January 18, 2010
Dear Gary,
After reading “Living and dying; but still thankful” in the San Juan Record, I needed to tell you again how much I enjoy your articles in the paper. Your views about living in Monticello are my opinions also. Yes, Monticello is isolated, cold and windy but it’s the people that make the difference. The receptionist at my office was bored so she volunteered to type up the dictation of my history of growing up in Monticello. I described the terrible car accident near Green River that killed Mrs. Redd and Bob Barton and seriously hurt seven others, the Boy Scout wreck that killed young men and their leaders near Blanding, the Lariat Café disaster, the numerous car accidents that wiped out teenage friends, the cancer deaths and the fasts to end the droughts. She said it depressed her that I had such a sad life growing up in Monticello but I assured her it was a glorious experience to live in Monticello because of the people. There is nothing like a small community that laughs, mourns, cries, fasts and prays together regardless of their religious faith and just cares and loves each other.
I particularly was impressed with “Mile posts in life” and the article about “Hands”- all great writing. I look forward to reading future articles.
I’ve lived in Grand Junction for 42 years, far more than I have lived in Monticello. In fact, I don’t know a lot of people in Monticello anymore as my acquaintances and those I grew up with are dying off. I live in Grand Junction but Monticello is my home. When it is my time to leave this earthly existence, my body will be placed in the Monticello Cemetery among the people I loved in my youth and watched over by the Horsehead.
Thanks again for your powerful writings,
Kelly Summers
Box 203
Grand Junction, CO 81502
Monday, January 18, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
DEWEY BRIDGE
DEWEY BRIDGE
JIM STILES
% SAN JUAN RECORD
Thanks for your article “Remembering Dewey Bridge” in the recent San Juan Record. It brought back such fond memories that I have of Professor Valley and Dewey Bridge.
I grew up in Monticello-my Dad, Ken Summers, ran cattle and sheep in Dry Valley, Big Indian and Hart Point in the winter and trailed his livestock to the Colorado mountain summer ranges at Stoner Creek. Rico, Ground Hog and the Glade. About 64 years ago, my father took me to the rim on Hart Point overlooking Indian Creek, the Six-Shooters and what would become the Needles District of Canyonland National Park and said, “ This is God’s country.” I believed him then and I still believe him now. I went to law school in 1965 to the University of California at Berkeley with the intent to live in California but in less than a year I concluded there were too many people in California and this cowboy had better come on home to the Four Corners area.
My wife and I moved to Grand Junction in 1968 to practice law and raise our family and since that time became acquainted with Dewey Bridge, Professor Valley, Castle Valley, Onion Creek, the LaSal Loop and the river road from Moab to Cisco. It has been a great experience. My children mourn the loss of the Dewey Bridge. The six of them have special memories of traveling the river road when there were few culverts and no bridges across the creeks. The roads were dirt. We would stop our van in the middle of the road where a creek crossed and let the kids step out of side of the van directly into the creek water and wade up and down the creek in their bare feet. We didn’t pull off the side of the road because we knew no traffic would be on the river road.
The highlight of this alternate route from Grand Junction to Monticello to visit family was always Dewey Bridge. The kids and I would get out of the van at the bridge and pick up rocks. While my wife would drive the van across the bridge, my kids and I would walk across the bridge and throw rocks in the river at the same time we were hoping the bridge would hold up one more time. Our family remembrance includes actually running out of gas on the bridge. We had forgotten to get gas before we left Grand Junction and found ourselves stuck on the bridge blocking the road with no way to get the van off the bridge to allow traffic to proceed. Lucky for us, there was only one place to buy gas between Mack , Colorado and Moab, Utah and what was at the Dewey Bridge from the elderly gentleman that had his little station there and “God’s Bulletin Board.” The station was closed but we located the owner at his home below the hill and got five gallons of gas from him. The cost was about $5.00 but I gave him $20.00 because I was so appreciative he had gas for me and my family.
I love to talk to D. L. Taylor, who is the 5th generation of Taylors at the Fisher Towers Ranch at the head of Onion Creek. He talks about the difficulty of getting his cows to cross the bridge twice a year and how he hoped the bridge would not collapse under the weight of his cows. He shared with me how his great great grandfather was operating a ferry on the river before the bridge was built when two cowboys got him up at night and paid to cross the river on the Taylor ferry. They said they were “rambling” and needed to cross right away. It was later determined one of the cowboys was Butch Cassidy who had just robbed his first bank in Telluride and was escaping to probably Robber’s Roost or some other location in Utah. My kids and I were disappointed when the creeks were bridged and the new bride was built to replace the old suspension bridge.
I marvel at this part of God’s creation. I drive to the top of Castle Valley to the Loop Road and realize the LaSal Mountains above me are over 12,000 feet in elevation and I am looking down at the Colorado River at about 4000 feet in elevation for a total elevation of over 8000 feet in height. One of the special days in my life was being on the side of the LaSal Mountain in October to ride my bike on the Kokopelli Trail when the sun came up and bathed the Arches, the top of Porcupine Ridge and the LaSal Mountains covered with snow with the aspen trees with their yellow leaves and the oak brush with red and yellow leaves that appeared to be on fire as the morning sun struck them. A couple of years ago I traveled to the top of Castle Valley after the huge fire there and couldn’t recognize the place-it took like a moon scene-everything just burned gray.
I also have visited Onion Creek many times. One morning returning to Grand Junction I took the side trip up Onion Creek and realized that all the architects in the world couldn’t have produced such beauty as what God had made in the narrows section of the creek. I love the solitude of how isolated Onion Creek use to be and mourned when I visited there on a long weekend and found that every possible place one could pull off was occupied by a camper. I didn’t like the new sign being placed on the highway identifying the road to Onion Creek. How things have changed when I came down Onion Creek to find that a symphony from out of state was preparing to have a concert at the base of the narrows.
