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Alton and Mary Tirey
Contributed by Karen Mitchell Interviewed by Rosalyn McCain Alton M. Tirey, born 1-4-1906 Parents - Bruce Tirey and Ida E. Wilson Tirey Maternal grandparetns - J.A.J. Wilson and Arnie Wilson Family origin - Missouri Date of arrival in County - 1870's Location of first family settlement - Malachite
Mary V. Hudson Tirey, born 8-30-1908 Parents - Joshua B. Hudson and Evelyn Thorne Paternal grandparents - Joshua Hudson and Charlotte Hudson Maternal grandparents - Joseph Thorne and Lucy Belle Thorne Family origin - Thornes, MIssouri; Hudsons, Delaware Date of arrival in County - 1850's Location of first family settlement - Gardner
This is Rosalyn McCain, and I am talking with Alton and Mary Tirey in their
home near Gardner.
AT: Well, Mr. Tom Sharp came here from Missouri in the early part of the 1870's.
He was a livestock man, and he particularly liked horses. He set up this ranch
South of Malachite on the Pass Creek Road where it crossed the Huerfano River.
In that day and time the range was more or less an open range.
RM: When did that change? When did the land start getting broken up and being
fenced?
AT: The farmlands comprised of river bottom land & meadows, had been fenced since
people began to settle here. But the outside pasture land, the dry land where the
pastures are and the mountain pastures, most of that land wasn't fenced until the
1920's and 1930's. That was when they really started to fence. A lot of the
area right in through here, that was open pasture land.
RM: And 90 anybody could pasture there.
AT: Oh, yes. Of course, there weren't too many who had large herds of livestock.
RM: Was it mostly cattle and sheep?
AT: There were cattle and sheep but the cattlemen were in the majority.
RM: They didn't get along too well, did they?
AT: The sheep men didn't just go out and turn their flocks loose on the open
range where the cattle were. I don't really think there was any real fueding
between the cattlemen and sheepmen. It they did, I never heard anything about it.
You see, I used to run sheep, and we never had any problem. I used to run sheep
and cattle together.
Mr. Sharp, when he came hare, ran a lot of horses and cattle, on what we call
the Moscal prairie which is in the mountains ten miles west of here. That was all
open range that wasn't fenced then. Of 'course, it is all fenced now. He and his
Alton & Mary Tirey (Page 2)
family hadn't been here but a couple or three years when he sent word back to my
grandparents, my mother's family, the John A.J. Wilsons, that here is a good dry
climate which would help Wilson's asthma. He wanted to get the climate, a drier
climate. So they started for Colorado, and naturally, knowing Tom Sharp, they just
came right here. They settled the next ranch up the river from the Sharp place.
I don't know what the dates were, but I would make a rough guess that it was about
1874 to 1876 when they began ranching. My mother's three brothers and sister
came with the family and all of the brothers livestock men, having two beg herds
of cattle. My mother, Ida E. Tirey, was born on this Wilson Ranch home in 1879
so she is over 100 years old.
RM: Had the brothers homesteaded some of the land that they got or did they buy?
AT: I imagine that they bought. I don't know. They may have homesteaded. Maybe
they had some timber claims. One or two of them might have done that. But I
think they bought the land.
RM: Had they been farmers in Missouri?
AT: Yes, my granddad was a farmer there. My dad, Bruce Tirey, came here in 1902 or
1903 from Texas. His half-sister, Julia Smith lived at Malachite. Bruce came
to Colorado on account of his sister. Her husband came here in about 1890. His
name was Robert L. Smith, (Bob Smith), and why they came to Colorado, I just
don't know. There were four or five brothers. Most all of them settled in La
Veta country. Bob Smith came over on the Huerfano. And later became manager
and worked for a fellow by the name of Sefton and in the early days had the land
that the Dietz' later owned and lived on. It is the Gus White place now where
all those tine buildings and improvements that J.B. Overfelt built in the latter
30' s and early 40' s while he owned this property. I think the Sharps were always
more or less independent. They just ranched.
RM: Did they have cattle and horses?
