|
GARFIELD
COUNTY, COGENWEB PROJECT
This is a collection of
historical pictures in and around Rifle Colorado.
Photos are used from Edwin Thompson, Steve Fox, Paul
Bernklau and others.
ANTLERS COLORADO (Ghost Town)
 
 
Nason's General Store
The photo is called Nason's General Store, but does not have his
name on it. The photo has this caption:
"View of Antlers, (Antlers Valley,
Silt Valley, Cactus Valley) Garfield County, Colorado; includes a wood frame
false front and small front gable structure along main street; two men and a
women standing on the boardwalk; horse tied to a wooden gate along a wire fence;
painted on false front: "J. W. Busard, General Merchandise, Real Estate," on
window: "Post Office," and on a small sign: "Telephone Pay Station;" sign on
other building reads: "The Antlers Orchard Development Co., Busard & Every."
Here is a history.
The first attempt to bring water to the area occurred in
1887, when a group of British investors known as the Grass Valley Land, Loan and
Irrigation Company made an ambitious attempt to divert the waters of Rifle Creek
to the Cactus Valley and Silt Mesa by way of a canal. Their company, however,
failed financially. Still the settlers came.
A new group, the Antlers Land
and Reservoir Company purchased vast expanses of land in the area, laid out the
Antlers townsite, and planned the construction of a reservoir at Harvey
Gap.
In September 1894, construction of the
reservoir's earthen dam began. For
three
months, contractor J.A. Osner of Denver, 91 men and 49 teams of horses,
scraped and piled earth for the 1/2 mile wide dam.
Finished just before
Christmas of 1894, all of Antlers celebrated its completion. The celebration was
short lived. The afternoon of March 27, 1895, the dam's east side gave way,
releasing a wall of water into the valley.
Rocks and debris covered Dick
Pendergast's ranch, which took the brunt of the water's force. The D. & R.G.
Railroad tracks washed out. With the sudden infusion of the reservoir's water,
the Colorado River rose eight inches in depth that day.
Optimism dimmed as
the loss of the reservoir spelled financial ruin for some small farms. It would
be nearly a dozen years before another group would attempt to bring prosperity
to Antlers.
In 1906, a new corporation, the Antlers Orchard and Development
Company, planned to rebuild the dam at Harvey Gap. Local engineer Theodore
Rosenberg designed the structure, which was reinforced with concrete.
Farmers with horses and equipment and their input built the new dam in exchange
for stock certificates or land. On Nov. 15, 1906, the Glenwood Avalanche Echo
newspaper heralded the
dam as a great enterprise that "will stand for the
ages and longer than the hills about it. "The green fields and homes in the
Antlers area today are still made possible by optimism and the miracle of
water."
Antlers took on a new life, January 9, 1908 when J. W. Busard,
formerly of Colorado Springs, opened a general store. And it had a post office
and pay phone station. The Antlers Orchard Development Co. office was right
beside it.
May 16, 1908, Ross A. Nason also of Colorado Springs was in the
Antlers country, where he made some investments. They apparently included the
store because he became the postmaster October 24, 1908. Then on November 12
1908, Antoinette "Nettie" May Smith Nason arrived in Antlers.
Nettie was 39
years old and an accomplished musician. She and Ross had been married 11 years,
records do not show any children. She developed an extensive music teaching
business with large classes in both Glenwood and in Rifle. It appears she ran
the store and the post office while Ross was a rancher, realtor, and politician.
Nettle had some health issues in both 1916 and again in 1917 with appendicitis.
Two operations occurred and she was critically ill for 6 or more months.
Ancestry says she passed away in 1920. But Ross sold her upright piano and most
of their household goods December 26, 1919. So she probably passed away in 1919.
Ross A. Nason departed for Denver Tuesday January 13, 1920 having traded his
ranch for property there. He then married Lenna E McLaughlin on March 1, 1920,
in Littleton.
Ruth Elder has provided this information.
"I have found 3
different articles, written by 3 different people which I found in the Silt
Museum and the Rifle Museum. One
possibly written by Helen Ryden or her
daughter Levena, says: "Bussard's store remained at Antlers and also had the
Post Office. He sold his store to A.N.
Nason who sold it to R.C. Snyder in
1924. Mrs. Snyder was Postmistress until her son Edgar took over in Sept. of
1933 and he was Postmaster until 1937 when the store was sold to A.J. McNew who
moved the store about 1/4 mile south so it would be next to the new highway
6&24. McNew sold to Melvin Chambers who also moved the store, about 1/4 mile
west. This was in the 1940's. The Antlers Post Office was closed by the
government in April 1954. Melvin Chambers was the last Postmaster and Lovena
Michelson hauled the last mail from the Post Office. Chambers sold the Store to
Clyde and Ola George and they
maintained it until 1969."
An interesting
note, the research turned up this:
The Avalanche - Echo,, Volume XXI, Number
16, April 16, 1908
Antlers high school closed
The Antlers high school
closed Friday on account of the pupils dropping out to work on the farm, and it
is to be very much regretted as the work of the high school grades this year has
been very satisfactory. The work in those grades was under the instruction of
Mr. Hahn, who has proved himself fully competent in all ward in his charge, and
from present appearances he will not stay hidden in
obscurity in a district
school long.
Much more history is in the attached articles. The Grade School
was not discussed here since it has been previously extensively covered. It was
really the center of the community. This post was to track the grocery store.
Some
of the businesses in Antlers listed below
Anna Hickox taught at the Antlers School after Esma Lewis moved on to Rifle.
This photo is September 1962. It was the final year for the school. The school
was built in 1887 as a one room school, then had a western side additional room
added in 1903. It was the last rural school to operate in Garfield County.
RE-2 consolidation closed the school at the end of the 1962-63 school year. Anna
taught 16 years there, in the primary room, ie grades K to 4. I found she had 18
students in 1951 and there were 11 in the other classroom for grades 5 to 8.
Anna then moved on to continue teaching in Rifle, retiring in 1975 after 33
years total.
She taught 3rd grade at Esma Lewis Elementary not sure what
years.
Here is the Sentinel article:
Last Outpost
All that remains of a
once complex network of one room schools in Garfield
County is the frame
Antlers School,
Here, Mrs. Anna Hickox, who has taught in the Antlers school
for the past 15 years, readies textbooks for classroom sessions that include all
eight grades.
Sentinel Photo by Robert Grant
FRANK DWIRE
Surnames that
Settled in the Antlers Area
Becker, Fech,
Heitz, Horst, Kaufman, Kline, Lind from Donhof, Linker,
Reinhardt, Rohrig, Michael and Weiss
More about Antlers from Jerry Snyder
The Snyder family leaves Hillsdale, Michigan about 1910.
They headed west and first homestead in Arapahoe, Colorado.
After years of destroyed crops from hail, wind, and dust
storms grandfather Rueben Clyde Snyder said that was enough.
In 1925 my grandfather made a deal in a trade for a grocery
store and Post Office, Antlers, on the west slope. This
photo had written on it 1925 Antlers. My grandmother Grace
Snyder was postmaster and tended the store. My dad, Edgar A.
Snyder would have been 16 yrs old then. My grandfather
farmed sugar beets. The story goes on, to keep it short, I
was born at home, East Avenue, Rifle, Colorado December 25,
1947.
|