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Today, Arborville is a ghost town.
Read a little history of the little town of Arborville.
The remains of Arborville are located between Maysville and
Garfield on the south fork of the Arkansas River, between
mile marker 208 and 209 on Highway 50. The former town site
is directly south of the highway, in a bucolic valley with
fantastic views of the Rocky Mountains.
The few remaining buildings of Arborville include a three
story concrete parlor house, two log cabins, a shed, an outhouse
and the remains of various animal pens and fences. Now a
ghost town, this small hamlet was a vibrant stage coach stop
along the Monarch Toll Road in the 19th Century,
and was later the haunt of a self-proclaimed hermit who brought
a great deal of flavor to Chaffee County.
Miners Arrive
Many of the early miners came to the valley that would become Arborville by way of the Santa Fe trail,
established in 1821. When a branch of the trail was laid
in 1852 between La Junta and Canon City for trappers working
the Arkansas River, Canon City began to grow, and by 1859,
it had developed into a supply outpost for miners seeking
gold in the mountains. A year later, Joseph Lamb began leading
a pack train to the mines of the upper Arkansas River Valley.
He followed Indian trails, establishing a route through Copper
Gulch and Texas Creek. By 1874, stage coaches used this route
and extended it past Salida, north to Centerville (present
day Mesa Antero). In 1877, these stage coaches began running
to Leadville to the old gold mining camps, quickly increasing
their frequency with the discovery of silver in 1878. At
that point, many of the miners who had been working in gold
mines along the Front Range began to move into the Arkansas
River Valley.
In 1879, Nicholas Creede discovered silver on Limestone Mountain
(today’s Monarch Mountain) where he established the Monarch
and Little Charm claims. Hugh and Sam Boone, who were partners
in Creede’s venture, constructed the Monarch Pass Toll Road
in 1880. The toll road began in Maysville and ended at Monarch
pass. An existing road connected Maysville to the rest of
the Arkansas Valley. The toll road serviced Maysville, Arborville,
Junction City (today’s Garfield), and Chaffee City (named
after Colorado’s first senator, today called Monarch). By
May 1881, stage coaches crossed Monarch Pass to the Tomichi
mining district in Gunnison County.
Arborville was established with the promise of mining in the
area and its proximity to the nearly finished toll road.
Its name derives from the fact that the town was situated
in an arbor like setting of aspens and pines, or there is
a possibility that a man with the surname of Aber or Arbour
arrived with friends from Silver Cliff and were some of the
first settlers. Throughout its history, the town has been
called by several variations on the name, being called Aberville,
Arbour Ville, Arboursville, Arbourville, and finally Arbor
Villa.
When lots were first made available, it was said that over 100
parcels sold in the first day. By 1879, with the promise of mining
on Monarch mountain, many cabins were under construction. Within
six years, 150 people were living in the town. Occupants worked
either as miners, working the mines three miles west in Junction
City (Garfield), or raised livestock. In addition to private
homes, the town boasted a post office, general store, boarding
house, and hotel.
The town’s largest building began as stage coach stop. By
the mid 1880's, it had become a "parlor house".
The parlor house, or brothel, is a large concrete building
with a mansard roof that is visible from highway 50. During
the 1880's, Arborville’s brothel was the only one in the
area, was well run and well endowed. While nearby towns progressed
in development, one reporter commented that Arborville was
content to let life revolve around the sociological norms
of its parlor house.
The building was constructed sometime between 1879 and the
early 1880's. A large stately edifice, it rises to three
stories and is capped by a mansard roof. The building’s construction
is unique, being of concrete, composed of cement with glacial
stone aggregate. Because steel reinforcing had only just
been invented in the 1880's in France, the building is not
reinforced. Instead, the building was constructed using wooden
forms. It appears that damage occurred during or directly
after construction to the northwestern corner of the building.
Repairs were made using handmade concrete masonry units scaled
to fit.
