Montrose - Daily Press

When the Denver & Rio Grande (D&RG) Narrow Gauge spiked its railhead down in the newly established town of Montrose on Sept. 8, 1882, it was an important moment in history as the "front" of western railroad expansion now extended to the Uncompahgre Valley.

It was a wide open land -- full of potential.

"This was then the frontier -- just being opened by the government for settlement -- where cattle were kings and the cowboys first vice-presidents in charge," described early-day resident Alva W. Galloway in his memoirs, "Passing of The Two Gun Era."

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A typical frontier town, Montrose gradually grew from a few sod shanties and log cabins to more permanent brick buildings and businesses, taking on all the aspects of a thriving and diverse community.

It was this theme of diversity that set the stage for future development of the town, bringing together the heritage of the Ute Indians, the narrow gauge railroad/freighters, development of water resources and a diversified agricultural base.

In their footsteps ... heritage of the Utes

It was just south of present-day Montrose, along the banks of the Uncompahgre River, that all attention was focused on one of the last strongholds of the Ute Indians in western Colorado.

With the first treaty negotiated between the Utes and the United States government in 1863 and the ones that followed, the Utes gave up larger and larger portions of their once vast domain.

While change was not easy for the tribes, Ute Chief Ouray and his wife Chipeta (who were members of the Uncompahgre or Tabeguache Utes) adapted particularly well. On a small homestead two and a half miles south of present-day Montrose near the Uncompahgre River, the famous Indian couple lived and farmed for several years before the Utes were driven out of western Colorado permanently in 1881.

One of the most colorful legacies left by the Utes is the word Uncompahgre (Un-com-PAH-gray), which means "where water makes rock red." A challenge to spell and pronounce the word has, nonetheless, become an integral part of our vocabulary here in Montrose.

For example, there's Uncompahgre Peak, the highest mountain in the San Juan Range at 14,309 feet; the expansive Uncompahgre Plateau which borders Montrose to the west and runs almost the entire distance between Grand Junction to the San Juan Mountain Range; the Uncompahgre River, with its beginnings in the rugged San Juans, flows northward through Montrose to eventually become part of the Colorado River system; and Uncompahgre Avenue, a street in Montrose running north and south.

"We get a lot of children asking 'what does the word Uncompahgre mean?'," noted CJ Brafford, director of the Ute Indian Museum. "It is one of the top two questions asked at the museum along with how to pronounce Ouray."

Brafford further explained that the Ute language does not have an "r" sound like our language, so the correct pronunciation (in Ute) is often very different than what we form in our speech patterns.

Today, on the site of Chief Ouray and Chipeta's original homestead, the flags of the three individual Ute tribes -- Southern, Ute Mountain and Northern -- fly together in unity over the Ute Indian Museum, the only institution of its kind in the area devoted solely to the legacy of one tribe.

"For many years, the Northern Utes felt that they were long forgotten, yet truly the heart of their homeland is right here (in the Uncompahgre Valley)," commented Brafford.

Hub of western Colorado

One of Montrose's strongest attributes over its 119-year history has been its centralized location. From its earliest beginnings, the town served as a major distribution point for goods and services to a broad area of southwestern Colorado.

Montrose first served as a major terminus along the narrow gauge and later standard gauge routes. By 1885, the town ranked fourth in railway traffic on the D&RG, following closely behind Denver, Pueblo and Leadville.

Freighting was another enterprise that garnered Montrose a place in the history of the West.

During the late 1800s, Dave Wood was king of an estimated million-dollar freighting empire based in Montrose. The majority of Wood's business involved transporting freight from the railhead in the Uncompahgre Valley to the mining camps of the San Juans and returning with ore bound for outside markets.

In 1884, the pioneer freighter built the Dave Wood Road, a shortcut from Montrose to Telluride over the Uncompahgre Plateau that saved his teamsters 20 miles a trip. The road is still a well-known landmark today.

Montrose continues to serve as a hub, providing a variety of services to many outlying communities.

Montrose Memorial Hospital, established in 1949, is a 75-bed medical center with a strong regional presence. In addition to providing a wide variety of services to local residents, the facility maintains urgent and emergency care clinics in Telluride and Olathe as well as operating a clinic in Naturita.

