Tag Archive for: Kathy Heicher

Good Day Vail: History of Avon

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History of Avon

Recently we had the pleasure of talking with @CeciZak, host of #GoodDayVail (TV8, our local television channel) about the history of Avon Colorado and the impact the Nottingham family had on this amazing town! We had fun reminiscing about the events leading to the incorporation of the town, community “drama” and the importance  of unity. Ceci would appreciate any feedback. Link to episode:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHVwNOoFxZE

Feedback can be directed to Ceci at:  [email protected]

Holy Cross City: The gold camp built on hope

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Holy Cross City: The gold camp built on hope, by Kathy Heicher

(Note: This story first appeared in the Winter 2023 edition of Vail Valley Magazine.)

The first hint that there was gold embedded in the geology of the Eagle River Valley appeared in 1874  via scribbled notes in explorer Ferdinand Hayden’s famed survey. In that document, geologists noted that men fishing the tributaries coming into the Eagle River from the south (Homestake Creek, Cross Creek, Beaver Creek, and Lake Creek) were finding placer gold in the gravel. That news prompted the quiet filing of a few mining claims.

However, on July 8, 1880, the Leadville Herald-Democrat newspaper reported that an experienced prospector, J.W. Lynch, had arrived in town with a 60 pound lump of ore to be processed. Lynch revealed his discovery of a gold-bearing quartz vein above timberline in the wild country southeast of the famous Mount of the Holy Cross.

The newspaper called for development of a new camp and mining district. Prospectors heeded that advice. Five weeks later, scores of miners had flocked to the area, filing enough claims to warrant the formation of the Holy Cross Mining District. The district (a governing entity) encompassed the headwaters of Cross Creek and Homestake Creek and about 100 square miles of the wild country in between.

Located at an elevation of 11,335 feet, Holy Cross City was a gold mining camp that was expected to boom when it first developed in 1880. However, low quality ore, expensive processing, and brutal winters turned the camp into a ghost town by 1884.

Mining camps populated by adventurous miners sprang up throughout the mountainous district. Among the most prominent of those camps was Holy Cross City. Located at an elevation of  11,335 foot in a meadow on the east slope of French Mountain, this headline-generating yet short-lived mining camp was the product of unfettered human optimism and the harsh reality of a shallow ore vein.

Creating the camp

Holy Cross City’s first year, 1881, was a time of development and splashy headlines. Newspapers described country “seamed with inexhaustible fissure veins of gold ore.” Even the names of the mining claims were infused with optimism: Grand Trunk, Solid Muldoon, Shamrock, Treasure Vault, Hunky Dory, and the Eureka.

Miners stayed in a boarding house or in private cabins. Most of the mining took place in the summer, although a small crew of 24 men stayed for the winter.

In a relatively short amount of time, newspapers reported there were 25 buildings in the camp including  a boarding house, post office, two general stores, assay office, blacksmith shop, a drug store, and several saloons. Two rows of residential cabins faced each other on either side of a short “street.” By 1882, the Colorado Business Directory reported a population of 200 people in Holy Cross City. There was talk of forming a school district. A sister mining camp, Gold Park, located four miles down the road claimed 400 residents. A flume with a cast-iron bottom connected the two camps. In theory, water in the flume would carry smashed ore from Holy Cross City to Gold Park for processing. However, there were issues with the grade of the flume, and the ore chunks tended to pile up unless a team of miners kept things moving.

Initially the ores extracted from the district were promising, with assay results convincing speculators that the “Mother Lode” could be located by just digging a little deeper. The Gold Park Mining and Milling Company was formed in 1881 and was incorporated with $500,000 in capital stock. Professional engineers and mine managers were recruited. The company gained control of 23 of the mining claims on French Mountain and put a large crew of miners to work.

 

“There are a great number of good properties in all parts of the district that would pay well if properly worked … we expect to see lively times among the gold mines of the Holy Cross District.”

Rocky Mountain News

June 9, 1882

During the initial mining boom, 400 men were employed in the mines at Holy Cross City.Gold was the ore that prompted the development of the mining camp in 1880, however, a “rich silver vein” was reported at Holy Cross in 1882.

But mine speculators often tend to be captured by the promise of riches, while ignoring reality. The unfortunate truth about most of the Holy Cross Mining District was that while the upper few feet of the ore veins were promising, the quality of the gold deteriorated quickly at deeper levels. Ore in the upper two feet of the vein assayed out at $100 per ton. But at the next lower level, the gold was mixed with pyrite, requiring more complex processing. The value dropped to $40 feet per ton. Two feet lower, the ore’s value was a mere $9 per ton. This scenario proved typical of the veins throughout the district.

One miner, apparently well aware of the peculiar nature of the Holy Cross district ore veins, dug several shallow holes along his claim. Of course, the upper level ore yielded assay results attractive enough to prompt a purchase offer of $50,000 from an Eastern capitalist. The investor paid half of the money up front, intending to pay the rest upon development. The seller took the initial $25,000 and disappeared … and is credited with being the only man to make a clear profit from the mines of the Holy Cross District.