AT: Yes. Bill Sharp, who was the son of old man Tom Sharp, who settled and lived
Alton & Mary Tirey (Page 3)
in the flat-roofed house which is 1/4 mile west of Pass Creek road and then his son,
Bill Sharp, lived in the house on the Pass Creek Road. In the early days, it was
a stage coach stopping place and where the Union Army gathered. A man by the name
of Captain Deus really owned the place. Here stamp mills, and big flour mills,
that were run by water power and a water wheel were built by the Deuses. These
mills were near the river bottom where a ditch comes from the Huerfano River.
RM: I have heard that called the Mill Ditch
AT: Yes, the Mill Ditch. They would put water in this ditch. They would bring
some from the river, but some or it came from seepage. They made troughs and drops
from these troughs that went onto the water wheels, and these water wheels would turn
the stamp mill. The stamp mill, I can't say that I really saw them. I saw them
after they were torn up. The belt from the water wheel went to the huge Wheel on
what they called the stamp mill, and it was fixed where when this wheel turned,
it caused a big rod which had a large, not hammers, but large iron heavy pieces
on the bottom, cylinders. They were about 8 inches in diameter and possible 18
inches to two feet in length. So it made it pretty heavy. This device would bring
them up, and when they came up to a certain point, there was a break in this shaft,
and it would turn loose, and they would drop down, and they hit on a heavy iron
down below, and it just crushed the grain or corn or whatever. That was what they
called the stamp mill. It kept stamping stuff. So they ground flour there They
pulverized the flour.
RM: So everyone would bring their grains to the mill to have done?
AT: They had one here. They also had one in Gardner. Mary's folk's had charge
of the one there in Gardner, didn't they, Mary?
MT: I think they did from what I know.
AT: So people around here in that day and time had to make their own provisions
for food and whatever.
Alton and Mary Tirey (Page 4)
RM: So did people grow a lot more variety of crops than they seem to grow now?
AT: No, the principal crops has always been hay for livestock and various grains,
beans and potatoes and garden stuff. The garden stuff was not grown in large
quantities. Practically every family grew enough for themselves, and they couldn't
take it out of here, like into Walsenburg. It would take a whole day to go from
here with a team and a wagon. Now, potatoes and beans were a different thing.
Potatoes was something that would keep. There were a lot of potato farmers in the
mountains, and some down in here. But back in the mountain there was lots of
potatoes. Not too many years back, that was in the 19201s, up on the Divide between
here and Westcliffe, they grew potatoes over there by the ton, truck loads. They
did that for possibly ten years.
RM: What was the reason that they stopped growing potatoes?
AT: These were dry land potatoes, and we don't have as much moisture now as we
used to. I've always had a feeling, and I think I have heard the Agriculture Officer
make the statement that they got some kind of parasite in that area that were
so small they would get underneath the leaves of the potato vines, and they would
sap all the moisture, all of the juice out of the vines, and they just got to where
they couldn't raise them. They never did spray or treat the seed and plants to
control the parasite. It just got to the point that they couldn't raise a profitable
crop. They could raise them, but they couldn't produce enough to make it worthwhile.
Then we hit the Depression in the 30's. A lot of things happened to cause a lot
of people to leave. They just don't raise potatoes like they used to. Now we
could raise potatoes, and we still can if. you take care of them properly and one
thing and another. As a rule your vines will grow up two or three feet tall,
and your potatoes under the ground will just be little nubs with runners and none
of them very good sized. But up on the Divide, those dry land potatoes, grew up
just like the San Luis Valley, only they were dry land potatoes, and they were
Alton & Mary Tirey (Page 5)
much better. They would keep better and they were better tasting. They raised
tons of them.
RM: So some people made their living off of their potatoes.
AT: Off their dry land potatoes, and they grew grains up there too. They would
grow potatoes one year and grain the next two years.
RM: What kind of grains did people mostly grow?
AT: Barley and oats were the principal crops. What wheat they grew in here was
for chicken feed, and maybe a certain kind of wheat for milling. But they didn't
try to raise enough wheat to try and sell it. Potatoes they did, but not wheat.