More valuable than gold

Early settlers who came to this area viewed a vast, unspoiled land of opportunity but soon learned of its major limitation, a lack of water. The Uncompahgre River supplied nearly all of the valley's irrigation water, but it was totally dependent on spring run-off from the surrounding mountains and too little rainfall during the summer.

To the east, the abundant waters of the Gunnison River flowed northward through the gorge of the Black Canyon, bypassing thousands of fertile acres in the Uncompahgre Valley.

Early residents had already thought about building a tunnel for the desperately needed water. Surveys were undertaken as far back as 1894, but sufficient data for the project was not obtained until the famous expedition of 1900 and 1901 through the Black Canyon Gorge.

Officially dedicated by President William Howard Taft on Sept. 23, 1909, the Gunnison Tunnel Project released 1,000 cubic feet of water per second to the developing agricultural region. The long range vision of these pioneers and their undying spirit and optimism produced the longest irrigation tunnel in the United States at the time and marked the major turning point for agriculture in the Uncompahgre Valley.

Foundation of agriculture

Thousands head or more cattle companies, trail bosses and cowboys riding the range for months at a time -- these were familiar faces and scenes around Montrose near the turn of the century. During this time cattlemen operated under the open range system. There was plenty of winter, spring and summer range, no crowding and few private land holdings. Often, cattle trails led right through the heart of Montrose and Main Street became a thoroughfare for hundreds of head of livestock.

By the 1940s, Montrose had become an important livestock shipping point. Both narrow and standard gauge rails met here, providing a central location for shipping. In 1946, the Rio Grande Depot announced that 45,000 sheep had been shipped out of Montrose on their way to the nation's slaughterhouses and markets within a 10-day period.

In addition to cattle and sheep ranching, the rich fertile soil in the Uncompahgre Valley raised a variety of agricultural products including honey, onions, alfalfa, potatoes and sugar beets, known for their high percentage of saccharine (sugar).

The fruit industry also boomed in the area during the 1880s, 1890s and early 1900s. Spring Creek Mesa was the site of the famous "Ashenfelter Orchard," which covered 360 acres and produced every variety of fruit grown in the valley.

In recent years, the trend in agriculture has been toward smaller acreages and downsized farms, bringing about a dramatic change in the landscape of the Uncompahgre Valley.

Brent Young, area extension agent in ag marketing, reported that during the five-year period from 1987 to 1992, the number of acres of farm land in Montrose, Delta and Mesa counties decreased by 1 percent. At the same time, the number of farms has increased by 4 percent, resulting in a decrease in the size of the average farm.

"As a nation, we have seen the reverse of this local trend," said Young. "The U.S., as a whole, has seen the number of farms decrease drastically, while the acres of land farmed has reduced slightly, resulting in fewer, larger farms."

The changing face of a community

"Montrose wasn't much for looks, but boy, there were things doing that you had no idea of," wrote Galloway, who first saw the town in July 1883. "One could at any time of day or night strike a $5-ante poker game or over at the hotel meet all kinds of mine promoters just returning from the East with pockets of money gleaned from the poor suckers who wanted to own a gold mine and suddenly become rich. People were from everywhere -- cousin Jacks seeking work in the mines -- little co-ed graduates of the East just landing in the big open West seeking a job as school teacher and eventually landing a good-looking cow puncher in marriage ... with Abe Robert's Messenger furnishing weekly the news of the outside world, Montrose was up and coming."

Montrose has seen many changes over the past century; most notably an ambitious economic development plan implemented in the 1970s that has brought over a dozen manufacturers/products to the area.

Higher education has also become a top priority.

Since the Montrose Campus of Mesa State College opened the doors to its expanded facility three years ago, it has doubled in size, both in credit courses offered and number of students, said Director Ben Keefer.

Currently, the campus has an enrollment of 300 students seeking undergraduate degrees and nearly 1,500 participating in community educational programs.

While students can earn an associate degree at the campus, the next level will offer a bachelor's degree and access to graduate degrees.

"It's a pretty rosy picture for the future (of higher education in Montrose)," said Keefer, adding that distance learning technologies are making higher education even more accessible to a greater number of people.

Plans are also in the works for future expansion of the Montrose Campus facility.

Additional sources: "Montrose, Colorado Centennial, 1882-1982;" "Many Faces, Many Visions, The Story of Montrose, Colorado," Elaine Hale Jones, 1995; "Living In Western Colorado On A Few Acres," Colorado State Cooperative Extension Service, 1997.

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