 

Rough and rowdy

Visitors could find a room and meals at the Timberline Hotel. The camp also boasted a post office, general merchandise store, assay office, and a justice of the peace. The trip from Red Cliff to Holy Cross City involved traveling over 12 miles of rough road and could involve several days during the winter.

Mining camps, dominated by men with plentiful saloons tended to be rowdy and sometimes violent. A double murder at Holy Cross City made headlines in the Leadville papers on Dec. 10, 1881.

Economic issues were likely the start of tensions between the working miners and  the Gold Park mines superintendent, Mr. Turney, and mine foreman Harry Weston. Disgruntled miners made threats against the two men, prompting Turney to abruptly discharge 150 men. Many men left the camp immediately, but several heavily armed and angry ex-employees remained in the camp and threatened vengeance. In response, the mine operators organized a “vigilance committee” of 40 armed men to protect the mines.

One angry miner identified only as “Bagley,” shot and killed Weston, fired another shot at Turney, then fled to his cabin, pursued by the vigilantes who fired shots into the building. Bagley was fatally wounded. The coroner ruled his death a suicide.

That same day, somebody sent one of the laid-off miners, Jack White, a notice to leave the camp immediately. The angry White procured three revolvers, then proceeded to walk down Holy Cross City’s only street with a cocked gun in each hand and the third revolver in his belt, cursing and demanding to know exactly who had sent the notice.

The armed members of the vigilance committee lined either side of the street, prepared to shoot White down. Undeterred, White remained in the town two or three hours, then departed for Leadville.

The camp was in an uproar. The frightened night foreman of the mine, Bill Bates, locked himself in his cabin and refused to come out. Turney continued to order the laid-off miners to leave town. The newspaper rather gleefully predicted that “the prospect is excellent that one or two more killings will crimson the annals of that camp within the next week.”

Apparently, by 1883, things had settled down notably in the Holy Cross Camp. On April 18, 1883, the Rocky Mountain News reported, “The morals of the place are above the average of mining camps since the output of the mines has never been enough to attract the vicious elements which usually invade thrifty camps.”

 

The lady miner

Perhaps the most unusual miner to work the Holy Cross District was Mrs. Julia Edith Dunn, the daughter of an old and distinguished family from the East. Well educated and reared in luxury, Dunn excelled in music and painting. Newspaper reports suggest that a combination of health issues and a failed marriage prompted her to head west with her children. Deeply religious, she chose Holy Cross City as her destination. There she found a cabin and made enough money teaching music and painting lessons to file several mining claims. She hired a couple of miners and worked alongside them to develop the claims.

Two of the claims yielded gold and silver. When Dunn overheard her hired hands plotting to steal the nuggets, she procured a pistol, guarded the ore throughout the night, and sent the men packing to Red Cliff. Dunn sold her claims for a tidy profit, then invested that money in lodes closer to Red Cliff and Leadville. One of her mines was predicted to yield a minimum profit of $500,000. In a camp dominated by rough men, she was notable.

 

“Any mining man in the west might well be proud of what this woman has accomplished and considering he almost insurmountable difficulties she has had to overcome , the years of toil and struggle in the mountains, her achievements deserve to rank among the greatest in the state.”

Herald Democrat

 Jan. 1, 1904.

 

From boom camp to ghost town

A freight wagon driver steers a wagon full of ore to the crusher at Holy City. The wagon and horses are traveling on a wooden driveway. The processing mills at Holy Cross City and Gold Park serviced many mining claims in the Holy Cross District. The Treasure Vault, Little Mollie, and Pelican mines were among the most productive mines.

Although a few of the Holy Cross mines were briefly profitable, the area was never destined for great mining success. Mine profit depended upon the ability to process the mines at the site (rather than hauling wagonloads of heavy ore great distances). Unfortunately, most of the ore in the district was laced with pyrite, which could not be separated from the gold by any simple process.

The remoteness of Holy Cross City made accessibility difficult. A 12-mile road connected the camp to Red Cliff. However, in winter the snow depths were daunting. An attempt to move a woman and her two children from Red Cliff to Holy Cross City in February involved three days of precarious travel, eight horses, two sleds, and 10 men to help break a trail through the snow.

Although the mines bustled in the summer, in the winter only small crews attempted to stay in the camp. The cold weather and isolation took a toll.

 

“Fred went down to Gold Park today after our washing [laundry]. He sent it to Red Cliff in about the middle of January. The weather has been so rough that we could not get it before. I wish I was through with this blasted country.”

Letter from an unnamed miner

March 7, 1885

Holy Cross City

 

By 1883, the Gold Park Mining Company acknowledged that the quality of ore was not sufficient to justify further investment in the area. The company pulled out, as did most of the miners.  In 1884, the director of the Denver Mint reported that only $6,400 of ore had been produced by the entire district. By the end of that year, Holy Cross City was a ghost town.