They never did try to raise enough barley or oats .in here to haul away and sell.
They market this bay and grain and everything through livestock. That has always
been the history of this valley. Livestock. We don't have as many livestock here
now like we used to years ago. You should have seen it several years ago, big
bands of sheep, which we don't have now. At one time just in this valley from Badito
up there were 15,000 to 20,000 head of breeding ewes. Now I'm taking in Turkey
Creek. The Dietz boys, they run over 1,000 head of cattle. I don't think they
even knew themselves just how many they had. Besides the Dietz' there were the
Meyers'. Now I am talking about some of the larger operations. There were the
Wilsons and the Sharps. There were quite a few really. Then there were smaller
operations. The Spanish people used to raise quite a few cattle and sheep, not
big herds, but quite a few.
RM: Did they raise them mostly for subsistance or did they have enough to sell?
AT: Yes, they would sell a few, but not large herds. There was a man here.
Named J.D. Montez who was a major landowner on the Upper Huerfano. He was a
politician and a County Commissioner. He raised a lot of cattle and a lot of sheep,
and he did sell some of both. He hired a lot of people to work for him. Some
of them he paid with livestock. In the early days it was quite a bit different from
now. People worked hard, and they didn't play a whole lot, but when they did,
Alton & Mary Tirey (Page 6)
they played hard, too. Horse races, community doings, there was a lot of that,
dances. There was a dance here nearly every Saturday night somewhere, wasn't
there Mary? The Spanish people and gringos, (that's the white people), they didn't
get along very well at the dances. The nationalites and the whiskey just didn't
work out quite well.
RM: But there usually was a dance one place or another moat weekends?
AT: The Spanish people had their dances, and we had ours. We had dances here at
Redwing at least once a month or oftener. We had them in Gardner every two weeks.
Then up on Bradford, that's between here and Westcliffe. There were two Bradfords
in that area. They called one South Bradford and the other North Bradford. Of
course, where the school house in over on Turkey Creek, I think that building
has been torn down, just this side of Tony Pando's. That's where Jum Wilburn used
to live. They used to have dances there in the school house. The Spanish people
had dances over there, too. Dances were also held at the fair grounds. That's
where the Community Building is now. We had a Community Hall, just as large as the
one that is there now. It got burned down. It wasn't quite as good a building
as the one we have now, but it was a big building. They would dance and rodeo
out there and race. For about five years in succession, there was somebody killed
every fair time or Gallo Day. That's why I say people worked hard, and they played
hard.
RM: How often did they have horse races, and where did they have them?
AT: We had one good horse race a year, sometimes twice a year on the Fourth of
July and at Gallo time which was the 25th and 26th of july which was the Spanish
day, or the Mexican day, then as a rule in September they had a fair. So you
might say it was three times. The big races were usually the Fourth of July or
at fair time. Not really big races. We always used to laugh. If you had an
old plow horse and another plow horse that could run about the same speed, then
we had a race to see which one would run faster or slower. Well, most of them
Alton & Mary Tirey (Page 7)
ran slower.
MT: They weren't thoroughbreds.
AT: Well, we had some thoroughbreds, but they weren't properly trained. I have
often thought about it. I used to ride a lot, but sometimes one would run off,
and I would think this horse can really fly. But it seems like you'd get on a
race track, and it wouldn't seem like it could run fast enough, but we had a
lot of fun really.
RM: Was there much entertainment or getting together in the wintertime?
AT: Oh, yeah.
RM: Mostly dances?
AT: Dances, card parties, ice cream socials and box suppers.
MT: Then there were school programs.
AT: There were a lot of different things. The church did sponsor things like the
box suppers and things of that nature. Then we'd have the church and school programs.
We'd have Sunday School for the kids, and they would put on a Christmas, Easter
and May Day programs. Mrs. Johnny (Lida) Meyer sponsored the May Day on the First
of May. See, the school system in the days when we were growing up was altogether
different from the school system now. Each area had their own school district.
