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Photo postcard of Postmaster R.D. Strong in front of the Basalt, CO, Post Office, ca. 1915.

R.D. was born Roaldo D’Elsinier Strong in Ohio in 1853 to parents Silas and Desdemona (Lambertson) Strong. Silas was a carpenter and Desdemona was a housewife.  By the time R.D. was two years old, the Strongs had moved to Springdale, Iowa, as did Silas’ brother Caleb and his family, who farmed. Silas would continue his work as a carpenter. At age 16, R.D. entered the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, and part of his training would take place on the famous “Old Ironsides”  battleship. He resigned after two years at the academy to pursue a career in teaching. Beginning his career in Kansas, he would teach for twenty-nine years at schools in Kansas, Iowa and Colorado. In September of 1881 he would marry Nebraska native Etta M. Douglas in Blue Rapids, Kansas, and they would later adopt a daughter named Nettie.  

At the time of R.D.’s appointment to the position of postmaster on January 23, 1908, he had been farming outside of Basalt for about a year, and before that was a teacher near Peachblow.   Peachblow (also written as Peach Blow) was a small settlement of quarry workers located on the Frying Pan River eight miles west of Basalt and named for the reddish pink sandstone quarried nearby.  The original name for the place was Wilson’s Quarries, but after the Midland Railroad built a spur there, it named the stop Peachblow.   A post office with that same name was established in 1890 and operated until 1909, when it was moved to the town of Sloss.  Peachblow and Sloss are now both defunct.  

R.D. sent this postcard postmarked in June of 1915 to Miss Lucy Jewell at 10 West Mill Street in Colorado Springs.  He writes: “The young lady I spoke of is going to stay in Greeley; so we have no help engaged.  Just found this out today.”  Lucy Jewell was born in Kansas in 1889, and in the year R.D. sent her the postcard, she was a student at Colorado College in Colorado Springs.  Lucy may have been a relative of R.D., or, given the 36-year age gap between the two, perhaps R.D. had been a teacher of Lucy’s while residing in Kansas. It’s possible the “young lady”  R.D. refers to was lined up to work at the Basalt post office but decided to stay in Greeley. R.D. apparently went by the nickname “Roly,” for written in a different hand on the back of the card is “Roly in front of his post office, Basalt, Colo.”

William H. “Billy” Hildreth

R.D.’s predecessor was  long-time Colorado resident, printer and newspaperman William H. “Billy” Hildreth, postmaster in Basalt since March of 1906.  He was removed from the position on January 3, 1908, after an audit revealed a shortage of $526.00 in post office funds.  In addition to his position as postmaster, Hildreth was the Basalt town clerk, was the proprietor and editor of the “Basalt Journal” newspaper and had recently acquired the “Red Cliff Blade” newspaper (Red Cliff is a town about 37 miles northeast of Basalt.).    Newspaper accounts describe Hildreth as a well-liked individual, generous, friendly and well-known throughout  the area. 

The author of a 1908 article in the Aspen Democrat, who claimed to have known Billy since 1885, said it was alcohol abuse which got Billy into trouble.  The author writes, “as of late…he has been addicted to a too free use of liquor and seemed not able to control the appetite notwithstanding the fact that he fought against it every minute of late years.”    He cited the opinion of Hildreth’s friends that “if he is short in his accounts it is due to carelessness and neglect caused by excessive use of strong drink.” 

According to an Aspen Daily Times account, Christmas day of 1907 found Hildreth in Glenwood Springs.  Possibly addicted to alcohol and likely in a state of dread and keen anxiety over whatever legal action would be coming down on his head, he went on a bender. The article reports that Hildreth spent about $200 that day “buying booze and having a general good time.”  Subsequent events would indicate that Hildreth was having anything but a “good time.” He would go to Long’s saloon in Glenwood, and there saloon keeper Long would overhear Hildreth’s phone call to a saloon keeper in Basalt.  Using a disguised voice, Hildreth told the Basalt saloon keeper that “Billy Hildreth had committed suicide.” Long informed the city marshal of what he had overheard, and Long or someone else revealed to the marshal that Billy had purchased a revolver.  Based on this information, the marshal would take Billy’s gun away from him, and Hildreth’s son would come to Glenwood Springs to take him home. 