The mining company made a couple of attempts to revive the mines, and the local newspapers optimistically predicted that the area would boom again. However, the issues of ore quality, impassible roads, and high elevation living prevailed.

The Leadville Daily Chronicle reported on Aug. 5, 1890, that the camps of old Park and Holy Cross City were practically deserted.

 

“… were it not for a few hearty prospectors and miners who are now working among the mountains, the wolves and mountain lions would stalk the silent streets, monarchs of all they survey. “

Leadville Daily Chronicle

Aug. 5, 1890

 

  Yet, that same newspaper, noting that the mining company had abandoned over $200,000 in machinery at the site, predicted that men would soon figure out how to effectively process the ore, and that the Holy Cross District would once again boom. Although a few optimistic miners continued to explore the country, there was no second boom.

  These days, Holy Cross City is accessible by hiking or very skilled four-wheel vehicle driving. The remains of several buildings are scattered through the high country meadow. It remains a wild and beautiful country, with a history that captures the imagination.

Perhaps the true story of the Holy Cross District was best captured by a man with the initials “J.M.K.” who wrote a letter to the Herald Democrat newspaper on June 22, 1902, following a fishing trip in the Holy Cross District:

 

The whole of the ground on each side of the creek will pan gold, from Red Cliff to Gold Park … several claims were worked, but none were ever found from which even wages were taken out. The fishing, however, on the creek was far better than the placer mining.”

 

END

 

(Editor’s note: Kathy Heicher is the president of the Eagle County Historical Society and the award-winning author of four local history books. She “mined” the archives of the ECHS, Eagle Valley Library District, History Colorado, and Denver Public Library in researching this story.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eagle Valley History Preservation Award 2022

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Eagle Valley History Preservation Award

When: Sunday, May 15, 1:30 p.m.

Where: Eagle Public Library

Honoring: Kathy McDaniel and Reed Perkins, donors of the Borah pioneer journals

Guest Speaker: Historian Marcia Goldstein will present a slide/lecture program, “Let the Women Vote!: Colorado Women’s Struggle for Suffrage”

Details: Free. Light refreshments will be served.

Eagle County pioneer Alfred Borah was a meticulous man who wrote a series of journals recording the daily details of his life from the 1880s through 1917.

Borah’s descendants protected those journals for well over a century, and recently donated the books to the Eagle County Historical Society and the Eagle Valley Library District. Hundreds of journal pages have been digitized, transcribed and are accessible online, providing an incredible local history resource.

Kathy McDaniel and Reed Perkins, donors of the Borah journals, stand in front of the one-room school on Brush Creek where Reed’s mother, Alda Borah, once studied. (Kathy Heicher photo)

Alfred Borah’s grandson, Reed Perkins and great-granddaughter, Kathy McDaniel, will be honored with the Eagle Valley History Preservation Award in a special program at the Eagle Public Library on Sunday, May 15, 1:30 p.m. Formerly known as the “Nimon-Walker Award,” the annual event recognizes people or organizations for their role in preserving local history.

EVLD History Librarian Matthew Mikelson noted that the Borah journals, accessible online, have already proven to be a valuable resource for local history researchers. Last year, History Colorado (the state historical society) recognized the Borah journals digitization as an exemplary and impactful project.

“Many families would throw away old, fragile books of this nature. The Borah descendants protected those journals, then did the necessary footwork  to bring them into the public domain,” noted ECHS President Kathy Heicher.

The Perkins-McDaniel family followed up their donation with a visit to the county last summer, visiting the Borah homestead and the old log one-room school on Brush Creek where Reed’s mother once studied. Reed and McDaniel also donated dozens of historic photos images depicting early-day life on Brush Creek, along with artifacts including clothing, letters and memorabilia.

“These are extremely valuable Eagle County artifacts. Our local history collection is significantly richer because of this family,” says Heicher.

Dr. Marcia Goldstein, Colorado women’s historian

Following Sunday’s award presentation, Colorado women’s historian Dr. Marcia Goldstein will present Let the Women vote! Colorado women’s struggle for suffrage

Colorado women won the right to vote in 1893, making this the first state to approve equal suffrage by popular election. Subsequently, Colorado women voted and ran for office for more than a quarter of a century before women’s suffrage became the law of the land in 1920.

And behind that major milestone is a fascinating story of the massive campaign for women’s rights that involved a coalition of very determined women and men. Colorado women’s historian Dr. Marcia Goldstein will don her suffrage banner and share this history.

Goldstein is an expert on the topic of Colorado women’s politics. She served as a consultant for One Woman, One Vote (part of the PBS series American Experience) and several local PBS suffrage documentaries. She curated and authored an online women’s suffrage exhibit for the Women of the West Museum and has taught American and Colorado history at numerous state and local colleges and universities. Her costumed presentations are lively and informative, tracing the bold footsteps of Colorado’s suffrage leaders and their experiences with what was then the all-male arena of party politics.

