agricultural history. Those kids always remember that potatoes were at one time the county’s biggest cash crop.

 

 

END

(Kathy Heicher is a retired newspaper reporter, and current president of the Eagle County Historical Society. She has written four local history books. She once grew a 1.5 pound potato in her vegetable garden in Eagle, along with many small potatoes.)

(This story first appeared in the Winter 2024-025 issue of Beaver Creek Magazine.)