Speaking to the Future:
Tom Butterfield
SEDALIA PEOPLE AND PLACES
by Thomas Butterfield
There were many people that I did not know, in the Sedalia area. I do remember the following people:
Mrs. Tweet Kimble had the Cherokee ranch, with her santa Gertridos (sic) cattle; she lived in Johnson's Castle.
Joe Johnson put up Johnson's Corner, which Paul McIntrire and his wife, Saraphina, ran. Paul had a brother, Harold, who did mechanics.
Starting down the hill from the highway, the Rudolph's ran the hotel on the right. Murial taught Ginny and me when I was in 7th and 8th grades. She took the whole school on a picnic out to Devils Head, where we ran out of gas. Bob Jackson and I walked to the Swenson Bros. sawmill to get some gas. Mr. Swenson kept saying “bring the can back”.
Thompsons lived behind Rudolphs; Stanley, Betty, and Harry are some of their kids.
The Ullerys had a home on the left side, below the lower tracks. It had been a store. Their boys were Willie and Don, who was in my class.
Mr. Manhart had a nice brick home and was the first postmaster that I knew. His home, plus the grange Hall and Presbyterian Church, washed away in the 1965 flood.
I have forgotten the names of the folks who lived back in on the left - Jones? Their daughter was ahead of me in high school. He had several steam tractors.
Next on the left (actually on Plum Creek) was Dr. Duncan, our vet, who ran a small farm there. Later, he became a county commissioner.
The first place on the Jarre Canyon road, sw (sic) of Sedalia, was Charlie Hier. His wife was a Curtis and their children were Minnie (later Wyatt), Hank (married Ella Jackson), Margaret, and Bill, my age (married Mary (Seidensticker). I helped Charlie one summer by driving a wagon, loading bundles, and throwing them into the threshing machine. He had a small dairy herd plus some beef cattle. At one time, I bought a battery radio from him.
The next place was on the left. I believe Harcourts lived there. Paul Stewart married one of their daughters; his son was JF Stewart. Paul was the second postmaster I knew, in Sedalia. Esme Harcourt married Don Williams, who later became the County Commissioner. They lived next on the south side of the road.
The Ron Curtis family was next, on the south side, with Gordon and Ron, Jr. for children. Later, Velva Wyatt and her husband Curt Bains lived there, after WW2. I think this was called the Hill place.
Next came the Gus Nelson ranch, on the north side of the road. At one time it was said that the store in Sedalia got a rock of salt weighing 700#. The proprietors said that anyone who could load it, could have it. Gus took his wagon down and did the job. At one time, late in his life, he had a Model T Ford. His sons, Frank and Alfred, later owned the Nelson Store in Sedalia. Bob Nelson, Gus' grandson, lived on the ranch. He was my age and went into the Service in WW2. There was probably an older brother also. The Nelsons owned the threshing machine used in this area.
Next on the road, on the south side, was Vernon and Minnie Wyatt. Velva (Bains), Tom (my age), and Alton were their kids. Alton was killed in the Battle of the Bulge.
Tom Wyatt married late in life. He had a small dairy herd on the next place on the left; it had belonged to the Williamsons. Robinson Brick owns it now. Tom had one son, Joe.
Vernon Wyatt ran some cattle and horses and was very well-liked in the area. I believe he pastured cattle some on the ranch south of Devil's Head. That was later owned by Mr. Zinn. Vernon also sold Christmas trees.
The old Jarre Creek School was next on the north. It was later made into a house by Vernon.
Next on the north was the lower Penley place. Jesse O'Neal lived there, probably all her life. Her children were Betty (Francis) and Larry. Bruce and Ruth Penley ranched there, raising cattle and racing Quarter Horses. Bruce lost his right hand in an ensilage chopper, a couple weeks after getting married. He could do amazing things like pitch hay and chop down Christmas trees, using the hook on his right arm.
Mr. and Mrs. Williamson lived in the next place on the south, above Wyatt's. I didn't know them well, but as a small boy, I helped Frank Penley with the grain spout on the thresher there. He paid me 50 cents.
Then we moved down onto the lower Penley place, where we did the threshing and Frank paid me another 50 cents. That was all that Frank ever paid me, in all the years I worked with him. But I loved to drive those horses.
La Shells lived next, on the north. I don't know how they earned their living.
Frank Penley, and I think Bruce, got the place across the road from La Shells, where Mike and Judy Penley live now. He is my first cousin and the second son of Ruth and Tracy Penley, who lived there for some time also.
Just above that Penley place is the road going south to the Manhart ranch.
As we go up into the Canyon, I do not remember who lived up Madge Gulch but we got milk from them when I drove to high school.
Mr. and Mrs. Joe Hudson were next on the north side, with their daughter, Muriel, who went to grade school with us and later rode to high school those years I drove. Joe was an Indian. I can't say how they made a living. Art Williams lives there now.