It is extremely unusual that the facade is the untouched concrete,
adorned only with the imprint of the form work. It appears
to never have been clad with additional materials or painted.
The strength of the concrete allowed for large windows on
all facades of the building. The wooden mansard roof also
sports windows within the roof line. The walls appear plumb
and show little deterioration or bowing. Limestone,
an important ingredient in concrete, was readily available
in the nearby mountains. This may help explain why such an
unusual construction material was used in this area. The
remainder of the buildings were more typically constructed
of wood.
The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad
In 1883, the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad began running
trains up to the Madonna Mine just west of Garfield. The
track generally followed the south fork of the Arkansas River.
Near Arborville, the rail completed several switchbacks and
two trestles were constructed. One of the switchbacks formed
a tight curve through the valley. The train then completed
another switchback before crossing a trestle at Lost Creek,
and bringing the track back to running along the toll road.
The line was narrow gauge and ended at Monarch, 10,028 feet
above sea level, rising 2,647 feet over its 20 mile length
with maximum grades of 4.5 percent.
The train completed one round trip daily, taking two and one
half hours to complete a one way from Monarch to Salida,
today, a distance of roughly 20 miles. Initially used to
transport ore from the mines, the train survived the 1893
silver and gold panic because a deposit of high quality limestone
had been discovered at the Madonna Mine.
The limestone was quarried at Monarch and then transported
to a limestone kiln in Pueblo. Transporting the trains up
the valley and bringing the limestone back to Salida was
an involved process. A locomotive, with a secondary engine
at the back of the train, would push 56 empty train cars
to Maysville from Salida. In Maysville, twenty eight empty
cars would be left behind. The two engines would ascend past
Arborville to a set of switchbacks in Garfield. At the switchbacks
the train would divide again with each engine taking fourteen
cars to Monarch, where they would be filled with limestone.
The train would rejoin at Garfield, bring the limestone down
to Maysville, where it would exchange the filled cars with
empty ones and begin the process again. When both sections
of the train were filled, the train would return to Salida.
In Salida, an automatic transfer machine, looking something
like a large barrel, would pick up and turn the filled narrow
gauge train cars upside down, emptying them into standard
gauge rail cars that could then be taken to Pueblo.
From 1880 to 1905, 2-8-0 steam engines were used on the line.
2-8-2 Mikado steam engines replaced them until the 1950's.
In 1956, the narrow gauge track was replaced with standard
gauge track. Diesel locomotives serviced the limestone quarry
at Monarch until 1981, but finally, the track was removed
in 1983.
William Henry Jackson Photographs Arborville
At the height of Arborville’s boom, the famous photographer
William Henry Jackson photographed the town while commissioned
by the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. This image was recently
included in the exhibition "Colorado: 1870-2000".
William Henry Jackson began as a portrait photographer on
the East Coast. Spurned by a woman, Jackson moved from the
East coast to Omaha, where he continued portrait work and
also began photographing frontier life, landscapes and American
Indians. He and a friend soon hatched the idea of photographing
the west by riding the newly completed transcontinental railroad.
They would purchase a one way ticket to the next town, provid
photographic services for as many portrait pictures as possible,
develop and deliver the portraits, collect the money and
buy one way tickets to the next town.
At the same time, Ferdinand Hayden, the director of the US
Geologic and Geographical Survey of the Territories, was
running the federally funded Hayden Survey of the West, mapping,
assessing resources, and studying plant and animal life.
At the end of each summer, results of the survey were reported
to Congress. Several other expeditions by the likes of John
Wesley Powell and Clarence King were also vying for funds
from the Federal Government, and Hayden quickly realized
that the expedition that provided the most compelling images
of the West would be most favored for funding. Hayden heard
about Jackson’s work, and subsequently employed him from
1870 to 1880 as a photographer for the expedition.
Working with Sanford Gifford and Thomas Moran, Jackson quickly
developed a clear style to his work. The first published
photographs of Yellowstone Park were attributed to Jackson.
