Read an Excerpt
Building Our Dream in Remote Colorado
By Stephen Wood
iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 Stephen Wood
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-3396-5
Chapter One
In 1971 we purchased ten acres in a new development called Badger Creek Ranch. It is located approximately three hours southwest of Denver, Colorado where we were living at the time. The road leading into the property is two miles south of Hartsel, Colorado on Colorado Highway 9 and twenty one miles southwest to the development. At the time it was only graded and maintained for about eight miles the other thirteen miles was a ranch road and not a very good one at that.
We had been looking at property to buy and build on in the mountains west of Denver, Colorado for quite some time and had only found a few small acreages but they were way to expensive for our budget and to close to the city. I was raised on a farm in a very small rural area and was looking for something similar only in the mountains. When we answered an ad in the Rocky Mountain News of a development near Hartsel, Colorado with owner financing I felt this may be just what we had been looking for and made arrangements to meet the salesman.
We were met in Grant, Colorado on Highway 285 South by the Salesman who had a jeep, I did not think much of it at the time but after a two hour ride on Highway 285 South and another thirty minute ride on Highway 9 East to Hartsel, then turning on what he considered a road, my wife and I began to wonder if we had been kidnapped and taken to hell. Each time we confronted the salesman with our concerns we would always get the same stock answer, "we are almost there". I am happy to say we finally got there, not sure where and damn sure I could not find my way back but wherever "THERE" was, we were told we were here.
We were only the fourth or fifth to look at the new development. There was only one road to the development, we were told it was in phase one of three. There was a nicely laid out plate map to look at and red flags for the proposed roads and survey stakes for the property lines. After walking about what seemed twenty miles we decided on a ten acre site in the -Y- of two valleys.
The views were good and the land was mostly level. There were no trees on it, none even close, but it did have lots of cactus and stickers, one would think that at 9200 feet in elevation you would not have cactus and stickers but it did. It had two live streams on it, Badger Creek which ran approximately through the center and Cals Creek that angled across the southwest corner. Both creeks meet just a short distance down stream from our property line. Badger Creek is dry until just before the property line to the north where it emerges from the ground as a warm spring. I looked at my wife and said we can kill the stickers, we can plant trees but we can't make a stream and to have a good source of water on your property is priceless.
We sat in the jeep and made out the papers to purchase the land, lot four filing one. The ad in the paper we had answered had said owner financing and after filling out only one paper we were approved on the spot. It had no address because it had no access road yet just ten plus acres in the middle of a cow pasture. We agreed to pay three thousand two hundred dollars for our paradise and make payments of thirty two dollars a month till paid for. We did not know it or least realize it at the time but the developer of Badger Creek Ranch Company owned by Ken Barber of the Rawhide Realty Company in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is to this day one of the most honorable and honest men I have had the privilege to know. Not only did he agree to carry my note but the notes of most all others who bought here as well.
Mr. Barber was looking for property that he could develop, and along with other areas had also considered this particular twelve hundred acres as a possible site. The Freese Ranch had been purchased three years prior by a local rancher that owned the land adjacent to this parcel and was in no mood to sell. After several attempts Mr. Barber made an offer that Mr. McMurry, rancher/owner, couldn't refuse a decision that is regretted to this day by the family.
Being Mr. Barber's first attempt at developing he initiated some incentives that made his development more appealing and has stood the test of time. He had the foresight to zone it residential one (R-1) and wrote covenants that are still in effect with little change to this day governed by an elected vote of property owners. He also set aside a lot for county usage and gave the roads after there installation to the Park County Road and Bridge Department and a recreation area for all property owners complete with a fish pond and a very nice nature walk area. He drilled a public well complete with hand pump, still used by many property owners to this day. In its final stages the development consisted of two hundred eighty seven properties ranging in size from five to forty five acres all have county maintained roads to access their property. The roads are maintained by Park County Road and Bridge and are governed by Park County Building codes.
Badger Creek Ranch Development is located in the extreme southwest corner of Park County, Colorado, an area known as the upper Badger Basin of South Park. In the early days because of our location in the county and the remote accessibility, we were pretty much forgotten about and things pretty much got out of hand, the TV Series South Park has it pretty much nailed down as to life in the old days or even now days for that matter.
