Saddle Sore: A page from ranching history

Like a shadow cast beneath the wings of an overhead, hungry bald eagle, the potential tragedy of development and biodiversity injury is hurled before us, ignited by the for-sale listing of the Cistercian Order of St. Benedict’s Monastery in Capitol Creek. Not many parcels have generated as much public attention and intrigue over the years. 

The ranch was homesteaded in 1880 by Henry Staats, one of the first men to spend the winter of 1879-1880 in Aspen, then called Ute City. Staats and four others wintered up Hunter Creek with a barrel of whiskey and short rations; the other eight down in the valley by Ute Spring.  

He made his homestead claim in 1880, along Lime Creek, a small tributary of Capitol Creek, saying it was one of the most beautiful spots he had ever seen. As many men of that period, he was unique in numerous ways. A veteran of the Union forces during the Civil War, he got the prospecting bug early and explored a large part of central Colorado in the 1870s and ’80s.

Unlike William Hopkins, who filed a homestead claim on what is now the city of Aspen, Staats was unique in that he set up a ranching operation along Capitol Creek. It was fertile land, mostly open, covered in natural grass that was spring irrigated by the overflow of Lime Creek, which went through the center of his spread. Aspen was “the big gun” as far as activity, population, and mining, and it was not lost on him that hay was a premium, badly-needed crop due to the many burros, mules, and horses needed in the mining industry. A propitious choice by any reckoning. Hay was selling anywhere from $120 to $175 per ton.  

Staats was forward-thinking in his ranching endeavors, buying the first horse-drawn hay mowing and raking machines in the valley. Even so, the prospecting bug captured him from time-to-time, and he’d go on a spree, looking for the riches he never found — or at least never capitalized on. In between mountain forays, he managed to build a log house about ½ way between the Capital Creek Rd. and today’s monastery. It was still there when the monks took over, but has since been claimed by time. 

A man named Harmon bought the Capital Creek land immediately to the south of Staats, and in a decision he mulled over, and after visiting for weeks, Henry finally asked the man’s sister, Ellen, for her hand in marriage. The joining together was consummated in 1886, which union lasted 35 years. They sold their Capitol Creek property to Charles Hart in 1909, and moved to Denver for a time. It may be that you never get it out of your system — Ellen died in 1921, Henry 1924, both of them on a homestead they had developed on Bijou Creek, south of Byers, Colorado. They are both buried in Fairmount Cemetery in Denver.  

The Hart family purchased other adjacent parcels in the area, adding to the acreage of the original Staats place. Fred Hart, who married a niece of Ellen Staats, built the large, two-story, red brick house and large barn one sees to the left when traveling up Capital Creek. Hart’s daughter, Gladyce, a very tall, beautiful woman, married Jens Christiansen of the Glendale Stock Farm on Owl Creek.

It’s never easy in the ranching business, and for a time, the Harts leased out a portion of their property to a Utah sheep outfit who kept a large band there for spring lambing and a gathering place before they headed to the summer mountains. At some point, Hart traded his sheep to the Gerbaz family in exchange for their cattle. It always seemed to be a three-legged dance between ways to make money: Sheep, cattle, or potatoes. Which will it be and do we have enough land for all three? There were other ways, of course, but those were the big three.

1944 rolled around, and W.S. LaMoy, his wife Cecil, and their family bought the Hart ranch. Their son Gordon worked the place alongside his dad, and over the years, the LaMoys bought more land, unknowingly setting it up for the monastery, which was waiting in the wings.

At some point, Gordon and his wife Lena took over the ranch, selling it to St. Benedict’s Monastery in 1956. Lena was a great story-teller — Gordon was fun to drink a beer with at the old Eagles’s Club in Aspen.

Henry Staats may have been correct: There is no more beautiful ranch in all of the Roaring Fork Valley. It’s a steal for the right person.

Tony Vagneur writes here on Saturdays and welcomes your comments at ajv@sopris.net.