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River Tales

Historical Anecdotal Stories from long-time North Fork Residents

by Claudia King

There was a little something different about the group of people drinking coffee in the Paonia Diner, Thursday, March 23, 2006. Brought together by Teresa Steely of the North Fork River Improvement Association, these people were telling stories about the North Fork of the Gunnison River. This waterway brings precious water to Paonia farmlands. The group was preparing to discuss the history of the North Fork of the Gunnison River with NFRIA at their 10th birthday party, March 28th.

Most of the men at the coffee klatch had lived in the North Fork all of their lives, several with birthdays in the 1930s or earlier. In their prime these men depended upon the water from the river or were involved in attempts to control the river that bordered their land. Now retired farmer Bob Lund, fruit grower Gilbert Wilson, cattleman Cal Campbell, Sr., and rancher Dallas Harding had been around long enough to understand the power of the river. All knew stories of the river that predated the 1961 Paonia Dam.

Bob Lund’s family arrived in 1911 and starting with fruit had been engaged in agriculture since that time. Bob still lives on the family property down Mathews Lane. Wilson, Campbell, and Lund owned ranches adjacent to the river. Five generations of Campbell’s have lived on their ranch just west of the Midway School. Cal and his wife Mickey Campbell still reside on this ranch. Gilbert Wilson has been involved in all aspects of the fruit industry from growing fruit, processing fruit, selling fruit, and shipping fruit. In recent times he operated Wilson’s High Country Fruit at the south end of Grand Avenue. Before Wilson bought the fruit plant it was The Union Fruit Company, prominent fruit packing and shipping plant in the North Fork Valley. Dallas Harding worked with a crew surveyed for the Paonia Dam. Harding lives in the Minnesota Creek area on a ranch homesteaded by his family in 1902. He worked away on water projects for a few years returning to Paonia at the time the Paonia reservoir and Crawford reservoir were built.

Three women were also present at the gathering- Teresa Steely from NFRIA, Claudia Sutliff King, a local from 1939-present and Jean (Hughes) Tucker, 1949 graduate of Paonia High School. During her working years Tucker was employed by the Library of Congress in Washington, D. C., returning to retire in Paonia.

Tucker’s impressions of the power of the river were shared by all. When Tucker was a young girl growing up during the ‘30s and ‘40s she recalled this event. At the time the river was ready to crest in the spring, many Paonians went to the West Third Street girder bridge to watch the water roil and boil. Rocks tumbled in the raging torrent. The river often was within a few feet of the bridge planks. In 1941, the newspaper reported that the river had reached a flood stage of 9.9 feet. King, then a child living on Onarga Street, recalls the grinding sound of the river rocks. The sound was most evident in the night just as she fell asleep.

In the early 1900s three girder bridges in three locations spanned the North Fork within a 5 mile radius of Paonia. From east to west these bridges were the Black Bridge, the West Third Street Bridge and the Elberta Bridge. The Black Bridge or Heddles Bridge constructed in 1912 is farthest to the east just below turnoff now going to Orchard Valley Farms. It is the only early girder bridge that remains to 2006.

Black Bridge

Cable Car

The West Third Street Bridge, 1907, lasted until 1957. Today, at this location, a bridge connects Paonia to the main road Highway 133. Stop n’ Save is across this intersection. Several disasters have befallen the bridges at the West Third Street location. After the bridge was washed out in 1907 a cable across the river with a basket transported people from bank to bank. The Newspaper reported on May 24, 1907,“If we get a new bridge we hope the County Commissioners will see a good one goes up.” The Newspaper speaks that piles were being driven for a new bridge in the August 16, 1907.

The 50-year-old West Third Street Bridge collapsed into the river in March 1957, after its structural integrity was damaged by the county’s heavy equipment. The bridge could not support the weight of heavy equipment traveling over the bridge. A new bridge was destroyed in 1979 when the blade of a bulldozer on a lowboy being transported across the structure caught the main support of the bridge. Tommy Philips, county employee, misjudged the sharp turn onto the bridge and the dozer’ blade hooked the main support. The bridge began to tip and was being dismantled in late May. A headline in the North Fork Times, May 1979, read: “Bridge crippled-Riverside residents abandon homes.” Homes referred to in the news article were built on the river flood plain to the east of the bridge. One house finally toppled off the riverbank breaking up in the turbulent waters of the North Fork. (However, this house was not responsible for taking out the bridge as reported in an earlier story).

The Elberta Bridge was near 3700 Road at Midway. In early times the train made a stop at the Elberta Station on the south side of the river. The bridge functioned to move fruit across the river to the railroad (Elberta Switch). The bridge was washed out in 1912. At the Elberta Switch was a satellite packinghouse belonging to the Union Fruit Company. A lot of fruit was packed here and sent by train to market according to Cal Campbell. (A May 23, 1912, news story says: “The bridge at Elberta is gone and the railroad is endangered.)”

The Elberta Bridge was under consideration to be rebuilt by the county in 1914. But the bridge was never replaced. Instead the county put in a temporary bridge. It was a wooden bridge with A-frame supports topped by stringers over which planks were laid. The temporary bridge was installed after the early run-off during low water. Cherries and the late summer fruits such as Elberta peaches were transported across the bridge to the Elberta Switch. After fruit harvest the bridge was hauled out of the river.

Tucker recalled the time in the 1940s when the river claimed 40 feet of some of the best fruit land located on the Allen Ranch part of what is now the Lee subdivision to the north of the Paonia City Park. Tucker’s dad Jim Hughes, along with several others, were out all night sandbagging the riverbank next to the ranch. Tucker remembers her dad coming in to the house in the morning. The endeavor failed. Fruits trees were sucked into the river torrent and swept down the river.