Our school house is on the Pass Creek road, 3/4 mile north of the Huerfano River
and was called the Malachite School District 20.
RM: So the kids would almost always walk to school? They were all within walking
distance?
AT: You bet. When I went to school over there I knew a Mexican boy that walked
five miles rain, shine or snow, it was someplace for him to go, I guess. But that
kid came, and he walked, well maybe it wasn't five miles, but it was on the North
side of Poison Canyon. He walked day in and day out, sometimes his feet would be
almost sticking out of his shoes, but he was rugged. The Choin boys, Fred and
Alton & Mary Tirey (Page 8)
Chuck and brothers and sisters lived way up on what we called The Divide, and they
were real poor people. They lived on potatoes and whatever they could raise. Those
kids, didn't they walk from clear up there to down in Gardner, Mary?
MT: NO, when they lived three or four miles from Gardner they walked to the Gardner
School.
AT: My first school was across the Huerfano River in an adobe building which is
on the South side of the Huerfano River. You go on South about three or four
hundred yards, and there is an old apple orchard of four or five trees, and that was
where the school house was. I started school in 1912 and during the Christmas
Holidays. The school was moved to this new rock building school which is located
about 3/4 mile from Malachite and named Malachite School District no.20.
We walked all the time. One of my mother's brothers used to come once in
a while with a big horse for me especially when it was cold, he would come and
pick me up and carry me home on the horse.
RM: I heard somebody say that the building on the other side of the river was
once a church also. Is that true?
AT: They had church in this rock building the Baptists organized and had a church
there. That was after the schools were consolidated. They may have had some church
get-togethers over in the other school buildings, but I doubt it.
RM: They may have been talking about this stone school, and I misunderstood.
AT: What I was going to tell you, each community had their own school district
and had their own school. In the majority of the schools, one teacher took care
of all eight grades, first grade through the eighth, and there were between 40
and 50 students. It would vary. At one time there might have been 60. When I was in
school, some of the upper classmen were 15 or 16 years old. They were men really,
and they were in school maybe four or five months out of the year, and the rest
of the time they were either helping with the fall crops or spring planting.
Really, they didn't get a whole lot of schooling except from November until March.
Alton & Mary Tirey (Page 9)
I suppose that was one of the reasons that they were men before they got out of
the eighth grade, and some of them really didn't care anyhow. There were some,
their names were Schmidt and these four brothers walked from the Schmidt place up on
Pass Creek every day which was a long four miles.
RM: Was that pst Zeke's place?
AT: John Rodriquez? You go by his place, and then you finally drop over into
Pass Creek proper, and go up the hill where there are some old tumble down shacks,
it would be the second time you drop down into Pass Creek. There are on the right
hand side of the road, some old houses, that was the original Schmidt place, and
that is where these brothers walked from. In the-early day when I first started
school, I guess they didn't have a school at Redwing. Then later on they had a
school at Redwing, Chama, Sharpsdale and all around, but for some reason a lot of
those Redwing people came to the Malachite School.
About midway to Gardner from the Malachite School were some people named Inman
that had three boys and a girl and when they first came here and settled, they
started coming to this Malachite School. They didn't come here a full term, and
then they switched to Gardner where they remained for their elementary schooling.
It was after the Inman's graduated that they started the Rahn District in the 192O's.
It was too great a distance from either Gardner or Malachite Schools so they started
a district of their own. There were a lot of Spanish people that lived on the
lower Pass Creek area as well as on the Huerfano.
MT: Now those Inman boys, when they come to school in Gardner, they rode horseback.
