Historic Morrison, Colorado

Founded in 1874!

People and Personalities

| George Morrison | Cowboy Pete: Film Pioneer |
| John Brisben Walker | The Quaintance Family | Walter B Weare |
| Remembering Jake | Fred Stickler and Bertha Hebrew | Ed Drab |

| Early History of the Turkey Creek Mail Route: 1895 to 1914 |

George Morrison

George and Isabella's son Tom became Morrison's first mayor when the town incorporated in 1906. He owned and operated the Turkey Creek Toll Road from a location near the present site of The Fort Restaurant. In 1903, Tom went to the goldfields of Cripple Creek. While everyone else was going broke and mining was at a standstill, he started a morgue in the camp, and made more money than most miners. He returned to Morrison and went into the cattle business.

Tom's son Pete Morrison was driving the stage between Morrison and Evergreen by the time he was fourteen. He became a movie star, working in 204 silent movies from about 1910 to 1927, and is said to be the one who taught John Wayne how to ride. Pete and his wife Lillian eventually returned and settled in the Mt. Vernon area.

Cowboy Pete: Film Pioneer

Pete Morrison, grandson of the founder of the town of Morrison, was a cattleman's ideal all around cowhand. He began his career as soon as he could sit a horse. By the time he was seven years old, he was trailing his father's cattle from the Black Stag Ranch in the Red Rocks to summer pasture in Middle Park -- and back -- as a full-fledged cowhand. By the time he was a teenager, he had mastered all of the basic skills of cowpunching, including handling any size team that came his way.

He did attend school in Morrison and Idaho Springs when he had to, but his heart wasn't really in it. By his middle teens he was driving teams for many of the mines north of Idaho Springs and doing a man's job as motorman, driving the full length of the Argo tunnel. He also worked as hoist operator, topside helper, and general roustabout in many of the larger mines. He next turned out for railroading on the Colorado Southern Railroad, working his way up to a position as engine fireman.

In 1908 fate brought his true calling, when a movie company from Chicago began shooting western films in the Red Rocks area. Pete and his older brothers, Chick and Carl, were brought on board to provide livestock, do stunt riding, and double for the professional actors. Pete soon figured out that in two weeks of moviemaking he could earn as much as he did in a month on the railroad.

When movie director Frank Boggs returned to Colorado in 1910 for more filming, Pete and his brothers rejoined the moviemakers. When the filming here was finished, the Morrison boys moved on to Hollywood with them. Their first movie assignment was to ride shotgun and protect Universal Studios movie outfits on location near San Diego. It was here that Pete first met and soon married Lillian.

Pete did right well in the movies. He even had his own outfit, Lariat Productions, at Universal Studios. Between 1916 and 1928 he directed and played leading roles in many of his own films. All in all he made 204 films, both features and serials. He worked with all of the early Western Movie greats and rodeoed with the likes of 'Hoot' Gibson and 'Bronco Billy' Anderson.

Talkies came to Hollywood in 1927 and Pete was reduced to playing character parts in films such as Scarface and Cleopatra. He helped young John Wayne learn to ride horseback and was the twenty-mule-team driver in Wayne's first major western, The Big Trail. Pete and his animals were great favorites of Charlie Chaplin. He ended his Hollywood career providing animals for Chaplin's comedies.

Pete had purchased a ranch just east of Golden in 1926, and as the depression cast its pall over Hollywood he moved his wife Lillian and youngest son, Cliff, back to Colorado. He established a fine dairy herd and drove the impressive Tivoli Brewery Clydesdale teams in parades, at the Stock Show, and for other public functions.

Reprinted from the program for the 3rd Annual
Morrison Cowboy Celebration.

John Brisben Walker: A Man of Ideas

John Brisben Walker -- inventor, innovator, and visionary -- truly fit the description of a 'Renaissance Man'. By the time he was 26 years old (in 1873) he had attended Gonzaga College, Georgetown College, and West Point Military Academy; served as a military advisor and general in a Chinese Army; run for Congress on the Republican ticket; and married Emily Strother, "the prettiest girl in the valley of the Virginia"; and won and lost his first fortune. He spent the next three years as managing editor of the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette and the Washington D.C. Daily Chronicle. Throughout his career, he continued a remarkable diversity of pursuits, some successfully, others not.

Asked by the US Government to investigate agriculture in the arid regions of the West in 1879, he purchased 1,600 acres in North Denver, Berkley Farm, where he introduced the production of alfalfa as a cash corp. In 1880, he purchased 500 lots near present-day Union Station and developed Denver's first amusement park, River Front Park, which boasted a race track, the Castle of Culture & Commerce, ball parks, an excursion steamer, and numerous other features, such as fireworks displays. There he also staged Denver's first rodeo.

