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Petar Dopchev

Xavi Fané

Dusty Demerson

HIGH ADVENTURE, DEEP ROOTS

CHRIS AND DAVID BAXTER HAVE FLOWN, PADDLED AND SAILED THE WORLD, CHILDREN IN TOW, BUT THEIR CEMENT CREEK RANCH KEEPS THEIR LIVES HAPPILY GROUNDED.

Story by Katherine Nettles Photos by Rebecca Ofstedahl

Chris and David Baxter have steered clear of convention most of their lives, or at least given it a twist of panache. A career in finance? Might as well conduct business from a sailboat. Need to commute? Get a pilot’s license. Children? Show them the world — and bring along a cat.

Having been part of an early wave of ski bums, Chris and David found each other and built lives in the whirl of Aspen before cashing out and leaving behind the resort’s growing glitz 30 years ago. After buying the tranquil Cement Creek Ranch south of Crested Butte, they settled into a more grounded life, though still spiced with high adventures, and they’ve built a legacy of land conservation, community culture preservation and family bonds.

Now septuagenarians, Chris and David are making a few concessions to simplicity. A decade ago, they traded their raucous Grand Canyon trips for easygoing float trips with grandkids. It’s been a few years since David alerted Chris that he was home from work by “buzzing” the cabin in his single-engine plane en route to the airport at Buckhorn. The mile-long Nordic ski to get home from the winter trailhead where they park their car half the year has become a snow-packed walk instead. Even buying the Cement Creek Ranch in 1990 was settling down a little – after the couple’s propensity to spend time on rivers, mountain passes, oceans and in the air.

THE EARLY DAYS

Having hailed from urban life at opposite ends of the country – Chris from Berkeley and David from New York – they met in the middle: Aspen.

David had been in Colorado since the sixties, when he left New York to enroll sight unseen at Colorado College (before that, he’d never travelled west of the Hudson River). David describes his youthful experience as being “apparently enrolled in college,” but mostly skiing, exploring the mountains and riding over an unpaved Independence Pass by motorcycle in the spring. He visited Crested Butte in 1964, staying at the Nordic Inn to ski with fraternity brothers. He visited a second time in the summer of 1970 in a short-wheelbased Land Rover. After coming through Marble, up past the Devil’s Punchbowl and down through Gothic, David and his first wife and their infant daughter and golden retriever ended up camping out Brush Creek. Caught off-guard by the low overnight temperatures, they left their daughter Talley in the car, thinking she would be warmer than in their tent.

Talley, who now teaches at the Crested Butte Community School, marvels that she probably barely survived that night, and ironically she now lives in that same drainage with her own family.

David had married right after college, moved to Aspen, and then spent a trial year in Seattle. “I had a lot of pressure from the family to get a responsible job,” he said. “They knew what you did in Aspen, which was real ski bumming back in those days.”

David’s second child, Brian, was born soon after they moved back to Aspen. At that point David had set the course for a career in banking and real estate, and he went to work for Mason Morse. “We

bought a little condominium one block from the ski lift at Little Nell,” he said, “for $20,000.” When one of the company founders lamented one day that he had a single-engine Cessna Turbo 210 but no pilot, “It didn’t take me ten minutes before I started taking lessons.” That launched one of David’s lifelong passions.

“There are two or three great loves, and everybody has them,” he said. “My first love was flying.”

His delight in being airborne took him all over the U.S. and to Mexico, Canada and Central America. When he started his own mortgage company, First Western Mortgage, David obtained his own plane and used it for business travel. Soon enough, that brought him to Crested Butte again.

“We were interested in getting loans wherever we could, so we decided, well, why don’t we shoot over to Crested Butte? Crested Butte real estate back in the mid 1970s was sort of up and down, to say the least, so you had to be careful,” David said.

As he explored the western U.S. and Mexico by plane, David sometimes flew to La Paz, and eventually he bought one fifth of a sailboat. Sailing is another of his great loves, as is river running. “We went down the Grand Canyon for the first time in 1973,” he said, “and we started going back every year,” transferring unclaimed user days from an acquaintance who ran a commercial operation.

The children often stayed behind with grandparents, an aunt or a babysitter. But the milder trips, such as the Green River and pre-dam Dolores River, included the youngsters. David recalls rafting the Dolores at what he believes was its all-time highest water level, complete with dead cows floating by and people scrambling for shore to avoid waves comparable to those of the Grand Canyon.

When David and his first wife split up, they remained friends, he said. His ex-wife actually helped introduce him to Chris.

Chris had grown up in Berkeley, living in the city but camping every summer in places like Yosemite and Lassen Volcanic National Park. She graduated from UC Berkeley, immersed in “all the good sixties music, Winterland [music venue] in San Francisco… it was a different kind of education,” she said. “I learned a lot about the world.” Chris was also a political activist, protesting the Vietnam War. She too got married after college, and travelled around Europe by van with her first husband. ”We went backpacking in the Sierras for two weeks at a time and hardly ever saw a soul. I loved the mountains and nature.” Chris went to school to become a labor and delivery nurse, and after her divorce she travelled some more before settling back into nursing.