One of the biggest threats to the river channel are big trees, (often cottonwoods), that get lodged in the river. These uprooted trees fall into the water and are then swept down the river. Becoming trapped, they wreck havoc upon the riverbanks, impeding water, snagging debris and modifying the flow of the water. Once an attempt was made to use helicopters to lift trees from the river channel, according to Cal Campbell. Some helicopters came from Fort Carson, but were unable to lift the trees. When a tree becomes lodged in the river, the water flow can change drastically. The cutting action of the river can quickly eat out the riverbank imperiling the rich farmland nearby.

The earliest written account of the North Fork River by a Paonian dates back to 1881 when the first settlers came in the North Fork Valley. This is what twenty-one- year old Ezra Wade, who drove the first wagon into the valley, wrote: “ The largest part of the valley was covered with cottonwood timber, willows, buffalo brush, skunk brush, and sagebrush… On the outskirts of this timber on each side of the river grew large sagebrush.. so thick in some places one could hardly penetrate it on foot. The river was very crooked which lessened its fall; therefore, it did not cut its banks, but spread over a large portion of the valley during high-water, depositing sand and rich soil from the high country, making the valley soil, in places, very rich.”

Campbell, Wilson, and Lund all mentioned evidence supporting Ezra Wade’s description of the river. When working on tiled irrigation systems for their land, about five to ten feet down they found beaver dams honeycombing the land. These unstable dams often collapse releasing water. Obviously, the river had flowed over a large part of the North Fork Valley. There is some evidence that the river even ran along the base of the Cedar Hill.

Bob Lund told a story he heard from his wife Shirley’s father C. C Griffin. (The Griffin family came in 1894 to settle in the valley). The story which predates the settlement of Paonia illustrates the capricious nature of the river. A group of Crawford cattlemen arriving at dusk near the southeast side of river about the location of current Paonia decided to stop for the night before crossing the river. When they awoke the next morning the meandering river had changed its course. They were on the opposite side of the river.

Lund mentioned that even the location of Paonia was changed by the river. The intention had been to put Paonia farther down Mathews Lane. The first post office was located on Samuel Wade’s property near what is now Peony Lane. The washing action of the river placed the post office closer and closer to the river. The post office was moved to Grand Avenue central business district of downtown Paonia.

Another early river story told by Gilbert Wilson was that Chief Ouray had requested baptism in the river by one of Wilson’s relatives a Paonia preacher Charles Gilbert Stout. Ouray hoped that the American government would treat his people better if he were baptized. Wilson does not think the baptism took place.

Wilson also told a story about his mother Inez Stout Wilson who at the time was a single school teacher at Bardine (near Crystal Meadows). She had a narrow escape during high water during her term of teaching. Filled with run-off from the Anthracite and Muddy, the North Fork of the Gunnison was raging. Inez’s uncle Paul Stout became concerned about Inez because she lived in the Rummell house near the Bardine Schoolhouse. He warned her to move to higher ground. That night the Rummell house and all the evergreen trees surrounding it were swept away. An account of this house being taken by the river is found in Cabin and a Clothesline by Laura Clock. Also, a picture of Miss Inez Stout taken during her 1914-1915 school term is shown in the book.

Lund’s brother who had land near the river down Mathew’s Lane never trusted the river. He had a cowbell in his house. This bell was tied to a sturdy tree near the river. If the river took the bank and the tree, the bell would ring warning him that the house was in danger. This house later became Bob and Shirley Lund’s home. Lund said that in 1949 he had to move his house across the road away from the river because of the danger of high water. Before the house was moved his wife Shirley recalls looking out one of the windows which faced the river to see large trees floating by. Janet, their daughter, was a tiny baby. Still later, the river took out so much land that if the house had remained at the original location the back door would have opened quite near a riverbank that dropped 12 feet to the water.

A more current story, vintage early1980s, also illustrates the power of the river. The Grand Avenue Bridge connecting the newest Paonia High School to Grand Avenue was once threatened by the river. The pilings for the late ‘50s bridge had been put ten feet below the riverbed.

A house lost in the river in 1984

These pilings were undermined by the washing action of gravel in the river. The riverbed dropped several feet exposing the pilings, making the bridge unstable. Water to Paonia High School was unavailable for a short period. Engineers were able to save the bridge.

The construction of the 1961 Paonia Dam helped storage of the spring run-off and made the capricious river a bit safer. In early July1961, the first water was stored. At this time a temporary head gate was put in place. There was one unforeseen change related to the silt that collected behind the dam. Before the dam, the river transported silt down to irrigation ditches located along the waterway. This silt helped to seal the ditches. Now there is more seepage in these irrigation ditches.

Most all of the group had enjoyed the swimming holes along the river. King remembers going to the Somerset hole in the late ‘50s. Several of her best high school friends lived in Somerset.

One popular swimming hole was near the Paonia Third Street Bridge. Sometimes the boys in Wilson’s 1949 Paonia High School class would cut class and go to the swimming hole located behind Charley Rowes’ wrecking yard. This wrecking yard, often inundated with water during flood season, bordered a swimming hole called the Duck Pond.

In the late ‘60s, King remembers teaching Paonia kids how to bob at the Delta Pool. At the time there was concern that older brothers and sisters might take younger children to the Paonia swimming hole before they knew how to swim. Knowing how to bob gave these kids a chance to stay afloat.

Campbell said that there was a great swimming hole near the Elberta Switch the stretch of the river near 3700 Road. Currently, a junkyard borders this part of the river.

One final story from the May 24, 1917, Paonian was titled The Plunge. This river story occurred during high water. It began as a $50 bet that Frank Shields could not swim the raging river. Upon arriving at the riverbank, the instigator had second thoughts. He then offered Shields $25 if he would not try to swim the torrent. Undaunted Shields dived into the river and swam to the other side.