This photo postcard was mailed in Evans on June 10, 1912, to Mrs. Maud Roach of Lucerne. It appears two people authored the card. One writes “Do you know this team you ought to this is the new wagon and archie.” The other’s writing is not too clear, but it appears to say, “One of the teams I bought for(?) Parker.” The reference to Parker may be to the owner of the Auburn Ranch, Harvey D. Parker.
Harvey D. Parker, born in 1868 in Rutland, VT, came to Greeley with his father in about 1883. He married Kittie I. Marsh of Greeley in 1891 and shortly thereafter went into business with John Mosher to establish the Mosher & Parker produce company. It was around 1905 that Parker also established a dairy several miles southeast of Greeley, specializing in Guernsey cows, which became known as the Auburn Ranch. Parker was instrumental in promoting and developing the Guernsey breed in Colorado and helped other Coloradans, in part by securing them foundation stock from eastern breeders. He was a prominent civic leader in Greeley and an influential force in northern Colorado, serving on the state board of agriculture for eight years and leading a reorganization and rehabilitation of the Greeley-Poudre irrigation district. Parker died in March 1930.
Following Parker’s death, Clark Bender of the Rockmore farm in Hygiene purchased his herd, and Parker’s legacy lived on. For example, in 1932, Peggy’s Mary, a Guernsey bred and highly prized by Parker, achieved a production record for the year – producing 13,531.9 pounds of milk and 856.3 pounds of butterfat – which gave her a ranking of ninth in the United States among four-year-old Guernseys. She was the only Colorado cow ranked among the ten class leaders.
REFERENCES:
- Greeley Tribune dated March 19, 1930, and May 28, 1932 at https://www.newspapers.com/browse/us/colorado/
- Guernsey Breeders’ Journal, Vol XI, 1917, Google Books at https://books.google.com/