Chris met David in the winter of 1980 while visiting a friend in Snowmass. At his ex-wife’s suggestion, David took Chris and her friends out on the town and then flying the next day. Chris got airsick and decided to stay back while everyone else went skiing, befriending David’s daughter Talley, a ten-year-old by that time. “She took care of me,” said Chris.

David was “thunderstruck,” going to great lengths to get Chris’ attention. He believes he finally won her over while flying her over a huge migration of gray whales near Cabo San Lucas several weeks into their courtship. “I knew by then to take some Dramamine,” Chris recalled. “It was one of the more incredible experiences I’ve had with David, and I’ve had a bunch of them.”

By spring, Chris had packed up her Volvo and moved to Aspen. The two married and added a third child, Lara, to the family in 1982. Even while David worked long hours as president of a mortgage company, the two followed their insatiable appetite for travel. They often went camping, fly fishing and jeeping over Pearl Pass.

“Every time we had a chance, we would get in the plane and fly somewhere for a weekend,” said David. “I would work until eight at night, jamming it all together. And then on Friday afternoon we’d get in the plane and head for Hermosillo or something.”

Sometimes they would stay on the boat in La Paz, or in what was then the little fishing village of Cabo San Lucas. Sailing the Sea of Cortez eventually led to sailing around the world. In 1987, David and Chris decided to take a three-year sabbatical and live on a sailboat. They rented out their house in Aspen, bought a boat in France and, with teenagers Talley and Brian and four-year-old Lara, set out to sail around the Mediterranean.

“We took that boat and went all the way down to about Granada, came across the Atlantic, worked our way up through the Caribbean and ended up in Fort Lauderdale,” recounted David. He had to go back to work for a few months, so they headed for home via the Panama Canal. Their trip coincided with the last days of Panamanian dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega, whose denial of visas for Americans delayed Talley’s plans to join the family. After she finally met them in Costa Rica, the family headed out on the Pacific to a mostly uninhabited Cocoa Island in the Maldives.

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spooky. The sailboat eventually took them to Tahiti, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand.

Illness and bad weather turned a sail from the Galapagos Islands into a harrowing misadventure – “the worst part of all my cruising,” David said. “Two days in, I spiked a fever [most likely malaria or dengue fever]. The wind was pushing east and we couldn’t turn around.” The kids and Chris had to sail the boat, while David was down below, too weak to do anything but blow his foghorn on occasion and call out to trim the sails. Finally the family arrived in the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, where David saw a doctor and slowly recovered.

Other stories involve teenager shenanigans, add-on friends, rough seas, the catching of fish for dinner, a Persian cat sailing companion named Apu, negotiations with paratroopers, and the inadvertent stumbling upon the grave of artist Paul Gauguin. “We had a great time,” they agreed.

After three years sailing the high seas, Chris and David returned home to find themselves disillusioned with Aspen, as the two older kids embarked on their college and adult lives. David had once met Jack Nicholson in a dentist’s office and turned Olivia Newton John away from a real estate office. “But when we came back, Aspen was just overwhelming. The growth, the people… we said, you know there’s just got to be something better.” Then David heard about the Cement Creek Ranch, a former dude ranch near Crested Butte. “I said I would kill to live there.”

David had flown over Cement Creek Ranch numerous times on his visits to Crested Butte. After flying in on the dirt runway at the Crested Butte airport on one particular trip with his business partner, David borrowed a car from his friend Jim Gebhart, walked around the ranch and did a little fishing. He expected his partner to buy the property, but the partner wasn’t interested. “I decided I was the guy that really liked it.” He went home and talked to Chris. “In 1990 we were able to sell what I would call a nice tract home in Aspen…for as much money as this ranch on 120 acres,” he marveled.

The couple moved into the ranch’s modest main cabin in 1991, enrolled Lara in the Crested Butte Community School and began life in Crested Butte. David still regularly commuted back to Aspen for work, leaving his ten-speed bicycle at the Aspen airport. And yes, he buzzed the cabin to alert Chris when he was returning home.

The couple got deeply involved in Crested Butte over the years. Chris discovered a love of horses while maintaining the ranch’s tradition of boarding horses for locals in the summer; they also continued allowing some cattle to graze. The Baxters began holding Land Trust benefits and other events on the property; all three children (and many others) were married there. David joined the Crested Butte Land Trust and helped start the 1% For Open Space initiative, a small optional sales tax used to help preserve the viewsheds for which Crested Butte is so well known. He was also part of developing the beloved Lower Loop trail.

A few years ago, after David had retired and the children had married and had kids of their own, David and Chris experimented with spending winters in Carbondale. But it just didn’t stick. “We missed the community,” they said. They’re now on the cusp of a new experiment.

Many local retirees have migrated to lower elevations. The Baxters will, too, but their seasonal move will take them a scant five miles and maybe 250 feet down in elevation (from 9,000-plus). “We’re building an assisted living facility,” David joked. The aforementioned facility is actually a cozy cabin being constructed on their youngest daughter’s property in Crested Butte South. In Baxter fashion, the property overlooks bucolic ranchland and the Slate River, with Paradise Divide beckoning from the north. Both Baxter daughters and families live nearby, and Brian lives in Denver with his wife and children.

