Owl Canon History
The Naming of Owl Canon
From Fort Collins Weekly Courier June 20, 1913
Pioneer Reminiscences
The Foothills of the Rocky Mountains( by Charles E. Roberts. No. 5.)
How often through that winter had I looked upon those hills and valleys and longed to explore their mysterious and alluring canons. Leaving the Boxelder ranch we passed the Pollock ranch, afterwards owned by W.B. Miner, where he made a fortune in the sheep business. We stopped at the camp of Capt. Hutton, which stood just inside the canon on Park Station creek.
It seemed to me that morning that all nature had donned its richest robes to welcome me to its garden of flowers. The green grass waved in the gentle morning breezes.
Many years have passed since that day in May. I have often wondered if the first impressions of the mountains are the same to others as they were to me. Napoleon stood in the shadow of the pyramids and told his followers that forty centuries looked down upon them. Entering our canons or gazing upon those granite hills time, as measured by centuries, pales into insignificance and anyone looking upon this gigantic work of nature must realize that God has been its architect.
We entered Owl Canon. There was no road then, only a cattle trail. Joe Mason had built a fence at both ends and used it for a corral. It might be as well to tell how it received its name. Some time in the summer of 1879, J. C. Barlow and I went to the west end of the canon to commence building the road. Mr. Barlow wished to send a note to Mr. Miner to have him send men and teams there. He asked me the name of the canon. I told him I had never heard it called by any name and suggested Owl Canon and it stuck. With a lavish hand old time has colored the rocks, blending one into the other until the grass and other vegetation takes up the scheme and harmonizes it to the human eye.
Pioneer Reminiscences
The Foothills of the Rocky Mountains( by Charles E. Roberts. No. 5.)
How often through that winter had I looked upon those hills and valleys and longed to explore their mysterious and alluring canons. Leaving the Boxelder ranch we passed the Pollock ranch, afterwards owned by W.B. Miner, where he made a fortune in the sheep business. We stopped at the camp of Capt. Hutton, which stood just inside the canon on Park Station creek.
It seemed to me that morning that all nature had donned its richest robes to welcome me to its garden of flowers. The green grass waved in the gentle morning breezes.
Many years have passed since that day in May. I have often wondered if the first impressions of the mountains are the same to others as they were to me. Napoleon stood in the shadow of the pyramids and told his followers that forty centuries looked down upon them. Entering our canons or gazing upon those granite hills time, as measured by centuries, pales into insignificance and anyone looking upon this gigantic work of nature must realize that God has been its architect.
We entered Owl Canon. There was no road then, only a cattle trail. Joe Mason had built a fence at both ends and used it for a corral. It might be as well to tell how it received its name. Some time in the summer of 1879, J. C. Barlow and I went to the west end of the canon to commence building the road. Mr. Barlow wished to send a note to Mr. Miner to have him send men and teams there. He asked me the name of the canon. I told him I had never heard it called by any name and suggested Owl Canon and it stuck. With a lavish hand old time has colored the rocks, blending one into the other until the grass and other vegetation takes up the scheme and harmonizes it to the human eye.
In 1913 Charles Roberts received a patent on his 320 acre limestone mining claim. Under the General Mining Act of 1872 limestone was a locatable mineral, as a placer claim. Each placer claim was for twenty acres. There was not any limit on how many placer claims one could file on during this era. After 'proving up' on a mining claim for five years the miner could then file for a patent on his claims. A patent deeded the surface rights and mineral rights to the claimant. The once mining claim was then private property and subject to property taxes.
Charles mined the limestone to provide raw material to the sugar industries. Charles also had another claim about 4 miles south of Owl Canyon - Ingleside. He paid the cost of having a railroad spur built from Fort Collins to his mining town of Ingleside and later on north to the mine town site of Rex.
Owl Canon was a mining town that had over forty houses. There was a 400' well that was used for domestic water. This water was pumped from the well up to a large storage tank then plumbed to each house using gravity flow. There was a company store at this site, the basement is still visible from County Road 72. Charles also gave about an acre of land to the Catholic Bishop of Denver, he had a chapel built on the lot, so his hired workers and families would have place to worship. Owl Canon Quarry Company had a crew of workers that quarried along the ridge to west part of the year and then traveled to Mexico and quarried out limestone for the sugar factories in that nation.
After Charles retired he built this store where he sold curios that he made from the local Alabaster, he also sold gasoline, soda pop, candy bars and etc.
Charles mined the limestone to provide raw material to the sugar industries. Charles also had another claim about 4 miles south of Owl Canyon - Ingleside. He paid the cost of having a railroad spur built from Fort Collins to his mining town of Ingleside and later on north to the mine town site of Rex.
Owl Canon was a mining town that had over forty houses. There was a 400' well that was used for domestic water. This water was pumped from the well up to a large storage tank then plumbed to each house using gravity flow. There was a company store at this site, the basement is still visible from County Road 72. Charles also gave about an acre of land to the Catholic Bishop of Denver, he had a chapel built on the lot, so his hired workers and families would have place to worship. Owl Canon Quarry Company had a crew of workers that quarried along the ridge to west part of the year and then traveled to Mexico and quarried out limestone for the sugar factories in that nation.
After Charles retired he built this store where he sold curios that he made from the local Alabaster, he also sold gasoline, soda pop, candy bars and etc.
The road from Fort Collins to Laramie was in front of the gas pumps in the above picture.
This road was rerouted in 1952 to an area behind Charles' store building.
