Growing up in N.W. Colorado on a cattle ranch adjacent to the Yampa River created my memorable childhood. I continue to write about rural ranch life as I experienced it during the war years.
Our family ranch was on a designated U.S. government livestock trail where thousands of sheep would trail by in springtime for cooler mountain pastures and in the fall to winter west of Craig in the dry land prairie. Craig was famous in the past century as the largest wool shipping terminal in America. The railroad was located at the end of the Denver and Rio Grand railroad line. Denver railroad tycoon David Moffat started his rail line to California, but only got as far as Craig and the county that carries his name. It was 90 miles further across Brown’s Park and miles of sagebrush, cedar trees, and dry desert country to extend the train to Vernal, Utah, and Salt Lake City.
But, because of the vast prairie land stretching from Craig to the Utah border it was excellent sheep country and thousands of sheep spent winter months on private and public lands in N.W. Colorado.
The cold climate, the abundance of sagebrush, cheatgrass, flowers and weeds made excellent forage for large bands of sheep that grazed across thousands of acres of wild prairie. The high altitude and cold winters produced excellent wool sheared by crews every spring.
Starting in the 1920s sheep arrived in Moffat County and were not welcomed warmly by the cattlemen of the area, my ancestors included. There was early trouble with grazing, water rights, and land disputes, but the sheep were well suited to the land and wool was in great demand. The sheep industry prospered with great families.
Greek immigrants arrived in N.W. Colorado in great numbers and began careers as “sheepherders” but as years passed many Greek families owned the land and vast herds of sheep and private lands. They became leading citizens and successful stockmen.
Since our ranch was on the “Sheep Trail,” so to speak, my parents became friends with the herd owners. In the 1940s I would awaken to very early sheepmen in the kitchen enjoying breakfast with my parents. As I grew older, I went to Craig schools with dozens of Greek kids, and we became lifelong friends to this day.
I had a closet full of Pendleton wool shirts that I greatly enjoyed during my years of owning and operating the Craig Daily Press from 1961-1980. The Greek and Mormon ladies would always win the newspaper cooking contests.
One of our closest ranching neighbors was Harry Kourlis who traveled to Greece in his 50s and brought home a wonderful wife, raising eight children all in Craig. A son, Tom Kourlis, became Colorado Secretary of Agriculture and married Becky Love, the daughter of Governor John Love. She practiced law in Craig prior to becoming a Supreme Court Justice of Colorado. They still live part-time between Craig and Denver properties. One of their sons, Harry, became a doctor in Texas. One of his girlfriends was Julie Sather, who operates a jewelry store today in Ft. Collins. Another daughter, Helen, married an Irish lawyer, and lives in Greenwood Village. One of her daughters became a local TV celebrity.
Agriculture was big in Craig with the railroad able to ship gigantic sacks of wool stored in the railroad yard on the south edge of town. At night my school chums and I would go down to the gigantic mountain of wool sacks and jump back and forth on the soft sacks of sheared wool heading to New England mills and Europe.
Sadly, the demand for wool diminished, partly because of synthetic fibers developed during and after World War ll. While the demand for racks of lamb is still strong, mutton has diminished in demand. Some bands of sheep still travel that sheep trail west in the fall to the desert and to the mountain high-country cooler pasture lands in the summer. The town of Vail today rests in what was great summer sheep pasture.
Fortunes were made in agriculture by the value of land over time, not the care and feeding of sheep and cattle that demand constant care, grass, hay, water, and uncertain market prices.
My ancestors were Irish and Scottish immigrants working as Irish cowboys, and Leadville Scottish silver miners. In the foothill mountains of Clear Creek and Gilpin Counties in the 1860s over 20,000 miners sought their fortunes in seeking placer and lode gold discoveries.
Immigrants came to America seeking new lives and found them in the opening of the West and the discovering of gold in California in 1849. The Colorado gold rush came a few years later in 1859 in Gregory Gulch in today’s Central City.
With coal demand diminishing in N.W. Colorado there is emerging plans to promote passenger service once again to mountains towns through Rollinsville, the aging Moffat Tunnel, onward to Steamboat Springs and Craig. We rode that train in the early days to Denver when my father would ship his steers to the John Clay Co. at the Denver Union Stockyards.
Tourism, skiing, snowboarding, fishing, hunting, hiking, new hiking trails, sports, and gaming are replacing the pioneer industries of yesteryear.
The descendants of the early day pioneers have scattered and prospered, standing on the shoulder and sacrifices of those who came to America for opportunity and found it in this beloved land.
It still looks like everyone wants to live in America.