AT: A lot of the kids did ride horses. I never did take a horse because I could
walk to school a lot easier than I could take a horse. Sometimes somebody would come
along with a horse and give me a ride. One thing that is kind of interesting is
when people said, "Well, how did one teacher take care of 50 or 60 kids? All eight
grades. There was no problem about it because sometimes the upper classmen would
Alton & Mary Tirey {Page 10)
help teach the lower classmen. When we got to the 3rd or 4th grade,
and got to where we could read a little bit and were interested in what
was going on, we always thought, "Gee, I wish I was John. He is three or
four years older than I am. . .Is he ever smart!" You know, you would
try to copy after someone. I would be in the third grade, and he
would be up in the sixth grade. I was a~ much interested in his grade
as I was my own. So by the time I got to the 6th grade, I had it
learned, some ways at least. The reason for that was that the teacher
called each grade up to the front, and they bad a long bench, called
the recitation seat or bench. They sat down there on that bench, and
the teacher called on those kids. They would read or spell or do
arithmetic. It was all oral, and you year after year listening to
these recitations and the repetition of these classes was an advanced
learning of schooling. The teacher didn't necessarily want you to listen,
but they didn't always insist that you be studying. They couldn't
keep you from listening. So, as I say by the time I was in the middle
grade, I didn't know all of it, but I knew most of it. I don't think
that kids today have that advantage. They have to dig it out when they
get to it. And don't have the advantage of advance training. So I
think that was quite an advantage. When I got into high school, it
was quite a bit different.
RM: Did you go in to Walsenburg to high school?
AT: Yes, and I stayed in Walsenburg. I might come home on weekends.
When I started my freshman year in high school in the old armory building
in Walsenburg the school during the Christmas holidays was moved to
a new high school building. This experience or beginning my elementary
and high school days in old buildings and at the first Christmas holidays
was moved into new school buildings is something that doesn't happen
Alton & Mary Tirey (Page 11)
to too many persons, I feel.
MT: His mother stayed in Walsenburg with him for a time.
AT: She stayed there two years. And of course, I worked. My "second
year I had a job both before and after school. But Walsenburg was a
larger town than it is now because it was surrounded by the coal mines,
and coal camps. A lot of those coal mines had at least 200 or 300
miners. That is 200 or 300 families, and a lot of them had large families,
seven or eight children. They had their own schools, and then these
children went on to high school in Walsenburg. The Walsenburg High
School was pretty fair sized, but you know the Freshman year, they'd
always have 150, but by the time you got up to the Senior year, graduation
time, it would drop down to about 15 or 20. A lot of them would drop
out. The Freshman year and Sophomore year they would have 150. I
expect there are about as many going to high school right now. But in
that time the schools were divided. They had the Catholic schools as
well as the public schools. I suppose there were as many at the Catholic
schools as there were at the Protestant schools or public schools,
A lot or the miners were Catholics.
RM: Do you remember the time of the Coal Field War, the Ludlow Massacre
and all of that? Was there much influence up here?
AT: Not up here, but down in the mines. There was the Unionization,
of the miners. The union people in that day and time were just fighting
for their rights. When I say fighting for it, I mean they had to get
out and fight and it was pretty bad. I happened to work for a company
that sold general merchandise, food, and so forth. They bad stores
in these various mines, not all of the mines. but they had stores in
9 or 10 mines here. The mine owners, took advantage of the miners,
and that was very plain to see. Going out there to work and carrying
Alton & Mary Tirey (Page 12)
the payrolls, even a dumb kid like me could see that. If the miner
wanted to live there and keep his family and everything, the first thing
was that he had to rent a company house. If he was going to keep his
job, it was pretty well understood that he was going to trade at the
company store and have the company doctor to take care of his family.
In other words, the company practically owned him, to tell you the
truth about it. The company store was the out fit that I was working
for. The group of people that owned this mercantile, Huerfano Trading
Company, were stockholders, and these same people owned shares in the
coal mines. They didn't own all coal mines for the Colorado Fuel and
Iron Company of Pueblo and the Wasach Coal Company or the state of Utah
owned the majority of the mines and stores. When you'd take the payroll
out to these coal miners, the rent bill, and the doctor's fee were taken
out. By the time you got it all taken out, they didn't have much left,
so they did have a hard row to hoe, but they had a good life at that.
They worked hard but like in Gardner, they played hard. They had a goad
time. They had a good ball team. They had dances, parties on the weekends,
and man, they had a big time. They didn't have a lot of money, but I
guess they didn't need a lot of money, really. Walsenburg, when the
weekend came along, was a boom town. Not that a lot of money exchanged
hands because there wasn't a lot of money, but they had a lot of fun.