The public is invited to this free event. The program is suitable for audiences of any age. Light refreshments will be served.

Red Cliff women pose with a patriotically decorated parade float in 1919. Blanche Tippet is on the far right. Colorado women had been voting since 1893. (Courtesy EVLD/ECHS)

For more details about the event and the Borah journals, visit evld.org or eaglecountyhistoricalsociety.com.

 

Winning Spirit

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We can’t resist bragging just a little more about the award-winning Alfred Borah Journals digitization project, a joint effort by the Eagle County Historical Society and Eagle Valley Library District. The project won the 2021 Josephine Miles award from History Colorado (the State Historical Society) which recognizes exceptional history projects in Colorado.

This week History Colorado posted an article titled “Winning Spirit” on their website which describes last year’s award winners. The home page features a photo of the ECHS’s Trail Gulch History Hike, offered in conjunction with the Eagle County Open Space Department and Eagle Valley Land Trust. Take a look!

https://www.historycolorado.org/story/2022/02/18/winning-spirit

Brush Creek history hike, July 2020

 

Book Signing!

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Local History Author Kathy Heicher will sign her new book,

Gypsum Days: Pioneers, the Poor Farm & Progress

Saturday, Jan. 15, 2-4 p.m. Gypsum Library

Order on-line at eaglecountyhistoricalsociety.com. Also available at the Gypsum Town Hall, at DJ’s and Dahlia’s in Gypsum, at Batson’s Corner in Eagle, and at the Bookworm in Edwards, and at the book signing event.

 

Endangered Places 2021

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Colorado Preservation Inc. has named the historic bridges of Colorado as one of its Endangered Places for 2021. Included is our favorite bridge, the green bridge at Red Cliff which has been an iconic landmark since 1941. Click on the link below to see CBS coverage of the historic bridges.

http://cbsloc.al/3qVlv6x

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s birthday cake

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Want to express your admiration for a politician? Try baking a birthday cake.

When United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt turned 56 years old on January 30, 1938, Eagle County was involved in the celebration.

Specifically, a Minturn woman, Ruth Jackson, spent a month making and decorating a magnificently tiered cake as a token of her respect for the president.

Jackson, 31, a divorcee with a four-year-old son, worked as a private housekeeper and lived in a boardinghouse just east of Minturn.  She likely was an admirer of the president and his “New Deal” programs intended to spur economic recovery during the Great Depression. Records indicate that her annual income in 1938 was $360. In 1935 her meager income was bolstered by a $10 monthly payment from Eagle County’s “Mother’s Compensation Fund,” a relief program created by the federal government.

The white fruit cake that she baked for Roosevelt’s birthday required 10 dozen eggs and 15 pounds of dried fruit and nuts. The various sized round cake layers collectively weighed over 40 pounds, and when stacked, frosted, and decorated stood about five feet tall.

Sensitive to the safety requirements involved in making a cake for a United States president, Jackson assembled the pastry masterpiece in a room at Minturn’s Eagle River Hotel, isolated from the general public. Every utensil used to bake the cake was sterilized before use. Only Mrs. Jackson touched the cake.

Ruth Jackson with others and the birthday cake

The cake top was topped with a sugar replica of the federal capitol building and flanked by Uncle Sam figures drawn with icing. A written greeting from “The People of the United States” was piped in gold icing on the top layer. The cake’s sides were decorated with frosting flowers representing each of the 48-states, true to color and form. Jackson had written to every governor in the continental U.S. requesting a color photo of their state flower — and every state responded.

Photographer Jim Buchholz was summoned from Eagle to snap photos of Jackson’s culinary masterpiece. The intent was that the photo could be used for postcards.

Ruth Jackson’s cake

The completed cake was packed into a special wooden crate. Together with the crate, the weight of the cake now approached 70 pounds. The towering cake was loaded onto an eastbound Denver & Rio Grande train, and shipped express to Washington, D.C., accompanied by an unnamed “guard” who stayed with the cake until it was delivered to FDR.

Whether the president actually ate the cake is unknown. But a week after his birthday, Roosevelt sent a gracious note to Jackson, writing: “Thank you very much indeed for the especially fine birthday cake. I more than appreciate your friendly thought in presenting it to me. Very sincerely yours, Franklin D. Roosevelt.”

Eleven months later, Ruth Jackson honored another politician with a culinary masterpiece. In December 1938, she baked a similar birthday cake for outgoing Colorado Governor Teller Ammons, who had recently been defeated in a bitter election by Republican Ralph Carr. Ammons, an advocate of New Deal-type programs, had been instrumental in securing funding for major road improvements for Highway 24 over Battle Mountain in Eagle County.

Teller Ammons’ birthday cake

For Ammons, who was the state’s first Colorado-born governor, Jackson created a five-tiered cake with a replica of the state capitol building on the top, and Colorado flowers etched in icing around the sides of the layers. With additional piped frosting, Jackson extended a friendly message:

 

“Wishing our son of Colorado a very happy birthday December 3, 1938.”

