Nostalgia & History > Red Cliff

My Dad worked at Lundgren’s store in Gypsum from March 24th, 1919 to Monday September 8th, 1919 and recorded the daily events in his diary. He stayed at the Stapp Hotel where he had also stayed and worked when he was in Gypsum to attend high school at the Eagle County High school in Gypsum. Below is a c.1900 picture of Gypsum from a postcard. I got a copy of the postcard from the Denver Public Library. The third building from the right in the picture is the Stapp Hotel. The building is exists today in Gypsum but is now an apartment building. At the time my Dad worked at the Lundgren store, Minnie Lundgren managed the store. Minnie had a brother, Elmer, who was in high school at this time. Minnie and Elmer’s parents were both dead. In the 1990’s when I was reading my Dad’s Diary and starting to type it into my computer I went to Gypsum to see if the Lundgren store was still there. I found the building and it had a sign on it that said something like “Valley Store”. I tried the front door and it was open. I looked it. There were large spools of electrical wire and electrical equipment. The store evidently was used to store electrical supplies. A short way down the street from the store was a beer and pizza. I went there with the idea of inquiring about Lundgren’s store. I got to talking to a man at the bar. He said that Elmer was a fellow mason and was alive and ninety something and living in Grand Junction. As soon as I got back in Grand Junction I called Elmer Lundgren and made plans to meet him.

I met many times with Elmer. At the time I was entering my Dad’s Dairy in my computer. I would type a few pages and print them out and take them to Elmer and he would tell me about the people that my Dad mentioned in his diary. Elmer also told me about the people that lived in Eagle County in the 1920’s. One of the people that Elmer told me about was O.W. Daggett. “The community of Gypsum had its beginning on May 25, 1882, when Orion W. Daggett set up his tent on Gypsum Creek, four miles south of where the town was built some years later. Daggett did not enter immediately into ranching but engaged for some years in hunting for the Leadville market.” “Prospect for a growing settlement increased when the Denver and Rio Grand tracks reached there in August, 1887.” These quotations are from “Early Days on the Eagle” by MacDonald Knight and Leonard Hammok.

“Early in the 20th century, Daggett moved to Red Cliff, where he worked various jobs as an assayer, grocer, and postmaster — some in tandem — to support his second and growing family.” “Geography then isolated the Eagle Valley in ways we can scarcely understand now. Suppose you wanted to visit the governor in Denver. Summit County was impregnable from east and west. This meant your first choice by car was south to Buena Vista and then jogging back across South Park. A northerly route, from State Bridge along the Colorado River to Granby and thence across Berthoud Pass, was similarly indirect. In winter, even those options disappeared. No passes were plowed until 1930. Whether a president or a peon, your only option was a train from the Eagle Valley that swung through Pueblo. In response, Daggett campaigned for "Tennessee Pass 365 days a year," to borrow his oft-used expression for winter maintenance.

But Daggett's long-term vision was far more ambitious. He saw a road from Denver across Loveland Pass and then traversing the Gore Range - not at Vail Pass, which was then was only by a horse trail - but at what he proposed to call Shrine Pass.
From this pass travelers could pause to be uplifted by the sight of the Mount of the Holy Cross. This basic path of Interstate 70 detoured only slightly for religion - and commerce. It would have conveniently passed Daggett's newspaper office [In Red Cliff].” These quotations are from an article, “A Newspaper Man and His Mountain,” in the October 12, 2004 Vail Daily, http://www.vaildaily.com . Shrine Pass opened in c.1923. There is an article on Shrine Pass in Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org . Search for Shrine Pass. On http://www.rockymountainscenery.com there are pictures taken from Shrine Pass. Click on Shrine Pass Ridge. On http://www.hanselmannphotography.com there are pictures of wildflowers taken on Shrine Pass. “Shrine Pass, near Vail Pass, is one of the very best wildflower locations in Colorado. Shrine Pass is located between Frisco and Vail off of I-70.” For a page of wildflowers on Shrine Pass on this web site scroll down and click on the item, Phototips trip guides and other articles. Then on the new page scroll down and click on the item, The Wildflowers of Shrine Pass July 2006.

Below is a picture of O.W. Daggett and of Mt. Holly Cross that I copied from the October 12, 2004 in the Vail Daily. .

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Very fascinating info on things in this valley I live in. I appreciate your post. I've been living in Vail and Avon for the past 13+ years, and have been in search of all sorts of historic info related to everything in this area (Glenwood Springs, Dotsero, State Bridge, Minturn, Red cliff, etc.). I find it fascinating to talk with the old-timers of this area, that is, if we can find them! Again, I enjoyed your post!

Scott