RM: What were the medical facilities here? Were there doctors here?
AT: They bad a good doctor here in Gardner. Wasn't there a doctor
here all the time, Mary?
MT: As long as I can remember.
AT: We didn't have one recently until Evans came. The doctor that
found out that Mary bad diabetes. He was the last medical doctor and
surgeon. He was an elderly man who bed retired from practicing medicine
A1ton & Mary Tirey (Page 13)
and surgery in Denver Hospitals. His name was Dr. Freeland. Then
Dr. Knight, came along. He was an osteopath.
MT: The doctor I remember them talking about more than any was Dr.
Clay.
AT: He was a fair doctor. Then in Walsenburg they had a Dr. Chapman.
He was a CF&I company, doctor, but be would go all through the county.
When he first started out, he had a team and a buggy. He would drive
all the way out to the upper Huerfano Valley regardless of the weather,
at night or anytime that you would call. Then later on he got a Franklin
automobile. That was quite an automobile in its day, and he would make
trips in this car, and he made house calls all over the county. I don't
know that he ever operated unless it was an extreme emergency and he
also extracted later. He generally sent patients down to St. Mary
Corwin because he was associated with the CF&I mine, and Corwin was
and still is their major hospital.
RM: How about trading? I know your (Mary's) parents had a store. Did
most of the people do most of their trading there or did they go into
Walsenburg.
MT: They didn't do much in Walsenburg and it took a day to go in.
Then they would stay overnight, take a day to trade and wouldn't get
home for two or three days. The majority of the people in the community-y
came into the stores of their area. The Gardner store had the greatest
variety and supplies.
RM: How did this store originate and who owned it?
MT: I heard my dad J. B. Hudson (Josh Hudson) talk about when he was
seven and eight years old he was helping his father at the store.
RM: So his parents bad it before him?
MT: Yes, and they also had the flour mill.
AT: In the 1870's her granddad came here, he started the store business
Alton & Mary Tirey (Page 14)
and trade business. He finally got disgusted and left. He said, "This
Valley is too crowded for me."
MT: He felt there were too many people.
AT: His pioneer spirit took him further est to Salt Lake City, but he
came back though. Too many people. He turned his business over to
his son.
RM: What was the name of it in those days?
MT: It was called the Hudson-Ingraham Mercantile Company.
RM: What was your grandfather's name?
MT: Joshua, my daddy was named after him.
AT: We have a 1913 calander we just happened to keep.
MT: They had calanders much earlier than that, which I would much
rahter have had. The picture of Mount Blanca with the ruins of the
Goose Lake in the foreground was taken after the damn broke in October
1910 or 1911. When the damn broke, it practically ruined this upper
Huerfano Valley from Sharpsdale to the lake and damn, leaving large
boulders and rocks when the top soil was mashed away.
RM: That was a damn that broke.
AT: There was a big heavy rain or cloudburst and two damns broke. Goose
Lake was the upper one, and when it went out, there was another smaller
one down below, which was demolished by this one rush Dr water. So
there were these two fairly good sized bodies Dr water, one on top
of the other. By the time it had gotten this far d down, the water had
kind of broke up and spread, but further up, it was just one big wall
of water in 1910 or 1911.
RM: What all did they carry at the store? Could people get pretty
much or everything that they needed?
MT: Everything. We had food, clothing, tools and machinery.
Alton & Mary Tirey (Page 15)
AT: When the Model T Ford came in, you could go down there and buy
repairs on a Model T Ford. They had hay mowing machines also.
RM: Did they have building materiels, too?
AT: Oh sure. All this stuff was brought in by freight wagons most
every day except in the winter for there were a number of freighters.