When I grew up in Monticello, outsiders considered the Four Corners the end of the earth-hell-desolation and worthless. I didn’t agree with them-my Dad told me it was God’s country and I loved it. Now, everyone wants to come, thousands admire it’s beauty and outsiders are loving the place to death. As I drive up the river from Moab, instead of seeing what was left of the “fort” from a John Wayne movie, I see an upscale resort. The old Dewey Bridge seems to weep as it cables hang down from the suspension wires with no road deck remaining. While I can’t turn back the clock, I am grateful I knew Dewey Bridge, Onion Creek and Professor Valley before it was “discovered” by outsiders.
Kelly Summers
Box 203
Grand Jct. CO 81502
JIM STILES
% SAN JUAN RECORD
Thanks for your article “Remembering Dewey Bridge” in the recent San Juan Record. It brought back such fond memories that I have of Professor Valley and Dewey Bridge.
I grew up in Monticello-my Dad, Ken Summers, ran cattle and sheep in Dry Valley, Big Indian and Hart Point in the winter and trailed his livestock to the Colorado mountain summer ranges at Stoner Creek. Rico, Ground Hog and the Glade. About 64 years ago, my father took me to the rim on Hart Point overlooking Indian Creek, the Six-Shooters and what would become the Needles District of Canyonland National Park and said, “ This is God’s country.” I believed him then and I still believe him now. I went to law school in 1965 to the University of California at Berkeley with the intent to live in California but in less than a year I concluded there were too many people in California and this cowboy had better come on home to the Four Corners area.
My wife and I moved to Grand Junction in 1968 to practice law and raise our family and since that time became acquainted with Dewey Bridge, Professor Valley, Castle Valley, Onion Creek, the LaSal Loop and the river road from Moab to Cisco. It has been a great experience. My children mourn the loss of the Dewey Bridge. The six of them have special memories of traveling the river road when there were few culverts and no bridges across the creeks. The roads were dirt. We would stop our van in the middle of the road where a creek crossed and let the kids step out of side of the van directly into the creek water and wade up and down the creek in their bare feet. We didn’t pull off the side of the road because we knew no traffic would be on the river road.
The highlight of this alternate route from Grand Junction to Monticello to visit family was always Dewey Bridge. The kids and I would get out of the van at the bridge and pick up rocks. While my wife would drive the van across the bridge, my kids and I would walk across the bridge and throw rocks in the river at the same time we were hoping the bridge would hold up one more time. Our family remembrance includes actually running out of gas on the bridge. We had forgotten to get gas before we left Grand Junction and found ourselves stuck on the bridge blocking the road with no way to get the van off the bridge to allow traffic to proceed. Lucky for us, there was only one place to buy gas between Mack , Colorado and Moab, Utah and what was at the Dewey Bridge from the elderly gentleman that had his little station there and “God’s Bulletin Board.” The station was closed but we located the owner at his home below the hill and got five gallons of gas from him. The cost was about $5.00 but I gave him $20.00 because I was so appreciative he had gas for me and my family.
I love to talk to D. L. Taylor, who is the 5th generation of Taylors at the Fisher Towers Ranch at the head of Onion Creek. He talks about the difficulty of getting his cows to cross the bridge twice a year and how he hoped the bridge would not collapse under the weight of his cows. He shared with me how his great great grandfather was operating a ferry on the river before the bridge was built when two cowboys got him up at night and paid to cross the river on the Taylor ferry. They said they were “rambling” and needed to cross right away. It was later determined one of the cowboys was Butch Cassidy who had just robbed his first bank in Telluride and was escaping to probably Robber’s Roost or some other location in Utah. My kids and I were disappointed when the creeks were bridged and the new bride was built to replace the old suspension bridge.
I marvel at this part of God’s creation. I drive to the top of Castle Valley to the Loop Road and realize the LaSal Mountains above me are over 12,000 feet in elevation and I am looking down at the Colorado River at about 4000 feet in elevation for a total elevation of over 8000 feet in height. One of the special days in my life was being on the side of the LaSal Mountain in October to ride my bike on the Kokopelli Trail when the sun came up and bathed the Arches, the top of Porcupine Ridge and the LaSal Mountains covered with snow with the aspen trees with their yellow leaves and the oak brush with red and yellow leaves that appeared to be on fire as the morning sun struck them. A couple of years ago I traveled to the top of Castle Valley after the huge fire there and couldn’t recognize the place-it took like a moon scene-everything just burned gray.
I also have visited Onion Creek many times. One morning returning to Grand Junction I took the side trip up Onion Creek and realized that all the architects in the world couldn’t have produced such beauty as what God had made in the narrows section of the creek. I love the solitude of how isolated Onion Creek use to be and mourned when I visited there on a long weekend and found that every possible place one could pull off was occupied by a camper. I didn’t like the new sign being placed on the highway identifying the road to Onion Creek. How things have changed when I came down Onion Creek to find that a symphony from out of state was preparing to have a concert at the base of the narrows.
When I grew up in Monticello, outsiders considered the Four Corners the end of the earth-hell-desolation and worthless. I didn’t agree with them-my Dad told me it was God’s country and I loved it. Now, everyone wants to come, thousands admire it’s beauty and outsiders are loving the place to death. As I drive up the river from Moab, instead of seeing what was left of the “fort” from a John Wayne movie, I see an upscale resort. The old Dewey Bridge seems to weep as it cables hang down from the suspension wires with no road deck remaining. While I can’t turn back the clock, I am grateful I knew Dewey Bridge, Onion Creek and Professor Valley before it was “discovered” by outsiders.
Kelly Summers
Box 203
Grand Jct. CO 81502
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