There is another house now on the north side, where Phillips live. He worked at Woodbine camp for awhile.
Woodbine Lodge was owned by Joe Buckman, who son was also named Jo. They ran a chicken dinner place and had slot machines. After the main lodge burned down, Joe Jr. built a new building southeast of the original one. Woodbine has been a children's camp for many years.
There was a fox farm across the road from Woodbine, but I don't know the people's name who lived there.
Hawkins lived up toward Elephant Rock. Their daughter, Phyllis, was ahead of me in High School. Mr. Hawkins was using the 2x12x16 planks, that we were sawing at our mill, for his barn.
Anna Graham lived up the hill from Woodbine, on the left side. We called the hill Anna Graham's Hill. Across the road was the Papoose Club, with quite a few homes. There were at least two summer houses and a pond on the right side of their road. I can't recall all the names -- maybe Bechtell was one.
The next hill, with the sharp turn at the bottom and the hairpin turn at the top, is Casey Hill. There was a short cut, starting at the bottom curve.
Tracy Penley and I took his Fordson tractor up, pulling a wagon. The tractor's wheels dug down, as usual, and the hill was so steep that gasoline was squirting out of the cap, which caught fire. Tracy began smothering the fire with snow, so I stayed to help and we got the fire out.
Some years later, when I was in High School, I was riding a filly up this same short cut. It was dark and a tree was laying across the trail, low enough to catch me in the waist. The filly jumped ahead as I went off.
At the bottom of the west side of Casey Hill was Pine Nook, a pop stand owned by Ed Farris. His ranch was below there, down Indian Creek. His brother, Charlie, built some rustic cabins there. Charlie was Charles Daughtery McCall's grandpa (a long-time friend of mine). Mr. and Mrs. Daugherty also had a son named Tony; he also went by the name of Jerry.
The McNallys lived clear p on the west end of the Ed Farris ranch. Later, they moved on top of the hill, just before Pine Nook.
Across the road from Pine Nook is where Iris Penley Dismuke and Dudley Dismuke lived. She taught school for two of our elementary years (my 5th and 6th grades) in Indian Park School. Dud worked for us as a handyman and wood gatherer.
Later, Larry Anderson lived there, with Dee and Betty Morgan owning it some time afterwards.
Half a mile south of the Dismukes was the Graham Place. The Bert Huskies lived there for several years, but not Mrs. Huskie. Their children were Betty, Doris, Marjorie, and Lester. Bert had a T Ford, with a buzz saw on it. I went with him out by Devil's Head, where he knew of an area were the aspen were down everywhere. My brother Rupert, his friend Gene Nelson, and I sawed up our winter wood. Bert had lived near there on the Devil's Head Ranch before moving to the Graham Place.
Frank Penley owned the Smith Field, next on the south side of the road. At the end of the war, Dad bought it. Indian Park School, built in 1884, is across the road, on the right.
Over the hill past the school was the Bert and Bob Brown place, which they got by squatters rights at first. Bert's kids were Betty and Cecil (?). Bob's wife was named Pearl. Col. Miller loaned them some money and later foreclosed on them when they couldn't pay up. He afterwards sold it to Harvey Springer for the youth camp, which is still going.
Our home and ranch was across from the Browns. We hauled water in a cream can for the school, and I built the fire there every morning, since I lived so close.
On up the hill, the CCC boys built the Forest Service Station. The road going south leads to Devil's Head. Swensons had a place several miles out that way. They came in with nothing but broad axes to hack ties. Soon, they had a truc (sic) and a saw mill and finally bought a ranch down on the plains. They were hard-working Swedes.
Down the hill, past the Ranger Station, was the CCC camp, in Penley Field. When the war started, the CCC boys were among the first to go into the service.
Further down the hill, on the left, was old man Hall's cabin. He walked to Sedalia weekly to get groceries. The Petersons had the place later; it is now a Korean retreat.
Round Up Ranch belonged to Frank and Edith Penley. Their kids were Tracey and Eileen. Tracy married my aunt Ruth and their children were Carol, Jim, and Mike. Penleys used to have the Fall Roundup of the area cattle because of their extensive corrals. Some hay fields were on the place. They dug a large root cellar into the small hill on the north side of the road. The Jayhawk stacker, looking like a large grasshopper, still stands behind the cellar.
After the war, the Penley's built a large addition and started a good chicken dinner place, with Edith doing most of the cooking, with Eileen helping. They had a rustic bar, made of cedar wood, and there were slot machines.
There were quite a few men who hung around Round Up Ranch for room and board: LeeBrown Orvill and Warren Francis, Pete Rasmussen, and Tracy Penley. They did odd jobs, chores, fed livestock, and pitched hay.