The photographs arrived one week before Congress voted on
Yellowstone, and were said to be instrumental in it becoming
the first National Park. In 1873, the Hayden Survey focused
on Colorado, and Jackson’s panoramic photographs helped to
fuel tourism to the area.
In 1881, Jackson received a commission from the Denver & Rio
Grande Railroad to photograph landscapes along the rail lines.
Commissions were also given to Thomas Moran and Ernest Ingersoll.
Ingersoll’s writings, Moran’s paintings and Jackson’s photographs
were used by the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad to promote "The
Scenic Line of America." In addition, the works of these
three were published in Harpers and privately published "booster" books
promoting tourism.
Sometime in the 1880's, while working for the Denver & Rio
Grande, Jackson photographed the town of Arborville. His
work with the Railroad continued until the 1893 silver crisis,
when the U.S. Government stopped using silver and gold as
the money standard. Facing bankruptcy, Jackson accepted a
commission from Cornelius Vanderbilt, George Westinghouse,
Andrew Carnegie and other prominent Mercantilists to photograph
railways throughout the world for a proposed Museum of the
World’s Railways. Money for the venture ran out in 1896.
Facing bankruptcy again, Jackson joined the Detroit Photographic
Company. The company had developed a way to make realistic
color prints from black and white photographic negatives.
Jackson contributed his negatives to the companies holdings,
and maintained the company’s stock photography archive of
over seven million images, controlling popular taste through
the issuing of everything from postcards to giant panoramas.
After Jackson's death, the Detroit Photographic Company (later
Detroit Publishing Company) gave it’s holdings to the Edison
Institute of Dearborn, which then donated the photographs
to the Colorado Historical Society. In turn, the Colorado
Historical Society gave all photographs of places east of
the Mississippi to the Library of Congress. Photographs of
the West are still held by the Colorado Historical Society.
John Fielder, a renowned contemporary photographer, recently
developed the "Colorado: 1870-2000" exhibition, choosing 300
photos from over 22,000 photos in Jackson’s archives. Fielder
then re-photographed the originals, some 130 years later, in
his own style, documenting how much change, or how little change,
had occurred during the ensuing years. A photo of Arborville
was one of the 300 chosen for the exhibition, and is held by
the Denver Library. The monograph from the exhibition is published
under the same title "Colorado:1870-2000", and, in addition to
the photographs, has several well composed essays regarding Jackson’s
life and the history of Colorado. The book is often used as a
textbook in Colorado schools.
A series of hydroelectric power plants were constructed along
the South Fork of the Arkansas River and its tributaries
to supply electricity to power machinery and ventilation
equipment in the nearby mines. Between 1905 and 1906, hydroelectric
plant #1 was constructed to the east of Arborville by Salida
Light, Power and Utility Company.
The brick building sports Victorian detailing, and is easily
visible from Highway 50. Water is supplied by a thirty inch
diameter steel pipe that runs through the valley. The pipe
delivers water to a turbine located in the building. The
water is released from the turbine into the reservoir, where
it is recaptured to fill the continuation of the pipe to
the next hydroelectric plant downstream. The original GE
generators and Hub Turbines were replaced in 1929 by a new
750 kw GE generator and a S. Morgan Smith Turbine. The other
hydroelectric plants are located along Fooses Creek and east
of Maysville. Today, the reservoir is a popular place to
fish, being stocked with rainbow trout by the Colorado Department
of Fish and Game. The electricity is now used by the city
of Salida.
Frank E. Gimlett, The Renowned "Hermit of Arbor Villa"
Born on July 22, 1875, Frank E. Gimlett would go on to be
the most well known resident of Arborville. In 1879, Frank
Gimlett arrived in Junction City with his parents, Mr. and
Mrs. Edward Gimlett. He lived in Chaffee County his entire
life: mining, building and selling homes and eventually going
into the wholesale coal and feed business in Salida. An accomplished
pianist, he ran the Salida Opera house for many years. In
1897, he married, fathering two children.