On January 9, 1908, a federal grand jury in Denver indicted Hildreth on a charge of defrauding the government through embezzlement.  He would be subsequently tried and convicted and in March of 1908 sentenced to 18 months at the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas.   

In June of 1909, Hildreth would receive a pardon from President Taft, secured in part through the efforts of Colorado U.S. Representative Edward Taylor.  The following year, Billy and his wife, Lula, would move to Soda Springs, Idaho, where he would become editor and owner of the Soda Springs Chieftain.  They were in Soda Springs until 1922, at which time they moved to Long Beach, California, where Billy established a printing business.  In 1931, Billy and Lula  would return to Idaho, and Billy would take over editorship of the Soda Springs Sun newspaper.  Billy would succumb to a heart attack in 1932 at the age of 67.   

About Basalt

Basalt is located in the Roaring Fork Valley, connected downriver to Glenwood Springs and upriver to Aspen by the 70-mile Roaring Fork River.   Basalt marks the confluence point of the Roaring Fork and Frying Pan Rivers; these two rivers and the nearby Crystal River all flow downhill to meet the Colorado River at Glenwood Springs.  

Basalt began its life as Frying Pan, a settlement established in 1882 on the south side of the Frying Pan River.  It was made up mainly of tents, including a tent store and several tent saloons, but it also had some shacks.  This was home for the men who worked the seven charcoal kilns at the foot of nearby Red Hill and cut the timber in the area – vast stands of pine and pinion trees — to be processed in the kilns.   The charcoal produced there was used to fuel ore smelting operations for the silver being mined in Aspen and was initially hauled there using horses and mules. The beehive-shaped kilns in their original form were 25 feet tall, 25 feet in diameter and made of unfired brick and native stone. 

Big changes were in motion when the Colorado Midland Railway bought up land across the river from Frying Pan, for it was on that land in 1886 that the railway would build its depot, named Aspen Junction, to serve the Roaring Fork Valley. When completed, the Colorado Midland line would run from Colorado Springs to Leadville, cross the Continental Divide to Aspen, then continue on through Glenwood Springs to Grand Junction.  A plan to build the line to Salt Lake City did not come to fruition.   

(The Colorado Midland was founded in 1883 by wealthy mine owner J. J. Hagerman.  Hagerman contracted tuberculosis in 1873 at age 35 or 36 and like many others, came to Colorado from the Midwest for the benefits of its dry air  and altitude.  He would live until 1909, dying at age 71. He joked that he had come to Colorado to die, but failed. ) 

With the establishment of the railroad, most Frying Pan residents moved across the river to Aspen Junction.   Another change brought by the railroad was its superior efficiency over horses and mules as a means of transporting the charcoal to Aspen.  Nevertheless, as a result of the discovery of coal near Carbondale and the availability of the railway to transport it to Aspen, the smelters there switched from a charcoal to a coke (charcoal made from coal) heat source.  This meant the end of charcoal production for Frying Pan, and the kilns ceased to operate.  (Subsequent years would see the kilns used by farmers and ranchers to store machines and shelter livestock.)

Early-day Aspen Junction functioned as a camp for the crews building the railway.  It offered a boarding house and a restaurant, and it may have seen as many as fifteen saloons, though that number reportedly dwindled to three for lack of a sufficient number of customers.  In its fully functioning state, Aspen Junction was a key transportation hub for the Roaring Fork Valley. In addition to the depot, it had a wye, which is a triangular formation of tracks allowing trains to turn around. 

The Aspen Junction post office would be established on February 13, 1890, and five years later its name would be changed to Basalt to avoid confusion with the Grand Junction post office.  Then, on October 8, 1901, the town of Basalt was officially incorporated to include Aspen Junction and what little was left of Frying Pan. Basalt is named for the basaltic Black Mountain which sits north of  town. 