Then she offered a frosting poem:

“Events come and go the lives of all mortal men,

Be whatever their hearth, clan or kin.

But when a life has served a needed post,

Remember it more than talk or boast.

So this token here which surely is not of clay

Represents our affections for Governor Teller Ammons

On this his forty-second natal day.”

Again, the cake (which the local newspaper described, presumably inaccurately, as a “200 pound cake”) was shipped, most likely via train, to Denver. Ruth Jackson had her moment of glory when a photo of Gov. Teller Ammons, his wife Esther, and the towering cake was printed on the front page of the Rocky Mountain News.

In 1940, Ruth Jackson married William Bergquist, the man who owned the rooming house where she and her young son lived in Minturn. In 1942, the Bergquists moved from Minturn to Arizona, citing the need for a location change because of Ruth’s health. Beyond that point, the history of Eagle County’s resident cake-maker gets vague.

Still, this woman with an eighth-grade education, an appreciation of politicians, and a talent for baking made an impact in Eagle County, and had her moment of fame in both Colorado and the United States.

Perhaps it is time to go back to the tradition of expressing our feelings for politicians with cake, frosting, and kindness.

 

Written and researched by Kathy Heicher for the Eagle County Historical Society, January 23, 2021.

 

 

Political Ingenuity: Eagle County’s First Ballot Box

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Along with the delivery of ballots this week, the Eagle County Clerk’s Office and Eagle County Historical Society delivered a little bit of election history. An early day ballot box, patented in 1884, is on display in the History Department of the Eagle Public Library through election season.

The Eagle County Historical Society and County Clerk Regina O’Brien (far right) check out historic ballot boxes on display at the Eagle Library. From left are Janice Tonz, Sandy Van Campen, History Librarian Matthew Mikelson, Joanne Cermak, and O’Brien.

County Clerk’s office employees recently discovered two of the 136-year-old, wood-and-glass ballot boxes during some storeroom cleaning and handed the artifacts over to the Eagle County Historical Society. Supplementing the ballot boxes is the county’s first Voter Abstract Ledger, a large record book detailing the results of local elections from 1884 through 1924.

These artifacts and record books tell the story of a fledgling county whose citizens were eager to take on the responsibilities of democratic self-government.

The ballot box prior to cleaning and tape removal

ECHS Archivist Jaci Spuhler spent hours cleaning grime and dust off the ballot boxes and researching the history of the artifacts. Marketed as the National Ballot Box, the boxes were invented and manufactured by Amos Pettibone of Chicago in response to election corruption in San Francisco. The election-rigging involved a ballot box with a false bottom that concealed pre-marked ballots for a specific candidate. Angry voters demanded more transparency in the election process.

Pettibone figured out the solution: A locking wood frame containing a glass dome that ballots could be dropped into and observed constantly. Opening the box to reach the ballots involved undoing three locks with several different keys. Citizens could watch the voting process and be certain of the results.

Give those early day Eagle County commissioners credit for investing in state-of-the-art election equipment. Two much simpler locking wooden box ballot boxes, probably decades younger than the National Ballot Boxes,  were also donated to the Historical Society. The homemade hinged boxes with a ballot drop slot and a latch designed for a padlock probably reflect the frugality of a budget-conscious county clerk and Board of Commissioners.

The ballot boxes will ultimately be displayed in the Eagle County History Museum.

The Voter Abstract book is archived at the Eagle Public Library, which partners with the ECHS in making historic records accessible to the public. That book too reveals some interesting bits of local history. For example, 306 ballots were cast in the county’s first election on Nov. 4, 1884. There were nine voter precincts in the county, including the mining camps of Taylor Hill, Mitchell, Red Cliff, Cleveland (Gilman), Rock Creek and Dotsero. The agricultural precincts were Sheephorn, Brush Creek and “Lakes” (Edwards). Minturn, Avon, Eagle and Gypsum are not part of the picture until a few years later.

The ledger book also reveals the county’s steady population growth, settlement patterns and social trends. In 1893, when Colorado gave women the vote, Eagle County was on board, voting 415 – 257 in favor of women’s suffrage.

Voter registration was also a much different process in 1899. An article in the Eagle County Blade (Red Cliff) newspaper on Oct. 19, 1899 indicates that every precinct had its own Voter Registration Board, and notes that people registering to vote needed to be vouched for via affidavits from two already registered voters. “Voters should personally see that they are registered as very often names are overlooked by the boards,” advised the newspaper.

Eagle County’s first historic ballot box will be on display on the second floor of the Eagle Library through election day. Stop by to take a look. Consider it a reminder to cast those 2020 ballots. The Voter Abstract ledger can be viewed upon request to the library’s History Department.

This ingenious ballot box design ensures that the voting process is transparent, and that the ballots cannot be tampered with without considerable effort.