Chapter Two
I was born and raised in northeastern Colorado in the sand hills, my father was a sharecropper and our farm had no electricity till my teen years. Being born and raised on a farm was the reason that made me want to get away from city life. As a child and through high school my brothers and I would start chores around 4:00 A.M. After milking the cows and separating the cream we did the chicken chores. Mom always had two hundred to four hundred chickens, some for butchering and most for laying then came the slopping of the hogs and feeding the calves.
Mom always had a big breakfast by 7:00 A.M. cooked on a wood stove utilizing corn cobs although I wasn't considered a big eater in our family my breakfast usually consisted of four eggs, seven to eight pancakes, sausage and milk.
We lived only about half a mile from our country school Amity now long gone. It was my brothers and my job to get there a half hour before school each day to haul water to the teacherage and schoolhouse. In the old days before school consolidation there were many small communities especially in the Midwest and West and most all had there own one room schools in the area. Most all of them taught first through eighth grade and had a house for the teacher and the family to live, built on the school property known as a teacherage. In the winter months we walked but most of the other kids rode horses or wagons and a few got driven or drove themselves.
At the time we had bought our acreage we were having a rough time of it. I had gotten a divorce from my first wife in 1965 and my wife had gotten a divorce from her husband in 1960. I had two sons from my previous marriage and she had one son we had one boy together and another on the way yours, mine, and ours we were set on making it work and I really wanted my sons to know a rural life.
My wife Jan came from a small family one brother. Her dad had died shortly after her birth and her mother had remarried after the war but he passed away of an accident prior to our meeting. Jan had a rough childhood her mom and step dad had owned a laundry on West Colfax in Denver when not in school she would work in the laundry. In her teens she loved to roller skate and dance, she would walk from the laundry to the dance studio in downtown Denver or to the skating rink on East Colfax and Marion a distance of approximately five miles and then back home just so she could practice. At one time she performed at Elitch Gardens where there was a prestigious ballroom and theater.
Jan although not large in stature has a never quit attitude and a heart the size of a football field. While dating I took her to meet my parents I didn't know it at the time but Jan had never been on a trip out of Denver so for her to go to eastern Colorado, a one hundred and eighty mile journey, she saw it as an adventure. Unbeknown to me she had been preparing for over a week for our trip. I will never forget coming home from work to load our four door Olds Cutlass and finding a pile in the living room that looked like an itinerant farmer in the 1930's loading all of his belongings to escape a dust storm. I got quite a bit of it but had to leave some room for the four boys and us, after all we were only going for one night and two days.
After our marriage my mom took a shine to Jan and Jan to her. Jan became the daughter that Mom had never had and through that relationship Jan learned farm life, canning, gardening, butchering chickens, wheat and corn harvesting, along with chores and all the other amenities that goes with rural life. Mom was a home extension agent and belonged to many local clubs to which she introduced Jan. From that Jan learned quilting, cooking, crocheting, canning, freezing, and many other self sustaining talents. Jan loved it and became quite skilled and to this day is passing on her unique talents to anyone interested so when we bought our mountain paradise she had no qualms about leaving the city and living the rural life.
Chapter Three
As with most all new property owners we could not wait to share our mountain retreat with friends and family. With pictures in hand we went home to my parents and spilled out all of our dreams.
After listening for two hours or so about our mountain paradise dad asked some thought provoking questions that only a father thinks of. Questions like what are you going to use for electric power? How are you going to get across the creek? If you build by the water, where do you put your septic system? How are you going to heat your new cabin? Where are the kids going to school? Will your car make it there and better yet make it back? Where is the closest store? Is it fenced? That is all open range you know, how deep is the well to get usable water and the cost of drilling it? How far to the nearest town that has jobs? If there are not good roads now, how are you going to get in, in the wintertime or better yet out? Are there any medical or emergency services available and if not how long before they reach you? What do you do for communication? Does the county plow your roads in the winter? Is there a fire department closer than a hundred miles? After two to three hours of grilling and exposed to more reality than one should be exposed in a lifetime, I was not nearly as proud of our mountain retreat as when we first got there and my wife was ready to call in the contract.
Our trip home that weekend proved to be a turning point in our lives. Dad's reality check had given us plenty to think about but had also created a challenge on just how we were going to make it work. Jan set about a plan in stages and budgets and I set about where to start. I felt priority number one would be a place to stay while we were up there.