Lee lived there the rest of his life. It was said that his wife, in the nude, had chased him away from the Brown Place, throwing rocks at him as he went. They had a son named Bob. Late in life, Frank was on blood thinner, so Lee figured that if it was good for Frank, he should take it too. He died as a result.
Orvill Francis married Betty O'Neal and got a job with the State Highway Dept. Later, they moved to Durango where he was in charge over Lizard Head Pass and Wolf Creek Pass areas, some of the roughest roads in the state.
Warren Francis married a lady who could make good, custom-fitted western shirts. My father ordered several from her. Warren rode in rodeos and kept getting hurt.
Pete Rasmussen worked for Mr. Pepke at Perry Park ranch and other places. He came to work for us in 1946, helping with our cows and in the hay, and he was a lot of help when I was first learning to ranch for myself. Mr. Pepke got Aspen growing from a ghost town into a busy ski resort.
Pete left us to go back to work at Perry Park in early August. Chuck McCall helped the rest of the summer and then he and I got a room at 619 W. Mountain, Ft. Collins, to attend CSU. He left after our first semester, so I moved to Mary Collopy's house, along with Otis Fullerton, Roger Blouch, and Wally Adrian. We called ourselves the Collopy boys. By the next year, 1947, I roomed with Ginny and Otis, as they had married by then. In Ft. Collins, we helped a lady serve teas in her home cafe, with lots of cleanup, as she was a sloppy cook. I went home every weekend to run the ranch.
The Tom Jackson kids were Ella, Frank, Chester, Marjorie, Bob and Naomi. Bob was a close friend of mine in grade school. We used to make fudge when he stayed at our house.
They had a sawmill and lived in several of the houses on Round Up Ranch and on up to the west. I can still remember Frank limbing (sic) a pine with an axe (sic) -- the limbs were huge and very hard. Bob had to get in the wood as soon as he got home. He had to chop up slabs into firewood-s pieces, then fill all of the wood boxes. They also had a cousin, or some other kind of relative (Everett?), who helped with the mill.
The Ed Kennedys lived in the next place past Round Up, up the hill and across the road from the fire house, on the north. The house was well-fitted with logs, with dove-tailed corners. The Jacksons later lived there. Eddie and Gale Kennedy were their two boys, who went to school with us. I remember eating supper one time at their house and kerosene had gotten into the cabbage. It was very tasty. They were quite poor and supposedly had a still. Mr. Kennedy got so ill from drinking the raw whiskey that they were afraid to let him go to sleep in case he might not wake up. Somehow, Dad got him going again.
Ray Blunt (?) supposedly caught them slaughtering one of his cows for food. He told them that he wouldn't press charges if they left. After that, they moved down by the Flat Irons.
Bartholemews lived in that house later, until he had a heart attack. After came a lady, who liked to ride with us when we moved horses between our two ranches.
Moonridge is the house on top of the hill past Round Up and Ellis' lived there. He used to make boards by sawing them with a one-man saw. The Frank Jacksons live there now.
The Bevins lived back in the Sambo place, across from Moonridge, for a short while. The Cusik boy came from there later.
On down the hill, on the left, is where the Hollomans lived, with at least nine children. David was the oldest, I recall, then Clarence, Carl, Paul, Howard, and others. This was a fairly-well built log house. Mr. Holloman was a carpenter, without much work at that time.
The Stockings fixed up a place, next right down the hill. Marie played Santa Claus for years in the mountains, as well as down in Englewood. Her husband, Bert, was an inventor. He had a small model of the first washing machine with a motor, which he invented and sold to Maytag.
He spent a lot of time working on an air motor but it never amounted to anything. Marie's first husband, Charlie Keener, lived with them. He was the father of Don and Florence Kener Enos (mother of George Enos). She later ran off with George Husky.
Barths had Pine Creek Highlands, a large acreage. i think that they had had greenhouses before coming up to the mountains. Ed Barth was their youngster. He drove a nice Chevy truck, probably about 1.5 ton. Later, this place was named Sprucewood.ranches. (sic)
The Peas kids, two boys and a girl, lived in one of the cabins at Pine Creek Highlands. I remember once they had fried chipmonk (sic) in their lunch at school. We considered them pretty low class. They didn't stay in the area long.
Somewhere along, George Enos got Sprucewood and ran it as a honkytonk. He also had wrecker and pulled many vehicles into there for years.
There weren't any more houses after that until you got almost to the river. Then there was a house on the right -- I forget the people's name. One time they were filling a gas lamp when it caught fire and they lost their home.
Twin Cedars, on the right, going down the river road, was a restaurant and store run by Don and Jane Simeth for many years. Don also hauled propane for Littleton Propane Co. I bought some saddles from the Simeths, which was still have.
After Don died, Jane ran the store for a couple of more years and then sold it. The Denver Water Board bought the property, then leased it to the county for a sheriff substation. It subsequently burned to the ground.