They had a railroad spur that came out as far as Tioga Mine, which
is the furthest west coal mine in Huerfano County twelve miles west of
Walsenburg. A siding was on this railroad where railroad freight cars
were parked for unloading and loading and also at this siding livestock
was loaded out of the stockyards. The store bought their flour in
carload lots and mixed carload of sugar, coffee, can goods & other
staple goods in the fall of the year. For winters were so severe
that the freighters as well as the ranchers had difficulty getting
to the store. A number of the ranchers laid in their needed supplies
only once or twice a year. My uncle Bob Smith had a fairly good sized
store, in Malachite and he had an old Mexican fellow named Joe Sandoval,
who was on the road most all the time freighting. It was like Mary
said, a day going, a day loading and so forth, and a day to come back
from Walsenburg, he could only make two trips a week. Now her folks,
I think they bad two or three or four freighters. They would have
somebody coming and going from there all the time. Aside from main
store buildings they had storehouse to the east of the store along
the river bank. They bad two or three storehouse that fell off the
banks in floods, where they stored their flour and sugar. They would
bring a carload home because when winter hit, they had to have it, sugar,
flour, coffee.
RM: You mentioned something earlier about the Depression. What was the
effect of the Depression in this area? Did it force a lot of people
Alton & Mary Tirey {Page 16)
to leave? was it just hard times?
AT: It W33 just hard times. A lot of people tried to maintain their
livestock & ranching operations. Of course, if they had to pay their
taxes, store bills, and living expenses. If they had a cow or a sheep
that they ordinarily would figure they could get $60 for the cow and
$12 for the sheep, but during the Depression they dropped down to where
they was getting a third or a fourth. The margin of profit was pretty
slim anyhow, and it worked kind of a hardship when they got around to
paying their bills and their taxes and so forth.
RM: Did anybody lose their land that way?
AT: I don't think anybody lost their land, but many had to take out
government land loans and PCA (Production Credit Association) livestock
loans. I imagine the storekeepers suffered as much as anyone. They
didn't work on a cash basis at the stores as they do today they would
carry them. They would make arrangements for 30 days or more for bills
to be paid. In a lot of cases, the livestock men, it was twice a year.
RM: I imagine you had a lot of accounts like that at the store, didn't
you?
MT: All of them had credit in those days for there was very little cash.
AT: When the Depression hit, her dad he due to being a good businessman,
his credit losses were not too heavy.
RM: Were there other smaller stores in Gardner at that time then?
MT: Yes, there was Clem Brown's store. I recall we closed on Sundays,
and he always kep his open, and in that day and time the stores were
open until 9:00 or 10:00 o'clock at night.
AT: As time went on, her dad and his brother, sold the Hudson Ingraham
store to Mr. Redmon, and a few years later Bill Agnes bought the store.
Then her dad became associated with Gus Meyer, in a store building.
Alton & Mary Tirey (Page 17)
Lucille Waggoner's daddy had built a store and operated. Later that
building was owned by the Gardner Co-op who operated it for a few years
until the building burned down.
RM: What other local businesses were ther? Were there local blacksmiths
and carpenters?
AT: Yes, there was a blacksmith shop at Gardner, Redwing and at Malachite.
You had to have a blacksmith. Gardner and Malachite had good garages,
and there were also filling or gasoline stations, and Gardner even had
a barber shop. They had two good stores in Redwing, a good store up
there.
RM: Who ran the stores?
AT: The addington brothers who later sold to Homer Benson.
MT: It was the same building where the buildings are now.
AT: The other store was the Johnny O'Hagon store and he was s nephew
of Bill Agnes. Later this store burned. You know the store which
was near the Redwing school house later burned. Both were good stores,
big stores in that day and time. The one that Benson had was a good store,
and Homer (Benson) was a good merchant. His younger brother, Oren Benson
(Shorty) and Bill Schmidt worked for him. I remember Josh Hudson telling
me one time, that "Since the roads are being improved", the automobiles
were being used more and more. Chain stores came into Walsenburg, like
the Safeway, he said, "The store business in this area is on its way out".
He saw that coming, and he was right. (Notes taken after the tape ran
out:)
Costello Hotel served meals. Mrs. McCosh had a restaurant
next to the Agnes store. She served Sunday dinner specials and people
came from Denver, Pueblo, Walsenburg as well as people living in this
area to eat there.