Jan and I had purchased a sixteen foot camp trailer two years earlier so felt quite comfortable in using it while building. I had asked dad for his advice on many of the issues he had raised. Having remodeled a farmhouse that had been built out of a barn along with most all machinery that he had either built or redesigned, I figured he would be my best source of information. Among the things we discussed was how to build a septic system knowing that this would have to be one of the first things done. In late 1971 I had arranged to get four days off by that time we had been able to get a septic tank and the piping that Dad had designed and laid out along with picks and shovels and lots of supplies.
Mom and dad had come up the afternoon before we were to leave so we could get an early start to the Promised Land the next morning. With dad's pickup and my old '59' Dodge, four kids and two dogs we started our adventure. With a refrigerator box I had acquired, I had made a camper in the back of my pickup. I put some plastic over a hole made for a window on each end, made a door in one side, gave the boys some colors and coloring books and told them to decorate the camper on our way up. We loaded the tank on Dad's pickup and filled it with groceries, water, tools, blankets, you name it we took it and filled the rest of my pickup with stuff we just could not leave without.
It was cloudy in Denver but not too cold the shortest distance to our property was highway 285 from Denver through Turkey Creek Canyon to Bailey, Colorado through South Park and Fairplay. We had stopped in Bailey for gas as the only other town between Bailey and our property with a gas station was Fairplay and the gas there was always much higher. We felt the chill in the air at Bailey but figured after all we were in the mountains. All was going well after leaving Bailey, we had given the boys some snacks and the decorating was going fine in the camper.
Halfway up Kenosha Pass it started to snow, by the time that we topped out at 10,000 plus feet we were in a heavy mountain snow. Dad was following me but my wipers were leaving streaks on the windshield and I was having a hard time seeing the road, I stopped and ask Dad to lead. Jefferson, Colorado is located at the bottom of Kenosha Pass a distance of about six miles by the time we had gotten there the snow had let up but the wind was blowing pretty hard creating a ground blizzard. You could not see the road or ditches but could see the tops of the linear posts and the tops of the fence posts on either side. We asked the people at the Jefferson store the only store in town if the road was open. In good and understandable South Park Lingo we were told if you drive it and make it, it is open, if not it is closed. It was open.
We left Fairplay south on highway 285 by the time we had only gone a few miles the snow had stopped the wind had greatly subsided and the sun was out but we had been on the road seven hours and it was getting late. The kids had every blanket we owned and being made of cardboard and wet their camper was collapsing around them. They said they were okay and having fun and to just keep going, we put the youngest in front with us and left the three oldest to fend for them selves and once again headed for the Promised Land. We made it at last light and our camper looked like the Taj Mahal. By the next morning Taj Mahal had lost a lot of its luster what with two dogs, four kids, and four adults in a sixteen foot camper with only two fold out beds it just had not made for a good night's rest.
Badger Creek at that time was two inches wide and quarter inch deep it ran through a ravine with approximately seven foot high walls on each side straight up and down and about forty foot wide at its narrowest point. I used a pick and shovel to cut in steps on the east side of the bank to get down to the water, I then dug a hole in the stream bed and put an old mop bucket we had brought with us in the hole, it filled rather quickly and I was able to fill water containers for our needs we even drank it thus the beginning of our water supply.
Dad and I had laid out the area that he thought would make a nice cabin spot and measured and flagged it for the septic system. I had always wanted a cabin close to a pond so I could fish from the deck, Dad being an avid outdoorsman and fisherman agreed to that plan one of the few things we found in common on that trip. With pick and shovel in hand we began to dig a hole for our septic tank. There is a good reason they call it the Rocky Mountains, we knew right away we were not in the eastern Colorado sand hills any more. The fiberglass septic tank was ten foot long five foot high and four feet wide and the hole needed to be dug approximately seven foot deep that's a big hole and that is not counting the sixty feet of leach line and thirty feet of lead line. By lunchtime we had pretty much decided that we needed a backhoe tractor or at least a Caterpillar dozer.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Building Our Dream in Remote Colorado by Stephen Wood Copyright © 2010 by Stephen Wood. Excerpted by permission.
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