In 1973, Karen and I purchased the old Woods Family home and livery stable/blacksmith shop in Placerville, built by the same Woods Family that built Woods Lake and the Dave Woods Road to Montrose. We had been living in the back of the Belmont Liquor Store and had the Forgotten Works in the same building. Living on Main Street in the back of liquor store was interesting for a while, but we jumped at the opportunity to buy a house and a big barn.

FORMER WOODS LIVERY STABLE NOW THE POST OFFICE

Actually, living behind a liquor on Telluride’s Main Street was something I don’t recommend. It seemed there was always a reason for a party and plenty of fodder for it just a few feet away.

My partner in the liquor store was Davy Greever who had been one of my best friends since we were in the 4 th Grade together in Wichita.

In those early Telluride days, you could get a tab at any bar, restaurant, the grocery store and our liquor store. We actually went one step further when we decided that we were tired of working in the place and came up with the idea to put a pad of paper by the cash register with a note that said, “Take what you want and write it down.”

In true, old Telluride fashion, people were completely honorable. Everyone meticulously wrote down everything they took. The problem was that no one had any money to pay for it.

Just another Telluride style experiment that didn’t work out so well.

So, we put the place up for sale and moved to Placerville. We fixed up the house and the old livery building, which today is the Placerville Post Office, and moved in. It wasn’t long before we became involved in “ Down Valley” politics. Glenn Ruffe and his daughter, Doris, were actively involved in county politics. At that time, Glenn was on the San Miguel County Planning Commission. Since the county was going through the state mandated procedure of adopting zoning and a Master Plan, the Placer Valley Association, which had been around for a number of years, went into action.

By the way, Placerville at one time was a vibrant economic entity in San Miguel County as it was a major shipping point in the region for cattle destined for eastern dinner tables.

I was soon elected President of the Placer Valley Association which met once a month to discuss zoning and politics. It was not unusual to have forty or fifty people at the meetings and we became a political entity to be listened to.

One of our early issues was that the Army Corp of Engineers' plan to flood the valley from Sawpit to Specie Creek where the dam was to be built. It was to be called the San Miguel Reservoir. As the project was alive but seemingly slumbering we decided that we’d stir it up and see if we couldn’t at least get the Army Corp to give us a timetable or some indication of our chances of being a hundred feet underwater. It was hard to invest money in our homes and businesses without knowing.

So I scheduled a meeting and invited Congessmen, State Senators, County Commissioners, the BLM, the Forest Service, and the Army Corp of Engineers. Pretty much, every one came to the meeting. It was standing room only in the little Old School House.

Our position was simple. “We deserve to know what is going to happen.”

It was the first of several meeting we had over a year or so, but ultimately, the number of people involved and the escalating land values made our case for us. The water from the project was designed to go towards agricultural uses in the Norwood, Naturita and Nucla area plus provide irrigation water for some sage brush country out in Dry Creek Basin. Since costs were going up and the prospect of income from the farmers and ranchers wasn’t improving much the politicians and bureaucrats backed off.

I still have the letter announcing that they were canceling the project. Money earmarked for the San Miguel Reservoir later was moved to Montrose where the votes and power were and eventually they got the Ridgeway Reservoir Project which was a reallocation in a sense.

A couple of years later it became apparent to me that Down Valley was a nice place to live but the water wells weren’t always good and the septic tank systems were both expensive and polluting. In some places we had septic tanks leaking into the neighbor’s drinking water and all of it was leeching into the river ultimately.

We hired a company from Denver to do a feasibility study on putting in a central sewer system. As it turned out, the Fed’s were giving away money for sewer systems around the country and we qualified.

The deal was set up so that the Fed’s would pay for the whole thing and we’d have to pay a monthly fee of $7.00 a month per house, no hook-up charge or cash up front was going to be needed. The bonding called for us to establish a Sewer District and agree to the indebtedness, which required an election. As it turned out, there were people against it because they were concerned it would cause growth in the valley. And, there were others up in Sawpit that believed it would put an end to mining. There campaign against it claimed that I was going to get rich off the deal and my mother wore combat boots and the like. I just never said much after that. You see I believe in Democracy and decided that if people didn’t understand it was a good deal there was little point in going door to door to try and convince them otherwise—sort of a “you deserve what you get here.”.

The final vote was that it failed by seven votes.

GETTING MARRIED IN THE OLD SCHOOL HOUSE

Karen and I were married in the Old Placerville School House in May of 1974. It was a great Telluride party. The Fall Creek Boys played and the Town of Telluride essentially shut down so everyone could come (our invitation was published in the Telluride Times and invited everyone and everyone they knew). My old friend Maude Paris, who’s husband ran the assay office in Telluride (and sold me the Belmont Building), played the piano and Brother Al officiated. He promised to keep it simple, but he couldn’t help himself and went off on a five minute sermon. No one much cared, we were all smiling.

A couple of years later, Karen and I moved back to Telluride as part of buying the Telluride Times Newspaper. Our children were getting old enough to start school. We sold the property and the glass companies to some local old friends, but we always stopped into Mary’s to catch up with our Down Valley friends and still do

We loved Placerville and had plans for it to be more of a commercial center and community than it has turned out to be, at least so far. We always saw it with flowers and green lawns and thought we’d one day have a small restaurant and bar like the Woody Creek Tavern in Aspen to join with Mary’s Store as he anchors.

There were some great people there. Sharon and Jerry Albin were our next door neighbors. They had three daughters, Kim, Tammy and Jenny and since we had three children that needed babysitting it was a perfect arrangement. Almost all the “oldtimers” are gone now. Glenn Ruffe, Mrs. Palmer, Mary McClure, Elbert, who managed all the houses from the Estes Estate, Paul and Dorthy Sale, Charlie and Nila Horner, and Kate Mulvey had the Sawpit Store.