In 1887, Walker purchased the 'Swiss Cottage' in Morrison, a hotel built by Governor Evans and used by the Jesuits as a college for four years. He donated fifty acres of Berkley Farm to the Jesuits, and it became the nucleus of what is today Regis University. He reopened the hotel as the Morrison Casino and added a swimming pool and other amenities. Eventually he purchased all of what is now Red Rocks Park and Mt. Falcon.

Walker sold River Front Park to the City of Denver in 1893 and moved to Tarrytown, N.Y. Here he purchased the faltering Cosmopolitan Magazine, turned it around, and in 1895 (after purchasing the rights to the Stanley Steamer) manufactured automobiles at his Mobile Wagonette factory on the Tarrytown estate. By 1900 his auto factory boasted 24 models, ranging from a $750 economy model to $10,000 racers. Always the innovator, Walker sponsored the first automobile race in the United States in 1895. He sold Cosmopolitan Magazine to the Hearst Corporation for one million dollars in 1905 and prepared to return west.

He and his new wife Ethel Richmond Walker returned to Morrison, where he concentrated his efforts on developing the Red Rocks area, which he named "Garden of the Titans." There he built a road to the area, a teahouse, hiking trails, and a funicular or incline railway to the top of Mt. Morrison, the longest cog railway in the world at the time. The famed opera diva Mary Garden, accompanied by Ethel on the violin, sang in the Red Rocks natural amphitheater and pronounced it "acoustically perfect." Many other concerts by the day's famous musicians and performers followed.

In 1911, J.B. sponsored an automobile rally on Mt. Falcon and also laid out a golf course at its base. His love for the area made him a tireless promoter of its beauties, which he believed could make it a major resort. During this period of enthusiasm, Walker proposed the concept that eventually became the Denver Mountain Park system. J.B. Walker also dreamed of a palatial summer White House on Mt. Falcon. [right] The cornerstone was laid and construction begun, but his fierce spirit of individuality hampered his search for successful funding for the project, despite enlisting the pennies of the schoolchildren of Colorado.

Near his hoped-for Summer White House, Walker built a grand mansion on Mt. Falcon for Ethel and his many children. Ethel Richmond Walker died there in 1916 and was buried near the foot of her beloved Mt. Falcon during a snowstorm. Two years later the mansion burned to the ground. Some say it was caused by lightning, others suggest a more sinister origin. The stark ribs of this edifice remain in Mt. Falcon Open Space Park, a timeless memorial to Jefferson County's greatest tycoon.

Related links: Lariat Loop Mountain Gateway; Mt. Falcon Open Space Park; Red Rocks Park.

The Quaintance Family

Mary Ross Quaintance, for whom our small downtown park is named, was 14 years old and attending the old Morrison schoolhouse the day school was recessed to allow townsfolk to hear soprano Mary Garden sing at Red Rocks. That was in 1911, long before Denver acquired land for the park from her father, John Ross, in 1927 or built an amphitheatre there (1936-1941). Mary remembered visionary John Brisben Walker, who sometimes came to the Ross home for dinner, and she was home from school, sick, the day Walker's castle on Mt. Falcon burned. Mary Ross married a son of Brough Quaintance, Arthur D. Quaintance, an attorney in Golden and Denver, in 1919. Mary Ross Quaintance died in 1980, but is well remembered for her remarkable knowledge of the history of our area.

John Ross, Mary's father, was one of Morrison's early businessmen. The stone building next to our new park was his hardware store back in the 1900s, and the family lived in the house at 106 Stone St. that is now occupied by Professional Meetings, Inc.

Reprinted from The Town Crier #4, July 1999
Published by the Morrison Action Committee

A Tribute to Walter B Weare
1883-1960

At the young age of six, Alberta tells us, Walter ran away from home in his native Nebraska sandhills and spent a few days sleeping in a coyote den. In his early teens, he went West, where he worked on cattle ranches, became a bronco rider, and even drove a Wells Fargo stage. He enlisted in the Army, and did a stint in the Phillipines -- all before he turned 21. Eventually he settled near the small town of Morrison, adjacent to Red Rocks Park, built a home, and started life as a dairyman with a large herd of registered Toggenburg goats.

Self-educated and self-motivated, Walter was a carpenter, painter, bricklayer, and stonemason, as well as a geologist and prospector. Although his later life was marked by illness and misfortune, Walter was well-loved and remembered by those who had the benefit of knowing him. We hope, through sharing his poems, his legacy will live on a while longer.

A Cynic's Musings, by Walter Weare

When the West was young, 'fore the nesters came,
when the herds grazed far and wide,
'Twas a carefree life on those long, long trails
that reached to the border's side.

Being old, perhaps I am prejudiced,
but I loved that open range;
And these quartered fields with their spuds and corn
are to me a woeful change.

I have ridden throughout that olden West
from Cimarron north to Butte;
You may have it all, for it's worthless now
but maybe I'm hard to suit.

I'd have kept the plains in buffalo grass
from the Kaw to the foothills' crest;
But they've fenced them in and trampled them down
'til a lark can't build a nest.