Gimlett was most well known as the Hermit of Arbor Villa,
a self proclaimed title. Under this moniker, he wrote nine
short booklets under the title of Over Trails of Yesterday,
Stories of Colorful Characters that Lived, Labored, Loved,
Fought, and Died in the Gold and Silver West.
He sold these booklets primarily to tourists, with prices
ranging from thirty five to fifty cents. The booklets include
loosely retold histories of the boom towns of the Arkansas
River Valley, essays on reinstating the silver and gold standard
(including several letters to Congress), diatribes on the
loss of feminine attributes in the new modern woman and in
depth writings on the life of a prospector. In his books,
he commented that he was "alone in defending gold and silver
money the only hope of any Nation, alone in a crusade to
replace saintly women on theat pedestal of modesty, mystery,
constancy and alluriveness from which she has tumbled." (Book
2, page 52)
The Mountain Mail, in its obituary, referred to him as one
of Salida’s best known and best loved citizens, going on
to state that he "was the friend of movie stars and statesmen
over the nation." According to the Mountain Mail, after retirement,
Gimlett was the second person to purchase the entire town
site of Arborville, which he referred to as Arbor Villa.
He grew out his beard and began calling himself the "Hermit
of Arbor Villa." He traveled extensively, delivered speeches
over the radio and wrote to congress several times in an
attempt to reinstate the gold and silver monetary standard.
The following are some examples of his writings. Much of it
was quite humourous, especially when dealing with the everyday
trials and tribulations of being a prospector:
"And I leave my cabin amidst the tall silver spruce
trees, and as ever my enemy and companion the Mountain
Rat eyes me with hate exemplified in every move, feeling
perhaps that I may not return, and he is to be cheated
of a satisfaction of feasting on my carcass. The hate
is mutual and on some final day it will be war to the
finish between we two. The caw! caw! Of the camp robber
(robin), whether meaning good bye, good riddance or the
reverse I cannot say, but I do know my one tried and
true friend (helpful in many emergency) Minnie the porcupine
looks on my departure with regret." (Book 2, page
5)
Starting in 1909, issues of water rights became important to
both Colorado and the Hermit. People who had settled along the
lower Arkansas River were clamoring for greater supply of water,
and as a result, limitations on water usage in the Arkansas River
valley were enforced. The Hermit was convinced that the water
limitations would turn the verdant upper Arkansas River valley
into a desert. In book one of "Over Trails of Yesterday", he
threatens to remove the water from the lower river valley:
"... now comes the Hermit defender of the
people, who inadvertently holds within his hand, the
destiny of the headwaters of the Arkansas and Colorado
rivers. And now with next year’s water safely stored
away in ice and snow banks high up atop the Great Divide,
he demands his and all the people’s rights on dire threats,
that if not complied with, he will either divert the
the Arkansas river to the Pacific slope thru a tunnel
already provided by some soldier of chance in his search
for buried treasure, or will convey through another high
line, high altitude canal to whomever or wherever he
may choose, and will also include in the transaction
at a nominal price, all the rain that falls on his mining
property during the months of July, August, and September.
So decrees the Hermit." (Book 1 page 28)
The Hermit went on to send a bill to Congress, for $50,000,
for protecting the snow and ice along the Continental Divide
from being stolen. He commented that not one shovel full
of snow had been removed during his watch. This request for
payment seems to be a continuation of his refusal to support
water rights for those living on the Lower Arkansas River.
Gimlett also felt deeply that it was his duty to protect the
history of the boom towns along the Arkansas River Valley. He
was deeply disturbed when the new road grade for Highway 50 was
constructed over several pioneer cemeteries. In particular, he
comments upon the cemetery at Junction City (now Garfield):
"After several months of watching and waiting with
numerous pleas to the highway engineers to spare this
hallowed spot, they like a thief in the night, steal
upon the lost and almost forgotten cemetery of Junction
city, desecrate and disseminate along the highway grade
the bones of old pioneers....ruthless in their purpose,
vicious in execution and seemingly immune to the spiritual
rights of the dead, they come forth in the dead of night
with that insatiable ogre, the poser shovel, and with
these jaws of Moloch, and with fiendish glee, did dig
up and crush the bones and caskets, dump in the trucks
and haul away the remains to build up the highway grade.