Alton & Mary Tirey (Page 18)
Mrs. Elmire served meals, family dinner style in Redwing at
her home in the Gaitley's house where they live now. She was a nurse
and midwife for everyone around here.
The WPA days were very bad for the Spanish families. People had
no money here, so they took jobs working for the WPA building roads and
buildings. They had to travel into Gardner, up Pass Creek or Mosca
Pass, etc. So someone came in and sold a lot of people cars. They
weren't very good cars and people bought them on credit. Then when they'd
break down they'd sell them another one, and a lot or people mortgaged
their land eventually lost desire to make a living on their land.
I used to hire Spanish sheepherders. Then after World War II
the old age pension came and paid as much as the sheepherder made so
it got very hard to hire sheepherders. At one time I ran as many as
3,000 breeding ewes I usually hired men 50-60 years old, and then
I couldn't find anyone to work for me anymore. Then I had to pasture
the sheep on the home ranch so I had to cut the size of the herd and
increase the cattle herd.
A lot of men left during World War II and never came back.
The ranchers couldn't get help and bought more machines. Then there
were fewer jobs for young people, and more people left.
Crestone became Redwing when it became a Post Office because there
was another Crestone in San Luis Valley. Crestone voting district had
400-500 registered voters each year. Before voters came into Gardner,
most of the little schools had an election polling place but after
consolidating the voting precincts into one precinct from Badito all
the way back including all the Huerfano Drainage areas, the total
Gardner voter registration is near 400. This county will have a hard
time getting back to what it was for now a few big operations own
Alton & Mary Tirey (Page 19)
nearly all the land.
I had y ranches here which was a good working unit. As time
went on, I just couldn't hire any help. Jerry Mills came along, I priced
it to him-high-and he bought it. I used to put up 30-40,000 bales of
hay every year. I used to run 200-300 cows, 100 sheep and horses.
I figured I needed as much or more than three second feet of water
to irrigate in an economical and time-saving way.
The old Tom Sharp place and the first ranch due south of us
were sort of used as forts. They never really had trouble with the Indians
though. My mom and grandmother always used to say they'd bake a lot
of biscuits if there were Indians around. That was the main thing the
Indians were interested in.
Prospectors mined ore. The MacMillan mine mined gold and some
silver. It was a hard rock mine at the foot of Mt. Blanca. There
were 2-3 boarding houses and many family residences. They were snowbound
November through April or May. They had a six or eight horse team they
used to freight ore out and bring supplies in. They were all white horses,
and they were rigged up with sleigh bells all over them because they
hauled that wagon in and out fast and wanted everyone on the road to
get out of their way. Alton's mom remembers two or three saloons up
there. They were still standing when I was a kid. The MacMillan
Mine operated years, before I was born in 1906.
The Copper Bull Mine was up Pass Creek-due west of the Smith place
on Grayback Mt...Alvie MacIntyre was the blacksmith, and general
manager. He had a samll ranch on Pass Creek. He ran a furniture store
in Walsenburg when be was older.
Hector Patterson built this house and the George Ingraham house
and a lot of the other larger houses around. He was a wonderful Carpenter.
Alton & Mary Tirey (Page 20)
Mr. Philpotts painted the house. He painted a wonderful mountain scene
with a waterfall on the stage curtain at the Malachite school.
Two huge Negroes came out and made the cement bricks for this
house with a big press and mold brick machine. They were set out all over
the field to dry.
I used to hire 15 men during the haying season for $1.50 a day.
They worked from 7-6, that was the going wage. Kids now can't believe
that for the minimum wage new is over $3 an hour. They make that
much. We worked hard, and we played hard.
Things have just changed. The world's changed. I imagine this
whole valley used 100 gallons of gas a month. A few cars went to
Walsenburg once a month. In the early days people had kerosene and
gas lamps for there was no electricity in this area until the early
1940's. That was about it and most single families use that much or
more in a month.
Alton and Mary Tirey
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