In its heyday, the Colorado Midland Railway made most of its money shipping coal and lumber, and it also benefitted from tourism, transporting folks into the mountains for picnics, photographs, and the picking of wildflowers.  But the difficulty and expense of running and maintaining a railroad in mountainous terrain led to multiple bankruptcies and changes in ownership.  The railway was done in after the United States Railroad Administration diverted all trans-Colorado rail traffic to the Colorado Midland in late 1917 or early 1918, which overwhelmed the line.  This outcome prompted the Railroad Administration to then divert traffic away from Colorado Midland, and the resulting loss of business forced the railroad to cease operations in 1918. 

Present-day Basalt is a tourist destination for fishing, picnicking, mountain biking, hiking and skiing, but there is still visible physical evidence of its past. Midland Avenue, Basalt’s aptly named main street, traces the path of the Midland Railway roadbed which led to the depot, and the original Midland Railway depot building is now inhabited by the Alpine Bank Building at 137 Midland Avenue — see https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=152903 for images.    The remains of the seven charcoal kilns can be viewed in Basalt’s Arbaney Park and are on the Basalt Historical Walking Tour.  Here is a link providing an image of three of those kilns:  Basalt Historic Frying Pan Coke Ovens – Aspen Trail Finder .

R.D. Strong would resign as Basalt postmaster in the spring of 1918, having served ten years in the position. In  January of 1920, he and Etta would move to Escondido, California, where they would retire. 

To give a flavor of the goings-on in and around Basalt during the 10 year period of R.D.’s tenure as postmaster (1908 to 1918), I culled the following stories from local newspapers of that time period: 

  • In 1910, the citizens of Basalt voted to clear out the saloons and go “dry,”  but, in reality, the town remained pretty “wet,” and bootlegging was not uncommon. The Rifle Telegram in March of 1912  reported the arrests of Basalt citizens Sheridan and Bruce Miller and H. J. Mangnall for selling moonshine under the pretext of operating a soft drink parlor. And there was citizen grumbling about the price paid for sobriety in the form of the increased taxes levied to fund enforcement. So it probably wasn’t a surprise when Basalt voted in 1912 to bring back the booze. 
  • A big annual summer event for Basalt  was the Glenwood Springs to Basalt bicycle race, which drew riders, not only from Western Slope towns, but from as far away as Denver and Colorado Springs.  Apparently, the race course, which was roughly 20 miles long, paralleled the Midland Railroad  tracks which ran between the start and end points, for spectators could buy tickets and view the race from the train as it followed the bicyclists.  (From article dated July 20, 1912.)
  • In the summer of 1910, Alfred Hendricks, said to be a college student from out east, had been working for a short time on the William Knight ranch, and all reports were that he was an enthusiastic worker and not a clock watcher.  When William Knight came home one evening after conducting business in Basalt, he learned from his wife that young Hendricks had attempted to talk to her “on forbidden subjects…and tried to take other liberties.” Mrs. Knight implored her husband to make Hendricks leave.  That same evening, Hendricks was visited by six ranchmen, one of whom was carrying a rope, and was told to make “a hurried hike for some other point,” which he did.  The headline for the Rifle Telegram’s article about this was “Hendricks, He Hiked.”
  • On January 28, 1909, Colorado Midland passenger train No. 104 was making its way between Basalt and Leadville in a heavy blizzard.  As it neared the station at Ruedi (a town now long gone, submerged following the creation of the Ruedi Reservoir in the 1960’s), the crew, looking to the side across the Frying Pan River and far up the mountain witnessed the beginning of a massive avalanche.  The decision was made to keep going, the thinking being that the river would stop the behemoth, but it didn’t.  The avalanche roared right across the river and slammed into the train, wedging it against the embankment and knocking people out of their seats.  Fortunately, there was no report of serious injuries.  A large crew was put to work shoveling the snow away from the train, which took seven hours. As that work progressed, a surprising discovery was made – six live mountain trout wiggled in the snow.  They had been transported out of the river by the avalanche. Four were immediately appropriated by the conductor, Riley Miller, and the remaining two fell prey to other crew members.  Once the snow was sufficiently cleared, the train was able to resume its trip.

R.D. died at age 84 in 1937, and Etta would die in 1950 at age 86.  Their remains are interred at the Nuevo Memory Gardens in Ramona, California. (I was struck by the succinctness of the headline for R.D.’s obituary: “R. D. Strong, 84, Summoned.”)

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