Researched and submitted by Kathy Heicher.

October, 2020

 

 

 

 

The Ladies of the Garden Club: Growing a community

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Eagle’s downtown flowerpots overflow with bright petunias this summer. The pretty petals are both decorative and historically correct. Since 1934, the petunia has been Eagle’s official flower, thanks to the forward-thinking and sometimes formidable ladies of the Eagle Garden Club.

Francis Watson

They were community activists, using their flower seeds, charm, and persistence to advance the town. Civic improvement was the primary goal when the club formed in July 1932. Twenty-two women members signed on at that first meeting. The club’s first president was Mrs. George Watson, the wife of a prominent, cattle-ranching county commissioner.

For several decades, the fourth Wednesday of every month was Garden Club meeting day. The women educated themselves by researching and presenting “papers” on topics including the study of plant names, the benefits of birds in the garden, and storing vegetables for winter.

The civic projects started out small. The club transformed an old horse watering trough at the north end of Broadway into summer flower garden. Mrs. A.B. (Laura) Koonce planted flowers and vines, then toted water to the trough throughout the summer to keep the plants alive.

The success of that project led to a competition recognizing the best-kept homes and gardens. The townspeople responded enthusiastically. Small cash prizes were awarded, and pride abounded.

Flowers on Broadway

In August 1932, the ladies hosted the first-ever Flower Show in Eagle. They expected limited participation, theorizing that only a few varieties of flowers could be grown at Eagle’s mountain elevation. To the Club’s surprise,  35 contestants showed up with over 57 varieties of flowers displayed in baskets, jars, and vases. The flowers were exhibited with considerable community pride. The Flower Show became a beloved annual affair.

Next up was  a Christmas outdoor lighting contest that the Garden Club initiated with the help of the men (mostly Garden Club husbands) of the Eagle Commercial Club and the Lions Club. The enthusiastic response from businesses and homeowners made Eagle the talk of the Western Slope that holiday season.

Bigger projects

The civic projects grew bigger. The new county courthouse lacked landscaping. The Club ladies responded with shrubs, grass, and trees. The Eagle Cemetery was a dusty patch of sagebrush-strewn gypsum soil. Led by Mrs. Caroline Thoberg, the Garden Club ladies spent months working with the Cemetery Association on a landscaping plan. They strong-armed their husbands into providing the muscle. The community effort resulted in the grassy, tree-dotted oasis that provides a peaceful final resting place for Eagle residents today.

Their work went beyond grass and gardens. During the Great Depression, needy families were supplied with generous Christmas baskets. When World War II started, the Garden Club ladies turned their attention to salvaging silk, nylon hosiery, and waste fats. They also sewed for the Red Cross.

The women raised money by selling subscriptions to “Better Homes and Gardens” magazine, and hosting luncheons and card parties. The prizes were often flower bulbs.

Helen Hart Allen

It was not easy to deter the  garden club ladies from an identified project. In March 1934, at the suggestion of Helen Allen (the wife of local bank president J.D. Allen), the Club declared the petunia, something of a floral newcomer to the county, to be Eagle’s official flower. The plan was to plant petunias in every local garden. The Garden Club handled the cost and the labor of planting petunias in public places including gas stations and Broadway businesses.

The petunia decision was dutifully reported in the Eagle Valley Enterprise newspaper. However, the following week, an anonymous writer (most likely Enterprise editor and publisher

Adrian Reynolds) expressed disappointment in the selection of the petunia as Eagle’s flower. He was a fan of sweet peas and suggested that would have been a better choice.

Affronted, the Garden Club ladies did not back down. Their response letter-to-the-editor acknowledged the sweet pea as a beautiful flower but pointed out that the petunias were ideal for many more purposes including porch boxes, flower beds, borders and rock gardens. The women also noted that petunias come in many varieties, blossom from early summer through frost, and could be wintered indoors. Also, the town of Aspen had already claimed the sweet pea as its official flower. Nobody likes being second.

Duly chastised, the editor meekly declared his intent to plant “a solid bed of petunias this year.”

Mrs. Jack Layton and roses

The Garden Club thrived. They hosted a delegation from the Colorado Federation of Garden Clubs. They joined in a state-wide discussion of the need to reign in the proliferation of billboards along highways and byways  (and indeed, there are no billboards in Eagle County today). The little Eagle group became affiliated with the National Federation of Garden Clubs.

Despite their many good works, the women of the Eagle Garden Club probably never got the recognition they truly deserved. True to the social customs of the time, the women were recognized in newspapers or public discussion by their spouse’s names, rather than their own. Even their obituaries rarely mentioned a female first name. Yet, these women figured every bit as prominently in the history of Eagle County as did their husbands.