Moving from the snowbound Cement Creek Ranch to their Crested Butte South home during the winter, Chris and David will no longer have to haul their groceries by snowmobile. Each summer, though, they still plan to be outnumbered by cattle and horses at the ranch. They have maintained the meadows, trails and warm spring pools with very little change to the land over the years. A simple swimming pool fed by the springs entertains their grandkids in summer, a caretaker cabin provides yearround housing for a hearty local soul or two, and an additional one-bedroom cabin often hosts friends or family in summer. In recent years, wildlife biologists have taken a keen interest in a rare lichen that grows alongside the warm pools, adding scientific studies to the summer activity.

“We hope we can keep the ranch,” said David. He and Chris share a vision that their children will take over the ranch operations at some point. But for now, they seem content. Their new cabin will be ready for them when the snow flies. In the meantime, as this magazine heads to press, they will set sail for yet another international adventure, grandkids included. b

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TRUE FISH TALES

How do fish get into those high, remote lakes? Lots of them fly.

By Karen Janssen

Fish. To some people the word connotes bliss – peaceful hours, gracefully casting a perfectly fly-tied line into a perfect hole of river water. Others’ mouths may water as they recall barbecued salmon or seared ahi. The word might conjure smelly memories or joyful visions of tropical reef. Last year I read Lulu Miller’s wonderful memoir, “Why Fish Don’t Exist,” which gave me a deeper way to think about fish (!) and threw the whole study of ichthyology into an intriguing light.

I’ll admit I’m woefully ignorant as to the ways of fish. I’ve lived decades in the Gunnison Valley, knowing there’s a whole subculture of fishing, but I’ve never partaken. Waders, rods, creels, fly tying… umm. Basically, I just enjoy watching fish jump or swim silently through the clear waters of the high alpine lakes I love. And that’s what got me wondering. How do they get there? How do they survive the brutal mountain winters? I set out to learn.

My first stop was a conversation with Kevin Wright, a local resident and retired employee of Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW). He has spent time with Colorado

Tim Romano

Intrepid pilots fly low among the peaks to drop water filled with hundreds of fingerling fish into remote lakes.

creatures of all shapes and sizes. “These days fish-stocking of high lakes is mostly by plane. Historically, some arrived by backpack, horse or mule, though that’s definitely resource-intensive,” he said. “I’ve packed in clear plastic tubes of fish to some pretty remote lakes!” Before the tiny fish were released, the bags would be set in the water to acclimate the travelers to new temperatures, and then eventually opened to let them swim toward their new fate.

I can’t help but think about this from the fish’s point of view. Removed from the nursery, placed in strange water in darkness, sloshing for hours until coming out into the light, yet still unable to escape the plastic walls, then suddenly…. But I digress.

These days the fingerlings (roughly one inch long) have an even more exciting trip. They are raised in hatcheries, ideally local, and eventually loaded into trucks that meet the planes at airstrips. The hatchery crew maintains the temperature, pH and oxygen levels of the water on site, until the small fish are moved into the plane that will bring them on a wild ride to their final destination. They are transferred into numerous compartments in one of the four modified Cessna 185s that travel through the Colorado mountains in the late summer.

Navigating the dangerously complex terrain and air currents of the high Rocky Mountains, the pilots drop hundreds to thousands of fish on each run, releasing specific tubes over specific lakes. Some get

Tim Romano

In lakes as high as 12,000 feet, the transplanted fingerlings can survive ten or more years, and the longest-lived legends can reach 18 inches long.

Sandra Mabry

only get 150 fish, while others can get up to 5,000. The norm is somewhere between 500 and 800 fingerlings. Amazingly, Department of Wildlife studies show that more than 85 percent of the tiny fish survive the fall. Theirs is a dive to rival any Olympian. Given that their heads are heavier than their tails, they all elongate vertically and float down with the water. Their small size helps: with less mass falling from the sky, the chances for survival go up dramatically. The wee size also allows the pilots to load many fish per run into their planes.

Aquatic biologists such as Dan Brauch, Gunnison’s Colorado Parks and Wildlife representative, work with their district’s wildlife managers to help determine which lakes are stocked when, what kind of fish they get, and how many. Though many waters were stocked prior, a large baseline study conducted in the late sixties and early seventies helped dictate which lakes have suitable habitat to make them candidates for fish populations. “Roughly, we stock 100 fish per acre, though it depends on the lake’s productivity,” explained Brauch. “Some lakes don’t have suitable spawning habitat, so it’s impossible for the fish population to be self-sustaining. We continue to monitor the numbers as we try to maintain opportunities for recreationists.”