A 'new' store was built on the western side of the highway - Owl Canon Trading Post. was built by Napoleon Martinez.
This road was rerouted in 1952 to an area behind Charles' store building.
A 'new' store was built on the western side of the highway - Owl Canon Trading Post. was built by Napoleon Martinez.
Charles Roberts arrived in Colorado in 1873, his father Robert O. Roberts sent him ahead of the rest of the family to a parcel of land that he had traded for in Green City Colorado. This fictitious town was supposedly east of Greeley Colorado.
Sadly Mr. Roberts was the victim of a real estate swindler. There was not a Green City Colorado... Later the Roberts family moved to Livermore Colorado where in the winter of 1874/75 they built the Forks. |
About one half of a mile south of Owl Canon is the remains of lime kilns built by Frank Ayres in 1902. Limestone quarried nearby was burned in these kilns to produce quicklime.
The rock had been tested at the Loveland Colorado sugar factory and lime produced from it found to be purer and of better quality for use in the manufacturing sugar than the nest that comes from the celebrated Tennessee ledges. The quicklime is used in purifying sugar beet juice was an important item of expense in the manufacture of sugar, as the rock had been transported to the factories from back east by rail. These quarries helped to establish a profitable home enterprise in Colorado. |
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A Buffalo Hunt – by Charles E. Roberts
Copied from the “Fort Collins Weekly Courier” - June 6, 1913 Pioneer Reminiscences The morning was spring-like. At day break we were on the plateau east of the Wild Cat. Far to the east stood Pawnee Buttes. All over the plains as far as I could see were buffalo in large and small bunches. Mr. Pinneo, Phil Clark, Jeff Gerry, and Mr. Gerardot were mounted on their best running horses. I was agreed that the buffalo were to be driven as close to the wagons as possible so that the calves could be loaded easily. The sun was just rising over the plains when a horseman was seen coming towards us. As we were in a country full of Indian buffalo hunters, horse thieves, and desperadoes, we were curious to see what he was. Mr Gerry took a long look through the glass. His verdict was that he was no Indian, but a very dirty white man, and such he proved to be. While he was hardly a beggar on horseback, he was one of those tramps of the plains that could get a horse anywhere he could get meat when there was nothing else. So at the time those kind of people were drifting across the country. Sometimes they worked, some of them later became horse thieves, some cattle rustlers that is went into the cattle business. All they needed was a plenty of gall, a good horse and a branding iron. But the riders were off and soon from the shelter of the wagons I could see a long streak of dust, and soon after here they came with heads nearly to the ground, the fierce bellow of the bulls in the lead, the click of their hoofs, the snorting call of the cows for their calves. It was only for a moment and it had passed. Four calves were separated and easily caught after the herd had passed. They seemed bewildered when alone. I was riding a small Indian pony and Mr. Gerry told me to go over the ridge and see if another calf had been cutout there. I did so and found one. By laying low on my horse and making a grunting sound the calf readily followed me to the wagon, where we caught and tied him. During the day we caught twenty-six calves and killed a fat dry cow. It was getting too warm to keep the meat very long. All over the plains everywhere we went were scattered the carcases of buffalo. The most of them had been killed for their hides. I had seen piles of hides along the U.P. Railroad as high as the station house that winter. This was the last stand of the American Bison. They had been driven out of Texas into the Arkansas valley, then the Platte, and that summer they drifted far into the north as far as the British possessions. As we were leaving the high ground in an awful wind storm we saw a large band of wild horses, one of them with a broken leg. There were a great many wild horse in that part of the country at that time. We arrived at the river in the night, camped till daylight, then went up through Weldon valley to the Gerardot ranch, where we fed the calves what milk we could. Some were left here, others were distributed around different places, two of them became the property of W.S. Taylor of Fort Collins. This was my last sight of buffalo. They, like the Indian, were a slowly passing show. The curtain of civilization was rising upon the scenes and progress could not be made until they passed on. Where they roamed are farms and fertile valleys and the homes of the homes of the white man now occupy the ground where once stood the Indian tepee. After bidding the Gerrys goodbye, I went home to Greeley. Bob Kennison got me a job with Andrew Gilchrist of Livermore, and I started for his cattle camp, which was located on the Boxelder about where Wellington now stands. He was holding his cattle out on the plains to keep them away from poison weed that grows along the foothills. Other men had built fences to hold them away from it. N. C. Alford and Wm. Calloway had build a long string of fence and it was known for years as the “poisonweed” fence on Prairie Divide. After holding them for about three weeks, about the first of May we commenced to move the cattle toward the hills. Heretofore I had seen the hills from a distance, now I was to see in reality the things I had read so much about. |
To A Dear One
I rode today by the same old trail, I rode o'er the hill and thro the vale, Thro the valley and mountain side, And thought of the maid that rode by my side One beautiful summer day. And I ask the birds to tell me where In this wide world of joy and care To tell me a simple rhyme Of the one who had been my joy and pride; Of the bonny lass that rode at my side One beautiful summer day I rode along on the lonely plain The grass and the flowers are green again Along the path that we had trod That Lovely summer day. And I thought of the days gone long before Of the days that are gone to come no more As I rode along the river wide And thought of you who rode at my side That wonderful summer day Copied from "The Bride of Bonner Peak" by Charles Evan Roberts 1939 _____________________________________________________________________________
The first recorded white settler in what is now known as Weld County.
Mr. Gerry and his wife settled at the confluence of Crow Creek and the South Platte River, where he had a horse ranch and a General store. Elbridge Gerry died on April 10,1875... |