Consider the example of a few of the club’s founding members. Mrs. George Watson (Francis) was a very capable horsewoman, as good as any ranch hand at rounding up cattle. Mrs. Nick Buchholz (Jeanette) served as the superintendent of Eagle County Schools. Mrs. A.K. Ethel (Mabel) was the wife of a county judge (she was his court clerk). When he died in 1933, the county commissioners appointed Mabel to the judgeship … and paid her $20 less per month. Her very first case was a highly controversial and precedent-setting issue involving a sheep rancher trailing his herd across public land designated as cattle range. She presided over the court for over 10 years.

The Garden Club ladies grew more than flowers. They grew a community. And if they were to stroll through downtown Eagle today, they would be pleased.

Kathy Heicher     July 3, 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abrams Family: Pioneer Adventure Tainted with Violence

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These days most down-valley locals associate the name “Abrams” with a street in the outer reaches of the Eagle Ranch subdivision, or a challenging mountain bike trail in the adjacent open space.

In reality, the Abrams family was among the first homesteaders in the lower Eagle Valley. As a group, they exhibited pioneer pluck, daring and ingenuity, and a dark streak of violence. More than once, the deaths of family members were attributed to what the newspapers of the day described as “unnatural causes.” Indeed.

David Abrams

David A. Abrams, the family patriarch, was born to Irish immigrant parents in Philadelphia in about 1847. During the Civil War, he joined the Pennsylvania infantry and distinguished himself with remarkable bravery and fearlessness in battle. As the ranking captain, he led recalcitrant troops into fire in the Battle of Petersburg,  Va., a Union victory that cut off a major supply hub for the Confederates and ultimately led to the Rebel surrender.

After the war, Abrams became a Philadelphia police detective with a reputation for effective work. In 1878, the silver mining boom drew David, his wife Jennifer, and their youngest children (there would eventually be seven Abrams children) to Leadville, Colo. Abrams mined, then was quickly hired by the local police force. His police work sent him to the Taylor Hill mining district on Tennessee Pass to quell a violent mining claim dispute that killed several men. Abrams, exhibiting considerable nerve, secured and held possession of the mines until the conflict could be resolved in court.

Abrams was prominent in Leadville, and knowledgeable about mining affairs. He and his sons had mining in their blood.

Members of the Abrams family pose at a large log cabin in about 1917. From left are Albert Abrams, Mae Abrams Sheehan, Jennie Abrams, Nellie Sheehan, Loyal Abrams, and Jack Sheehan.

In 1883, Abrams became a rancher, leaving Leadville for a 360 acre homestead on Brush Creek, a tributary to the Eagle River. (The Abrams land included what is now the heart of the Eagle Ranch golf course, and the denser Village Homes housing development.) He and a Leadville physician, Dr. Eyer, partnered on the ranch. Abrams provided the land and the labor, Eyer paid for the cattle and farming equipment. The Abrams family built a cabin about five miles up Abrams Creek, where they also dabbled in copper mining. When the mine proved non-productive, they built another, more comfortable home down at the mouth of Abrams Creek in the Brush Creek Valley. The Abrams sons sometimes stayed at a third cabin, located midway between the two homes. Newspapers described the Brush Creek property as a “magnificent ranch.”

From the start, there were problems with the neighboring land owner, David Sutton, who also claimed a strip of the same valuable ranchland. Sutton succeeded in evicting the Abrams family from their comfortable cabin in the dead of winter, sending them scrambling for a new home. The several-year land dispute went all the way to the Secretary of the Interior. Ongoing rulings favored the Abrams family, according to newspaper reports, but Sutton kept appealing. The hostility between the neighbors was constant.

An unidentified man works the field with a Mormon Derrick, used for stacking hay, in the background. The gyp hills of the Brush Creek valley are in the distance.

David Abram’s personal land battle ended abruptly with his unexpected death in September, 1886. The Leadville Herald Democrat newspaper attribute Abram’s death to “unnatural causes,” related to a serious knife wound to his spine suffered a year earlier. David Abrams had literally been stabbed in the back.

The origin of that knife wound will forever remain a mystery. No reports of the original incident can be found in the newspapers of the time; yet the stabbing seemed to be common knowledge. The Abrams family and friends would not talk about it.

“Those who are familiar with that tragic affair declare it to have been an accident and preferred to have no reference made to it,” noted the Leadville Herald Democrat on Sept. 18, 1886.

The infected knife wound rendered Abrams increasingly feeble over the following year, eventually causing his death at the age 45. Where David Abrams is buried is unclear.

William J. Abrams

  A year after David Abrams’ death, the Abrams-Sutton land dispute reached the boiling point. On Nov. 30, 1887, David’s oldest son, William J. (Bill) Abrams, 21, shot and killed Sutton.

William Abrams

The incident started a couple of days previously when Abrams turned several of his horses out on the disputed strip of land, which was fenced. Sutton, a bachelor rancher, gathered the horses and secured them in his barn, refusing to give them back until the courts issued a final ruling on the disputed property. Sutton demanded legal documents showing proof of the land possession and insisted that Abrams pay for the damages.