In the southern part of Colorado, 248 waters were stocked with nearly 275,000 fish in 2021, with 32 of those being in the Upper Gunnison Basin. Next year CPW will concentrate on the alpine lakes in the northern half of the state. “We find that some are ‘winterkill’ lakes, so locations can vary. This means that sufficient oxygen wasn’t maintained over the winter, whether that’s due to lack of spring flow or enough light penetrating the ice,” continued Brauch. Sometimes lakes have unsustainable levels of heavy metals, left over from mining days.

Many high alpine lakes are quite shallow, and freezing is an issue.

Provided the conditions are adequate, the fish basically hang out in the winter, with little need to feed, in the deepest part of their lakes. As there is little growth during these sluggish times, biologists are able to age fish by measuring either the growth of their scales or otoliths, small bones in their skulls. Though the life of a fish in one of these alpine lakes (most are between 10,000 and 12,000 feet high) seems mighty cold and lonely, Brauch said that a rare few survive 10-15 years and reach up to 18 inches in length; the average, of course, is younger and smaller. Even I, the completely fish-ignorant, have heard tales of these swimming legends!

The cutthroat is the only trout species native to Colorado. Most other species were imported in the late 1800s. Brook trout came from the east, rainbow from the west, brown from Europe. There has been a movement to return the native fish to the high lakes, as brook trout can take over, and rainbows can hybridize with cutthroat. In some cases, this has led to the use of the substance rotenone to kill off the existing population and restock the lake with cutthroat. That seemed scary, so I looked it up: rotenone is “a toxic crystalline substance obtained from the roots of derris and related plants, widely used as an insecticide and to kill fish. It does so by inhibiting cellular respiration in mitochondria, which leads to reduced cellular uptake of oxygen.” When the cutthroat are reintroduced, they are broken up by sub-species depending on what drainages the lakes flow into.

If you were relaxing at a high, remote lake after an arduous trek, seeing a fish drop might be the last thing you’d expect. In the rare event that you witnessed one from the ground, you probably wouldn’t even see many fish, given their tiny size. “It just looks like a spray of water coming from the belly of the plane,” said Kevin Wright. “And then there is a ripple effect when they hit the water. I have immense respect for the pilots, as it’s all very impressive and pretty darn dangerous.”

Brauch concluded, “Aerial stocking is definitely an efficient and successful way to continue to manage the fish population. It takes a lot for recreationists to get to one of these high alpine lakes. But the experience there is so enjoyable and unique, it’s satisfying to know that the legacy of native fish in untouched wilderness continues.”

You might arrive with a rod and line, hoping to catch and release some of the slippery residents. Perhaps you’re satisfied to picnic while watching the trout’s watery dance. Either way, if they could communicate, some of those fish could probably tell a pretty good tale!

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By Brian Levine, writing from the perspective of Sanford C. Robinson

What a dynamic time it was. The founding of a town. Securing investment capital. Creating new businesses. Inducing railroads to our door. Developing a cornucopia of mining properties. But none of it would’ve happened had it not been for Howard F. Smith.

It was 1877, and we were in Leadville. Smith managed the Gage-Hagaman smelter, a small operation of no serious consequence, and I was an assayer for the Dunkin Mine. While carbonate ores filled reduction mills, heavy ore stamps rang throughout the hillsides and smoke choked the atmosphere, businessmen like H.A.W. Tabor and D.H. Moffat were becoming unimaginably rich. Not me, though: not Sanford C. Robinson. I was just another ant in the hill. Worse, the Leadville District was already staked out. It was no longer a prospector’s camp.

By the greatest of fortunes, I met Howard F. Smith, a man afire with energy, constantly whirring at the speed of life. He’d just returned from Colorado’s Elk Mountain Region and was brimming with exotic details and fantastic ideas. Smith spoke enthusiastically about the Gunnison Valley’s thick forests, abundant wildlife, rugged peaks, crystalline rivers, pine-fresh air and azure skies. And most enticing of all, its crude mining camps – sparsely populated tent settlements dotting basins with astonishing geologic potential. After listening to Smith, I was itching for this new frontier.

I joined Smith later in ’77 on his return trip to the Elk Mountains. This time he packed in enough machinery to construct two sawmills. As these were being built, we went out surveying mineral resources. Within several weeks, Smith had purchased the large coal claims of John and Dan Jennings – 1250 acres -- at the foot of Gibson Ridge, beside Coal Creek. The Jennings discovered these coal measures back in 1875 but now wanted to fund a silver prospect in Copper Creek, near the town of Gothic.

Smith and I then headed up to the Ruby-Irwin Mining District. There, we located three silver lodes – the Arab, Chloride Deposit and Sunset – at the base of Ruby Peak. Assays for those properties revealed up to 500 silver ounces to the ton. We hired men to dig two tunnels and two shafts – and then went on to locate the Howard, Howard Extension, Ruby Chief, Gem, Peggie and Old Sheik lodes, contiguous to the highly productive Forest Queen Mine. Assays for the Howard, et al, averaged 150 ounces to the ton. You’d think any prospector would’ve been satisfied. But not Howard F. Smith.