'Twas a rangeland running forever on,
and the billowed grass was free;
But it's now criss-crossed with a cursed wire
as far as a man can see.

Where I've ridden my horse on prairies wide,
where I heard the coyotes' wail,
There are roads now cluttered with speeding cars
and I'm crowded from the trail.

Remembering Jake

It seems fitting that we report here, regretfully, the passing of long-time resident Boyd Jacobson. Known by most everyone as Jake, he succumbed to cancer December 29, 1998, in Williston, North Dakota, near his original home of Bonetrail.

He and Clara, his wife of 50+ years, were involved and concerned about matters of our town of Morrison ever since they arrived in 1952. Together they raised 3 sons and 2 daughters at their humble abode on Bear Creek Lane. In the early days, that home even served as the Town Office for many years while Clara was Town Clerk. Their children all still live in the metro area, including Wayne who remains here in Morrison.

During simpler times, Jake was known as the Great Gildersleeve of Morrison, "Water Commish," working almost single-handedly to keep our archaic water system afloat. When natural gas was introduced here, Jake was very much a part of the implementation. And, as a sheet metal guy, he gladly helped many of our citizens install their very first gas furnaces. Helping others with little more than a "thank you" was his happiness.

Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 3471 of Morrison, was and still is a viable community service organization, thanks to the hard work and leadership of Jake and his family. He held all the officers' chairs in his rise to the ultimate rank as Department Commander in Colorado. His son Terry carries on this tradition of active service to our local post.

Jake never had an enemy. His philosophy in life was simple: to be happy no matter the adversity, and to deliver happiness to everyone around him. We will miss his holiday lefsa, lutefisk, and his hearty laughter.

Jake was buried beside Clara on Wednesday, January 6, 1999, at the Morrison Cemetery in Red Rocks. Uff da!

Reprinted from The Town Crier, Jan/Feb, 1999,
published by the Morrison Action Committee

Fred Stickler and Bertha Hebrew

Fred was born in Rye, Colorado, in 1905, among the youngest of nine children, where his family was homesteading in a two-story log cabin. At 13, he walked over LaVeta Pass to Alamosa for his first job as a ranch hand.

Rancher, blacksmith and farrier, ironworker, all this prepared him for his later life in Morrison. After serving in World War II, Fred married Bertha Mae (Hebrew) LaGrow in 1947 and moved to Morrison. Fred joined Bertha in running the Gateway Stables, a business Bertha had previously run with her mother, Nora Hebrew. Sam and Nora Hebrew had started the donkey concession in Red Rocks when the area became an attraction in the 1880s.

When he married Bertha, Fred worked for General Iron, having been a blacksmith in the army. Bertha owned or rented pasture for cattle, horses, and burros from Indian Hills along Bear Creek all the way to Sheridan. Fred gathered hay for the stock clear to Meyers Ranch on Hwy 285, after he finished his regular day's work at General Iron on Santa Fe Drive. One of his ironworking projects was the superstructure for the original welcome sign over Washington St. in Golden.

In her "spare" (?) time. Bertha Mae was quilter and a watercolor artist; Fred called her the "Queen of Morrison." He has some of her pictures in his home on Bear Creek Ave., and the house is still labeled "Gateway Stables" in old, nonfunctioning neon.

Reprinted from The Town Crier, Jan/Feb, 1999,
published by the Morrison Action Committee

Ed Drab

It was a thrill recently to meet a former resident of Morrison who had moved away in 1969. He was just a guy who was looking for a residence to buy, or property on which to build. (Of course, we meet people every day with a similar design.) It was only after lengthy conversation, finding that he knew every one of our Morrison forefathers, that we realized he had been here before. He had grown up in the LaGrow house on Bear Creek Lane. He was a LaGrow, his name is Ed Drab, and he's the son of Morrison's hairdresser, Ed Drab Sr., who ran a shop on Bear Creek Ave. in the 1960s-70s (in the former bank building where Guiseppe's is now located).

After finding out about his family tree, I showed him the "Memory Album, Morrison, Colorado," by Lorene Horton, published in 1976. Flipping through the pages, he remembered many of the original photos and commented frequently: "that's my aunt Bertha," or "there's Alex (Jordan)," or "there's my mom when she was a child," and "there's Frank Baker." And so it went, for hours!

He presently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada. His personal knowledge and growing up stories of people, places and experiences were exceedingly valuable. With time, our connections with the important past are thinning.

Footnote: Museums Coordinator Sally White adds that we have also been visited recently by two other distinguished relatives. Grace (Schrock) Henderson, youngest child of Morrison pioneer Jonas Schrock (Schrock Saloon), and her daughter Joyce stopped in, and Henry Baumgartner, a descendant of John Brisben Walker, came in search of our records on our local innovator and entrepreneur. We'll have more on their visits in a future issue.

Reprinted from The Town Crier, Jan/Feb, 1999,
published by the Morrison Action Committee

Last Modified on April 4, 2000