A violent confrontation ensued, witnessed by the neighboring Hockett brothers and two ranch hands.

Newspaper accounts of the incident conflict. Sutton and Abrams definitely argued. According to one account, Sutton advanced toward young Abrams with a sledge hammer. A different report suggests that Abrams may have been the aggressor, threatening to kill Sutton if he touched the horses. Sutton kept advancing toward Abrams, who drew his revolver and fired twice, hitting Sutton in the stomach and then in the left eye.

Bill Abrams immediately went to a neighbor’s house and turned himself over to the authorities. Fearing mob violence, Constable Ed Thompson avoided taking his prisoner to the Eagle train depot for transport to the county jail at Red Cliff. Instead, the constable and the suspect walked up the valley to the next rail stop.

Sutton was a prominent player in early Eagle County. He had recently been elected Eagle County commissioner, but had not yet taken office. His remains were taken to Denver where he was buried in Riverview Cemetery in the White family plot (the Whites also homesteaded on Brush Creek, and Sutton was Sarah White’s cousin as well as the White ranch manager).

In June 1888, a grand jury in Leadville indicted Bill Abrams for first degree murder. He awaited trial in the Leadville jail, where a stream of friends visited him, offering support. The local newspapers sympathized with Abrams, describing him as a “quiet, inoffensive-looking young man, with flaxen hair and a small moustache of the same color, with nothing about him to indicate the desperado.” The newspaper flatly states that the Sutton killing was self-defense.

Newspapers did not report the result of Abrams trial, but the course of his life afterwards suggests that he was acquitted. A marriage in 1895 ended in divorce less than two years later.

He volunteered for the Spanish-American War in 1898 achieving the rank of lieutenant during that 10-month conflict. Shortly afterwards, he was reported to be living in Crestone, Co., a small mining camp in the San Luis Valley.  By 1901 he was in Defiance (now Glenwood Springs), mining with his brothers.

Bill Abrams was not destined for a happy life.

On Jan. 1, 1911 Abrams was blinded in a dynamite mishap inside a lead mine in the cliffs above Shoshone in Glenwood Canyon. Five months later, he was declared insane and sentenced to a stay at the asylum in Pueblo, Doctors blamed the loss of eyesight and damage to his brain.

By 1912, Abrams was out of the asylum, and out on the streets of Denver, selling newspapers and flowers from a stand outside the Montview Hotel. He made headlines in August of 1912 when he wrote a letter to the warden of the state penitentiary, requesting that that the eyes of a condemned murderer be harvested immediately after the fellow’s hanging. Abrams believed he had a doctor who could transplant the eyes and restore his vision.

“I’d go through hell to regain my sight, and no operation, however painful, would deter me from taking the one chance I have had to be able to see,” Abrams told the newspapers.

Abrams’ sight was never restored. Blindness led to his death in Denver in September, 1920. He became disoriented, and stepped into an open hotel elevator shaft, apparently mistaking it for a door. He fell three stories to his death. Bill Abrams is buried in a family plot at Rosebud Cemetery in Glenwood Springs.

The Abrams rumors

Jennie Abrams, David’s widow, married William J. Paye, a road overseer, in 1899. They continued to ranch the Brush Creek land, along with the younger Abrams children. In April 1908 she was granted a divorce, with the newspapers noting that her husband was a fugitive from justice and did not contest the lawsuit.

Unidentified children, presumably Abrams family members, at a small cabin.

In 1924, William Mayer, who had been ranching in the valley for about 25 years, purchased the Abrams property. In his memoir, William’s son Chet Mayer raised some interesting stories about the Abrams family.

Mayer could remember a double grave up Abrams Creek, well-marked with a board fence around it. The story he heard as a child was that the stepfather (possibly Paye) and one of the Abram’s sons got into a fight while cutting timber. Both raised axes and attacked each other. One reportedly died from a split skull, and the other bled to death from a severe wound in the neck and shoulder.

However, another Eagle pioneer, Ernie Nogal, offered a different version of the story, saying an Abrams son came upon his stepfather beating his mother, and buried an axe in the man’s back. The son died a few weeks later while swimming … or, another version of the story suggests he was poisoned.

Mayer also repeats a rumor that perhaps Bill Abrams was a hired gun, whom local ranchers used to take care of cattle rustlers, and may have been the person who murdered the outlaw Charlie Johnson in 1901.

None of those rumors can be verified by archive research, and the stories are likely a mix of miss-remembered history and flat-out rumors. If there are twin graves up Abrams Creek, nobody has seen them in decades.

Jennie Abrams in field

Jennie Abrams outlived five of her seven children. She spent her life on that Brush Creek homestead, dying in 1924 at the age of 78. She is buried alongside several of her children  in the family plot at Rosebud Cemetery in Glenwood Springs.

Photos are from the Abrams family album and are shared courtesy of the Eagle County Historical Society and Eagle Valley Library District.

Compiled by Kathy Heicher

May 30, 2020