In our next mineral survey, we traveled to the Slate River to inspect Hawkeye and Cinnamon mountains. On those slopes, we found gold and silver in rich crystal matrices and staked out seven lode claims. It was there I decided to build a cabin,

above where the road forks east to Rock Creek and west to Augusta and Poverty Gulch. I’d finished the log foundation and walls when Smith informed me he was returning to Leadville. Winter was coming and it was best we raise more capital. With Smith, it was all whitewater rush perpetually falling over cliffs to the Pelton wheels far below. In the spring of ’78, we were back in the north Gunnison Valley, riding horseback to a point about four miles northeast from the confluence of the Slate River and Coal Creek, almost opposite O-Be-Joyful Gulch. There, dark rivulets of Improved Road (more or less) black metallic-looking detritus spread out among the trees. “It’s coal,” Smith assured me. I wasn’t convinced: it didn’t look the same as that on Gibson Ridge. We managed to hike up a good way even as the steep and crumbling ground slid beneath our boots. After reaching one of the closest rivulets, Smith picked up a chunk of mineral and said, “It’s the stuff that powers smelters alright. Drives trains and heats homes, too!” He tossed the mineral to me. “Anthracite.” “Can’t be,” I said. “Rock formation’s not right.” Smith disagreed. “It’s not the formation, Sant, or geologic period. Rather, the pressure and heat on organic matter.”

The Coal Mines

1. The Jokerville (bituminous, C. F. & I.) 2. Big Mine (bituminous, C. F. & I.) 3. The Pueblo (bituminous, Pueblo Co.) 4. The Robinson (bituminous, Robinson Bros.) 5. Bulkley Mine (bituminous, Bulkley Mining) 6. Pershing Mine (anthracite, Elk Mtn. Mining) Unimproved Road 7. Peanut Mine (anthracite, Horace Coal Co., Ross Coal Co.) 8. Smith Hill Mine (anthracite, Smith Hill Anthracite Co.) Hiking Trail 9. Floresta Mine (anthracite, C. F. & I.)

The Precious Metal Mines

Old R.R. Grade (prior to 1952) 10. The Ruby Mines (silver) Coal Mine (see numbered list) 11. Forest Queen Mine (silver) 12. Keystone Mine (silver, lead, zinc) Precious Metal Mine (see numbered list) 13. Daisy Mine (silver, lead, zinc) Old Townsite 14. Sylvanite Mine (silver) 15. Painter Boy Mine (silver and gold)

Few photographs exist of Howard Smith. This collection shows a note he wrote in 1884 on an Anthracite Coal Company card; an 1893 stock certificate for the Colorado Coal & Iron Development Company; a Thomas Hine photo of Lone Mountain (Crested Butte Mountain) from the Slate River in 1877, and the home of Howard and Rachel Smith on The Heights in 1883.

He acquired this property, too, and soon the whole mountain was known as Smith Hill.

That summer we did a lot of climbing, surveying a good number of the mining camps throughout the Elk Mountains. We also rode back and forth to Leadville, Colorado Springs and Pueblo, on horseback and by train – to Colorado business centers then awash in silver, gold and greenbacks. We exhibited ore samples, for publicity, and one potential investor, James B. Grant of Leadville’s Grant Smelter, took particular interest in our Cinnamon Mountain specimens. He was the nephew of a wealthy and influential Iowan, Judge James Grant. Both Grants believed firmly in the future of Colorado’s mineral wealth. Thus, with their backing, we formed The Iowa Mining and Smelting Company and established the first reduction mill in the north Gunnison Valley.

We also garnered attention from the Law brothers, Robert and Henry, of Leadville. They invested in our Hawkeye claims and incorporated The Hawkeye Mining and Milling Company to work them. They paid me to be the onsite managing partner, enabling me to finish my cabin near the new townsite of Pittsburgh. The whirlwind changes were incredible! In just two years, I – Sanford C. Robinson – had gone from a mere assayer to a man about to make a lasting fortune. I was ready to settle down.

But not Howard F. Smith. “Enterprise” should’ve been his middle name. In 1879, we did another survey of the north Gunnison Valley. This time, Smith had me working with Abe Croop and William Curtis to build coking pits along the Pioneer Toll Road to Irwin. Smith was also engaged in a plan for a new railroad, the Leadville and Elk Mountain, in connection with more investors. These projects, and others still under consideration, inspired even more industry in Smith. His next concept was to plat a mining supply center – a town – for this burgeoning region.

Smith envisioned a location reasonably accessible from all the mining camps in the Ruby-Irwin and Elk Mountain districts. We climbed the surrounding mountains – Lone, Gothic, Emmons and Wheatstone – to look over possibilities. It so happened that one of the best locations for this town was just northwest of the junction of Coal Creek and Slate River, near and encompassing some of our coal properties below Gibson Ridge. But grand ideas require grand financing, and we soon realized establishing a town of the size and amenities Smith imagined would require significant capital, more than we possessed. Thus, we partnered with other industrious souls exploring the area,

Map courtesy of A Crested Butte Primer, by George Sibley

The Coal Mines

Improved Road (more or less)

