Wandering West

"A good many of Colorado's mountain springs, especially the hot springs, are radio-active. Eminent physicians are now studying the affects of these to see what curative properties they may have. At some later time these undboubedly will be valued highly."

-Free Homestead Lands of Colorado Described: A Handbook for Settlers, page 41. (1915)

Ah, water. In the rugged, dry lands of Colorado, people would say anything to convince someone else to live there. When the expansion West began, things didn't look too good for farming along the Front Range. Looking across the plains, some called it "the Great American Desert" and swore that nothing would ever be grown there. They looked around, said, "yup, them mountains are pretty" and moved on. In 1850, things began to change. Lewis Ralston found a bit of gold in the creek which now bears his name, and suddenly Colorado was seen in a different light. People began to trickle into Colorado.

(We'll come back to the gold in the creek later.)

In the late 1850's, the government offered free land to anyone willing to use it, with the first Homestead Bill. By 1862, they figured they ought to start charging for the land. Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which charged the industrious citizen a whopping $1.25 an acre. Before then, however, some folks in Colorado had already claimed their land. George Henry and Sarah Church, traveling from Iowa, were among these early settlers, arriving in 1857. The Church family raised the first successful crop of Winter Wheat in Colorado, and brought in the first Hereford cattle. George's son, John, dug both Lower Church Lake, pictured below, and its sister lake (Upper Church Lake, naturally.)

A barn on the Hazelwood Ranch on Lower Church Lake in 1908:

The same barn (although changed) on Lower Church Lake in 2006:

By the dawn of the 20th century, the Church Ranch was prospering. One of the biggest reasons would fit the old real estate agent's mantra: Location, Location, Location. Church Ranch lay in an opportunistic spot, approximately halfway in between Denver and Boulder. This put them on the line for the important mode of transportation at the time. In the late 1800's, the ranch boasted the first stop along the Overland Stage Route, where they ran the "Church's Crossing Stage Shop." In 1908 came the Denver & Interurban Railroad, which may have prompted the picture above. Trains have run along the tracks since:

Colorado & Southern train, engine number 638, engine type 2-8-0.

Picture taken in 1962.

The same tracks today:

As a kid, I used to see trains here all the time. I still hear them from a distance, in my current home. To take this picture, I waited a while for a train to show, hoping to match the shot exactly. Unfortunately, I didn't quite have the luck of my youth--and the lake itself is prettier, anyways.

Church Ranch still boasts an excellent location, with an exit on the Denver-Boulder Turnpike, one of the major freeways in the Denver Metropolitan Area. The businesses here now seem to be doing quite well, and are still on land managed by George H. Church's great-grandson, Charles Church McKay.

I'm going to try to get an interview with Mr. McKay at some point during this series, but in the meantime, there is plenty more to discover: engineered irrigation marvels, the quest for gold, ever-changing wetlands and prairie ecosystems.

Notes: Quotes above are borrowed from the "Free Homestead Lands of Colorado Described: A Handbook for Settlers" by George S. Clason, 1915. Pictures of the Church family via the Church Ranch Corporate website. Images of Golden by A.E. Dickerson in 1860 and Church's lake from 1908 and 1962 by Otto Perry and Louis McClure, respectively, via the Western History Photos collection at the Denver Public Library.

9/2006: Corrected minor errors.