This modern method in great contrast to the railroad
engineers and graders who, when building through this
same cemetery with caution and great reverence, removed
the bodies one by one to individual graves elsewhere." (Book
6 page 42-43)
The Hermit labeled this portion of the highway "The Ghost Highway
of the Rockies", stating:
"Mingling souls and bones of deadly enemies and foes,
paragons of virtue and disciples of vice, saints and
sinners, they will not lie at rest, and their rebellious
spirits will forever haunt this stretch of highway in
search of missing parts and seeking a spot where they
may abide in peace and alone." (Book 6 page 45)
He also commented upon the Arborville Cemetery with:
"Progress at what a price to the desecrated and disseminated
pioneer. These modern vandals and ghouls (harsh words)
of to-day do not give a passing thought to the traditional
landmarks or respect old soldiers of chance else they
would not survey and build highway 50 thorough the Old
Arborville Cemetery." (Book 2 page 53)
Later, Gimlett commented that the graves in Arborville were
undisturbed by the highway grade, being simply covered with
fifty feet of road base.
In addition to roaming the continental divide, writing and running
several businesses, Gimlett also found time to mine. He worked
Mount Aetna, adjacent to Mount Taylor. As perhaps one of his
zaniest ideas, he proposed to rename this peak:
"From the beginning of Ginger Rogers career I always
admired her ability and genius as an actress and dancer,
mailed her a verse now and then to this effect, and while
sitting on the old mine dump or gazing through the cabin
window after the day’s work was done, I could envisage
her in comparison with the beautiful Mountain Peak, tall
symmetrical and streamlined, a golden crown upon her
head, a chilly atmosphere encompassing her at times....
But more than all as I watched the glistening flakes
of snow, swirl and sweep about the crest of the Peak,
revealing the outlines of its delicate lined symmetrical
form through the mist, I envisaged Ginger in her dances
gowned in flimsy, lacy diaphanous skirt, whirling and
gloating about displaying at times the outlines, of a
modified, curvaceous figure of perfection.
Thus I named the Peak GINGER, and going so far as to dig
a bag of gold from its heart to exchange for the heart
of Ginger herself.... There was some opposition to renaming
the Peak, both members of the interior department and
the Governor of Colorado himself, but knowing mines covered
the peak and with dire threats of digging it down unless
allowed the privilege of renaming to suit myself, thus
leaving Colorado with only 49 peaks over 14 thousand
feet high, and one less for the United States, opposition
died down and now by usage and tacit consent it will
be know as GINGER PEAK." (Book 6 page53-55)
Evidently, Gimlett did indeed contact the U.S. Government
regarding renaming Mount Aetna "Ginger", even writing a letter
to the President. Supposedly, Franklin Roosevelt replied
back, saying he also thought it was a good idea to rename
the peak, but that he could not get support for it in the
government, given the expense and time it would take to have
the cartographers change the name. Evidently, residents of
the Arkansas River Valley, at the Hermit’s behest, adopted
calling the peak "Ginger".
On February 1st, 1952, Frank Gimlett died, following the pioneers
that preceeded him "Over the Great Divide." Today, as one
looks to the west from Arborville, one can still see in the
setting sun, the "Golden clouds with Silver linings" that
he often referred to in his books as hallmarks of the "Gold
and Silver West."
Arborville is located adjacent to Highway 50. This highway is
one of the longest in the country, running from Maryland to California.
It goes through Washington DC, St. Louis, Kansas City, Lake Tahoe
and at one point connect through to San Francisco. When it was
constructed, it was conceived as one of the few transcontinental
highways in the country.
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