1. The Jokerville (bituminous, C. F. & I.) 1. The Jokerville (bituminous, C. F. & I.) 2. Big Mine (bituminous, C. F. & I.) The Coal Mines(bituminous, C. F. & I.) 3. The Pueblo (bituminous, Pueblo Co.) 3. The Pueblo (bituminous, Pueblo Co.) 4. The Robinson 1. The Jokerville (bituminous, C. F. & I.) 2. Big Mine (bituminous, C. F. & I.)(bituminous, Robinson Bros.) 3. The Pueblo (bituminous, Pueblo Co.) 4. The Robinson (bituminous, Robinson Bros.) 5. Bulkley Mine (bituminous, Bulkley Mining) 6. Pershing Mine (anthracite, Elk Mtn. Mining) 7. Peanut Mine (anthracite, Horace Coal Co., Ross Coal Co.) 8. Smith Hill Mine (anthracite, Smith Hill Anthracite Co.) 9. Floresta Mine (anthracite, C. F. & I.) The Precious Metal Mines 10. The Ruby Mines (silver) 11. Forest Queen Mine (silver) 12. Keystone Mine (silver, lead, zinc) 13. Daisy Mine (silver, lead, zinc) Unimproved Road Hiking Trail Old R.R. Grade (prior to 1952) Coal Mine (see numbered list) Precious Metal Mine (see numbered list) Improved Road (more or less) Unimproved Road Hiking Trail Old R.R. Grade (prior to 1952) Coal Mine Precious Metal Mine MAP KEY 4. The Robinson (bituminous, Robinson Bros.) 5. Bulkley Mine (bituminous, Bulkley Mining) 6. Pershing Mine (anthracite, Elk Mtn. Mining) 7. Peanut Mine (anthracite, Horace Coal Co., Ross Coal Co.) 8. Smith Hill Mine (anthracite, Smith Hill Anthracite Co.) 9. Floresta Mine (anthracite, C. F. & I.) The Precious Metal Mines 5. Bulkley Mine (bituminous, Bulkley Mining) 6. Pershing Mine (anthracite, Elk Mtn. Mining) 7. Peanut Mine (anthracite, Horace Coal Co., Ross Coal Co.) 8. Smith Hill Mine (anthracite, Smith Hill Anthracite Co.) 9. Floresta Mine (anthracite, C. F. & I.) The Precious Metal Mines 10. The Ruby Mines Old Townsite Old Townsite(silver) 10. The Ruby Mines (silver) 14. Sylvanite Mine (silver) 15. Painter Boy Mine (silver and gold) 11. Forest Queen Mine (silver) 11. Forest Queen Mine (silver) 12. Keystone Mine (silver, lead, zinc) 12. Keystone Mine (silver, lead, zinc) 13. Daisy Mine (silver, lead, zinc) 13. Daisy Mine (silver, lead, zinc) 14. Sylvanite Mine (silver) 14. Sylvanite Mine (silver) 15. Painter Boy Mine (silver and gold) 15. Painter Boy Mine (silver and gold)

Jokerville Mine, 1883 (before the explosion that killed 59 miners)

Town of Anthracite after a large snowslide.

people like George H. and William H. Holt, J. H. Bowman, Ed I. Field, C.K. Smith, J. R. Stearns, F. T. Jeans and R. M. Grieg.

In 1880, we incorporated The Crested Butte Town Company, and the first town board saw George Holt as mayor; Clayton K. Smith as recorder; and Howard Smith, D.K. Scott, C.K. Smith and J.H. Bowman as the board of trustees. Smith and the Holts also started a water company to supply our new town. We called the place “Crested Buttes” or the “Buttes,” since the town was surrounded by so many awe-inspiring peaks.

By then we had enterprise upon enterprise in the works and yet Smith was still unsettled. He expanded his circle of investors to include William J. Palmer and Dr. William A. Bell – the founders of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad and the town of Colorado Springs – not only to finance our Crested Butte (as it became known) coal properties, but also to purchase the most productive silver mine in the Ruby-Irwin District – the Forest Queen. Palmer formed the Colorado Coal and Iron Company, and Bell acquired a managing percentage of the Anthracite Mesa Coal Mining Company, the concern working the Smith Hill Mine.

That same year, V. F. Axtel and George Holt opened a large general store on Elk Avenue. J. R. Stearns supervised the stringing of a line for the Crested Butte and Grand River Telegraph. The Groendyke Brothers had the first store in town with an actual telephone connection. Twelve saloons sprang up to sell grog. And Howard F. Smith became the town’s first postmaster. Smith abandoned the Leadville and Elk Mountain Railroad after learning Palmer and Bell had purchased the Poncha, Marshall and Gunnison Toll Road from Otto Mears. Their acquisition, along with Crested Butte’s growing coal productivity, all but guaranteed the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad was on its way to the north Gunnison Valley.

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You might think that now – finally now -- Smith could sit back on an Elk Mountain House portico and revel in the results of his labors. But no.

Anthracite breaker and Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, circa 1895; the luxurious Elk Mountain House at Fourth & Elk in Crested Butte in 1895.

