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HomeMy WebLinkAbout06_A_BRIEF_HISTORY_OF_THE_BAR-X_RANCH6.1A Brief History of the Bar/X Ranch a brief history of the Bar/X Ranch section 6 6.2 Bar Slash X Ranch LLC - Annexation and Stage Road PUD/Subdivision: Final Submission Aspen Times: October 4, 1887 6.3A Brief History of the Bar/X Ranch The Summer of 1887 None of this might be happening if Luard Foster’s chickens hadn’t kept getting into Martin Christian’s field of oats in the summer of 1887. Although their families would have liked a friendlier relationship, Luard and Martin got angrier and angrier with each other as the chickens repeatedly trespassed. Eventually Martin hit Luard with a rock, and Luard swore out a warrant. Judge Withers cooled them down, and Luard sent the chickens away for a while. After he brought the chickens back, Luard borrowed a pistol from a neighbor in case of trouble. The chickens still wouldn’t stay out of the oats field. The Chris- tians started shooting at them to drive them off and verbal threats between Luard and Martin escalated. On October 3rd things came to a head. Apparently Luard shot first, but whether he shot to kill or over Martin’s head could not later be determined. Martin shot back, fatally wounding Luard. Luard’s wife was pregnant and appeared at the trial with her newborn baby. The jury was hung, seven for acquittal, one for manslaughter, and four for 2nd degree murder. Martin was released. In the end, Martin’s son Robert took over the property and bought Luard’s land from his widow. The two homesteads were combined and the Bar/X Ranch was born. Gathering the harvest in the Upper Roaring Fork Valley, 1890’s Courtesy Aspen Historical Society: digitally enhanced by applicant 6.4 Bar Slash X Ranch LLC - Annexation and Stage Road PUD/Subdivision: Final Submission A bloody beginning The land which the Bar/X Ranch now occupies combines two parcels that were homesteaded in the mid-1880s, one by Luard R. Foster, the other by Martin A. Christian. On October 8, 1887, following a dispute, Foster was shot by Christian, and died the same evening. After Foster’s death, his homestead was acquired by Christian’s son, Robert B. Chris- tian, who combined both properties into a single ranching operation comprising 279 acres. Road and rail Subsequent to homesteading of the ranch,and construction of a road bridge across Maroon Creek below Red Butte, a road was built and this initiated stage coach service between Aspen and Glenwood. Stage Road became the main road into the City. In 1887, the Colorado Midland Railroad and the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad raced to be the first to stretch their rail lines to Aspen. The D&RG reached Aspen by October, and the Colorado Midland reached the Maroon Creek Crossing in December. The bridge, completed in 1888, features a multi-span trestle with a built-up steel deck girder. It is one of the last trestles of its design constructed for the Colorado’s mountain railroads during the late 19th century. This trestle is still in use today, and now carries the two lanes of State Highway 82 across Maroon Creek. The original Maroon Creek Bridge looking northwest towards the Bar/X Ranch Photo courtesy Aspen Historical Society, digitally enhanced by applicant. With the opening of the two railroads, the stage lines went out of business, and traffic on Stage Road dropped precipitously. The end of mining Aspen’s period of mining properity lasted only a few more years. In 1893, the Congress of the United States demonetized silver, and Aspen’s economy collapsed. The population dropped from 12,000 people to a few thousand and eventually to 800. By 1922 the tracks of the Colorado Midland were pulled up and replaced with a road short-cut into Aspen (now Highway 82). From then on, the Bar/X Ranch ceased to be on the main road and became the quiet backwater it has remained to the present day. From crops to cattle Crop farming declined over time and after the Great Depression was entirely replaced by cattle ranching. The ranch acquired a permit from the US Forest Service for summer grazing on about 2,000 acres of Buttermilk Mountain, without which the ranch operation would be impossible. Today the ranch is running a cow-calf operation with 50 cows and 2 bulls. 6.5A Brief History of the Bar/X Ranch The Christian Ranch, now the Bar/X Ranch, looking northeast from the toe of Buttermilk Mountain, about 1890. Bales of hay can be seen in the meadows, and to the right is the steel trestle of the Midland Railway. Photo courtesy Aspen Historical Society, digitally enhanced by applicant. Left, the Maroon Creek Steel Railway Trestle, still in place today supporting the Highway 82 road bridge. Above, the Midland Train Station in Aspen. “I can assure you, gentlemen, that your arrival is hailed with great and genuine pleasure by all classes of our citizens, for it marks an epoch in the history of Aspen that has been anxiously and fervently looked forward to for many long years. It is a proclamation to our citizens that we are at last bound and connected by an iron band of travel and commerce which links us inseparably with the prosperity of the East, West, North and South. “We are now entering upon an era of prosperity which will be unprecedented in our history. The Denver and Rio Grande Railway, with the most undoubtedly (sic) pluck and energy, has passed over valley, stream and mountain ranges. It has spanned the wild and impetuous mountain torrent; has climbed to dizzy and apparently inaccessible heights, has run great tunnels through our snow-capped hills on its way from Denver, and has at length descended into the peaceful and fertile valleys of the Roaring Fork.” Aspen’s Mayor Harding welcoming Colorado Governor Adams and D&RG officials 6.6 Bar Slash X Ranch LLC - Annexation and Stage Road PUD/Subdivision: Final Submission Top: Of the cluster of ranch buildings seen in the center of the picture on the previous page, only the ranch house survived, as seen here in 1980. Robert Christian sold the ranch in 1902 to Joseph Paxton. Paxton sold to his son L.C. Paxton in 1909. L.C. Paxton sold in 1915 to Frank and Annie Dwyer, and their son and heir Harold Dwyer sold in 1936 to Tony and Edith Skiff. The Skiffs sold off what are now the Harvey and Caudill properties in Maroon Creek Canyon. Joe Zoline bought the ranch from the Skiffs in January 1955, and has continued to operate it as a traditional cattle ranch. In 1955 there were no paved streets in Aspen, and one could not see a single light at night from the ranch house. Since then, the ranch’s neighbors have gradually sold off land for development, and, through a series of annexations, the City has grown out to the edge of the ranch. When the City bought the adjoining Burlingame Ranch in 1996 and proposed develop - ing high density affordable housing in the back bowl of Deer Hill, the Zoline Family took the initiative in developing a long term plan for the area that would meet the goals of the Aspen Community Plan while preserving Deer Hill and the historic ranch operation. The result is this unique public-private partnership between the City of Aspen and Bar/X Ranch LLC which provides three times the amount of affordable housing that the City proposed for Deer Hill, and open space conservation of 70% of the two ranch properties, while allowing the Zoline Family to realize the economic value of the ranch land through development of twelve free market lots and the Fathering Parcel.