Smith’s concept of making Crested Butte the supply center for Irwin, Ruby, Gothic, Pittsburgh, Elkton, Elcho, Schofield, Ashcroft and other mining camps was rapidly coming to fruition. So, for one minute, at least, one might’ve expected Howard F. Smith to put his foot up on a brass rail – perhaps at the Forest Queen House -- rest an elbow on its mahogany bar, sip a Hill and Hill whisky, and smile at all his works. But no, that wasn’t him.

Smith launched the grading of the Crested Butte and Gothic Toll Road. He also became the Buttes’ second mayor. And – and – Smith contracted to have his and his wife’s house erected up on The Heights, in the same neighborhood where Bowman, Stearns and other early town investors had built their homes. Yes, things were booming. But still Smith had no time for rest. Crested Butte would not have developed the way it did -- or so quickly -- had it not been for his foresight and energy. He arrived as a mere Edison generator and soon evolved into a Westinghouse dynamo.

In 1881, Smith served as chairman of the Gunnison County committee for the National Mining and Industry Exposition, to be held in Denver the following year. That meant a portion of Smith’s time was consumed with designing and organizing exhibits from all of Gunnison County’s mining camps. No small task given that Gunnison County encompassed nearly 3,000 square miles of mineral lands. Then, on November 21, 1881, the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad entered Crested Butte for the first time. A year later, a D&RG extension would reach the anthracite mine at Smith Hill, where hundreds of tons of anthracite – mostly 90% fixed carbon -- had been piled up by the Anthracite Mesa Coal Mining Company, waiting to be freighted out. That railroad extension was a boon to the new town of Anthracite atop Smith Hill, as well as the town of Pittsburgh up Slate River.

Now, might Howard F. Smith take a break?

Nope. Like an engine in constant motion, Smith began his next project: the Elk Mountain House. Although Bowman’s Forest Queen House was already considered the best hotel and saloon in the Buttes, Smith believed he could do better. In December 1881, Smith celebrated the opening of his Elk Mountain House in a most grandiose event. Everyone was invited to view the three-story structure, a 3,400-square-foot symbol of success on the southwest corner of Elk Avenue and Fourth Street. An ornate portico extended around the north and east facades, welcoming guests into its wainscoted- and deepBrussels-carpeted rooms, each accented with European and East Coast furniture and

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(970) 209-1998 cell (970) 349-5007 office Tisha.Swan@cbmp.com fixtures. Two large and brilliant chandeliers lit up the registry counters, and solid walnut banisters lined stairs and halls. Weighty cardinal lambrequins draped either side of the large plate glass windows facing Lone Mountain. Lathed plaster and handfinished wood in Eastlake Style decorated the House throughout. Fancy glass, engraved silverware, pressed-tin ceilings, steam heaters and copper boilers made most of us feel as if there was no greater luxury. What’s more, Mrs. Rachel Smith – certainly Crested Butte’s most talented vocalist – welcomed all with her wondrous singing.

Lively activity continued at the Elk Mountain House, including extravagant weddings drawing all the local luminaries.

You might think that now – finally now -- Smith could sit back on an Elk Mountain House portico and revel in the results of his labors. But no. Smith retained a hand in most of the enterprises he’d started. In 1882, however, he did sell the Howard, Howard Extension, Ruby Chief, et al mining property near Irwin to an English syndicate for $250,000. Still, you would not catch the man resting.

That is, until – and with little warning – in August 1886, Howard and Rachel Smith made a surprise announcement: they were leaving the Buttes and returning to Elkhart, Indiana -- from whence they came -- to manage the Smith family’s paper mills. That shocked us all. Smith’s father, who’d established and operated the mills for decades, had unexpectedly passed away, and the family business needed a strong and energetic personality to resume control. The Smiths boarded a Denver & Rio Grande train east, and as with an electromagnetic coil slowly losing its spin, the lights in the Buttes dimmed.

Smith retained some interests in Crested Butte -- property, mines, a few business enterprises -- but the loss of his presence and drive was soon evident. Coal mining went on. Precious metals were still extracted. But the place no longer seemed as energetic and innovative as it had been. Soon, Crested Butte would become a “company town” for the large mines.

On rare occasions, Howard F. Smith returned. But he never stayed long. And I – Sanford C. Robinson, his old friend and business associate -- was there to greet him. But it was nothing like the old days. Smith didn’t have the same enthusiasm for the place. He appeared tired and worn – more like Coleridge’s Ozymandias than a Westinghouse power plant. He’d become more a stone sculpture looking down from Lone Mountain upon all his past works -- the embers of his eyes partially buried in snow and coal dust -- than the charismatic dynamo I once knew. b

THROUGH FOOD HEALING HUMANITY

STRETCHING THE VALLEY’S GROWING SEASON, MATTHEW OZYP PRODUCES GOOD FOOD TO FEED HIS NEIGHBORS – AND TO FIX THE COUNTRY’S BROKEN RELATIONSHIP WITH AGRICULTURE.

Story by Morgan Tilton Photos by Eric Phillips

I scooped the rich soil in one hand and tunneled down with the other, making room for the next emerald baby brassica to be nestled into the earth. Kneeling next to farmer Matthew Ozyp on his 240-acre Iola Valley Farms, a few miles south of Blue Mesa’s Iola boat ramp, I pulled the next plant out of the sheet pot and asked what brought him to farming.

“My parents both passed away from health issues, and I became even more inspired to heal and nourish people through food,” Ozyp, 30, told me. Born and raised on a seven-acre homestead with a small garden up Ohio Creek, Ozyp was gifted two goats when he was eight, and he thought those creatures were the greatest present on the planet. His dad, Jim, owned a tile company and taught him how to build everything from shops to barns. Beth, his mom, worked for the Forest Service. He and his sister, Kelly, who competed at Cattlemen’s Days, rode horses together. “As a kid in Gunnison, I spent my life outside,” he said.

He saw his mom pass away from lung cancer five years ago. His father had died a decade prior from prostate cancer, at age 54. “Those health issues aren’t necessarily caused by lack of nutrition or limited access to healthy food, but health had always been on my mind. When I was 16 years old, I became conscious that we should eat healthier and got really into organic food. Our country’s agriculture system is poisoning us, and I became obsessed with solutions,” explained Ozyp. He earned a business degree in college, and all of his research revolved around the brokenness of the U.S. food and health care systems, from the industrialization of organic food production to the gigantic carbon footprint. Fifteen years ago, when his passion sparked to know the source of his food and to eat seasonally appropriate foods, there were no organic farmers in the Gunnison Valley.

The Parianuches and Uncompahgre, two bands of the Ute people, were huntergatherers throughout the region near the Gunnison River, supplementing their diet with wild plants, from onions to amaranth, rice grass and Indian potato flower. In the 1880s, white settlers successfully grew potatoes and hay and raised cattle.

Matthew Ozyp: "inspired to heal and nourish people through food."

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WHETSTONE MOUNTAIN FOUNDATION Ranching continued to burgeon, but farming was challenged by the altitude and weather.

“In the last decade, local food has hit our valley in a big way,” said Ozyp. He started farming in 2016, cultivating a 5,000-square-foot urban garden that provided 12,000 pounds of produce for the Gunnison Country Food Pantry (and another 1,200 pounds unintentionally fed the area’s persistent deer). Seeing the value and demand, Ozyp sold his home and urban garden in Gunnison and in 2017 bought this farmland, where I was volunteering as an inaugural member of his first-ever Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.

I strolled past the musical clucking coop full of 150 chickens to hold a newborn ewe. Its herd fluctuates up to 120 sheep, whose manure helps replenish the nutrients in the soil for hay. Iola is also home to two horses, 11 farm cats and three dogs, including a huge alabaster Great Pyrenees and an Akbash. In the back, 16 eco-friendly greenhouses – that Ozyp is “obsessed” with building – are lined up next to rows of potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, spinach, arugula and lettuce. Tomatillos, tomatoes and peppers are grown in the greenhouses all summer. In the winter, the greenhouses help the sheep and chickens stay warm, while lowering the operation’s overall carbon footprint.

Now in his sixth season, Ozyp cultivates 10,000 pounds of food each year. “We’ve extended our 90-day grow season to a 200-day grow season on 1,200 square feet – without any fossil fuel at all.” Mountain Roots Food Project, another local operation, delivers 15,000 pounds – a yield that could potentially quadruple thanks to the introduction of four hydroponic year-round freight-container farms. Ozyp recently helped construct the propane, electric, water and drain lines in the recycled shipping containers, which produce an acre of food each. Calder Farm, Parker Pastures and Sue Wyman of Gunnison Gardens also continue to pioneer the local food movement alongside newcomer Gunni Gal, Alex Van Zandt, who recently launched a year-round aquaponics greenhouse up Ohio Creek. “She’ll be able to produce 900 heads of lettuce per week, which is four times what I can produce in a week,” noted Ozyp.

New this season, Ozyp’s partner, Alexis Taylor, is growing cut flowers, including edible varieties, in six of the Iola greenhouses. Ozyp continues to directly serve the community via three back-to-back CSA programs that stretch 30 weeks in the spring, summer and fall.

Wyman, an ultimate go-getter, pitched the idea of working together to extend the grow season, which initially intimidated Ozyp. But this is the third year of the collaboration between the farmers of the Gunnison Valley Producers’ Guild, and they’ve seen major breakthroughs. Last year, they expanded from growing solely root crops into cultivating greens, which also extended nearly the entire duration of the eight-week fall CSA. “We always open up those CSAs to any of the farmers. It takes the pressure off individual farms, especially in the shoulder seasons when things can go south quickly,” said Ozyp. He modified his greenhouses to withstand cold temperatures with in-floor heating, pressure exchange that blocks cold air from seeping in, and thermal mass – barrels filled with water – plus tucking the plants under frost cloths at night.

Ozyp said, “We were so proud last year that our fall CSA wasn’t just potatoes. We were all figuring it out. Sue was also able to offer Swiss chard and spinach. The solution wasn’t as difficult as we thought; plants are amazingly resilient.” b