People
Collection for person entities.
Pages
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- David O. Williams
- David O. Williams is an independent journalist who has won numerous Colorado Press Association awards. As noted by former Eagle Valley Enterprise editor, Kathy Heicher, David O. Williams, is “one of the best journalists in the valley.” From 1991 to 1995, Williams worked as reporter for the Vail Daily. From 1998 to 2004, Williams worked as a journalist for The Vail Trail. From 29 June 1998 to 29 December 2000, Williams served as editor of the Daily Trail, a Vail Trail off-shoot publication. He worked as a journalist for three Olympic Winter games and twice for the Olympic News Service. Established in 2007, Williams is the founder, publisher and editor of RealVail.com. His associated site, RockyMountainPost.com, was launched in 2013. David O. Williams and his wife, Kristin, live in Eagle-Vail. They have three sons.
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- David Pinkerton
- Contributor to "Community/Common Unity," Writer, hiker, skier and fisherman. (source: Community/Common Unity: A Gunnison Valley Journal). Contributor to "In Our Own Write," (source: In Our Own Write: A Gunnison Valley Journal). Contributor to "2020: The Hammer and The Dance: A Gunnison Valley Journal," (source:2020: The Hammer and The Dance : A Gunnison Valley Journal).
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- David R. C. Brown, Sr.
- Speaker 1: David R.C. Brown was a handsome man who didn't look like a hard-driving capitalist. However, his looks belied his record of entrepreneurial achievement. He rose from store clerk to multimillionaire, fitting a family in between. His personal success was extremely important to Aspen because it allowed him to contribute so much to the community's welfare. In fact, of all of Aspen's pioneer leaders, he was the only one who continued his efforts to improve the town's fortunes when the silver boom fizzled and others abandoned hope and left to pursue brighter prospects. At age 21, Brown left his home in New Brunswick, Canada and immigrated to Black Hawk, Colorado, where he found employment as a clerk in the general merchandise store of H. P. Cowenhoven. Three years later, Pappy Cowenhoven sought greener pastures. He sold his store, loaded his stock on two wagons and, with his wife and attractive daughter Katherine, headed south. Brown, seeking adventure, agreed to come along. Brown's daughter, Ruth Perry, tells of her father's arduous two-week trip over Taylor Pass. Ruth Perry: There was no road and no way of getting down into Ashcroft, so they took the wagon apart numerous times and lowered it over cliffs and arrived in July at Ashcroft and spent one night or two nights there, and then traveled on down the river to Aspen, which had no buildings. Speaker 1: When they arrived in Aspen on July 21st, 1880, they found a tent city filled with men. Cowenhoven put up the first wooden building across from today's City Hall and established Aspen's first general store. Cowenhoven bought a corner lot at Cooper Avenue and Galena Street for $75 and began building a house and store, the Aspen Mercantile Company. Within two years, Cowenhoven had made Brown a partner. He became president of the Aspen Mercantile Association, eventually selling the business to Tompkins Hardware. It was the fourth store to open in the new mining camp, located where Sabbatini Sports is now, and had sales of $300,000 in its first year of operation. Two years later, Brown married Kate. At the same time, a miner down on his luck traded his one-third ownership in the Aspen mine to Brown to settle a debt of $250. The deal proved to be the grubstake bonanza of the decade and launched Brown on his investment career. Within a few months, the Aspen mine was producing silver ore at over $10,000 a day. In the mid-1880s, Brown build one of the most impressive homes in Aspen for he and [Katie 00:02:51]. On the side of the present Yellow Brick Elementary School, it cost a princely $6,000. In 1885, he started the Aspen Electric Light and Power Company with its generators in the powerhouse under today's Castle Creek Bridge. The building now houses the City Streets Department. His efforts made Aspen the first electrified city in Colorado. A year later, he organized and was first president of the Aspen Water Company, which brought water two and a half miles to the city from a reservoir on Castle Creek at the site where the late D. V. Edmundson's home is located. Brown was a major partner in a mile-long tramway up Aspen Mountain that could carry 2,000 tons of silver ore down to the railroad yards in town in a day's time. Brown was called the landlord of Aspen because of his extensive property holdings, often in partnership with his father-in-law. They owned what is now the Aspen Block and the Cowenhoven-Brown Building next door, where the Roaring Fork Dorm once was and the Paragon is now. Pappy Cowenhoven had his own structures. He built Aspen's first brick building called the Cowenhoven Building but actually is the home of the Ute City Bank today. And the Cowenhoven Tunnel, a double-track, 4,000-foot long bore, which was used to ventilate and haul ore from the mines on Smuggler Mountain. But in 1892, the winds of change were evident. Even Brown, sometimes referred to as Aspen's most prominent millionaire, was feeling the pinch. His deep shaft mine closed because of falling silver prices. A year later, the crash came. Brown's personal life took a turn for the worse after silver was demonetized. In 1898, Brown's wife Kate died. Brown and Ruth McNutt, the daughter of a San Francisco physician, were married in 1907, and the union produced four children, two of whom are well-known residents of the Roaring Fork Valley. Ruth Perry ranches on her father's land in Carbondale with her husband Bob Perry. Her brother Darcy Brown is best known as a former president of the Aspen Ski Club. He was also a long-time employee of the Aspen Skiing Company. Brown's devotion to his family meant summers spent outdoors camping, hiking, fishing, and hunting. His daughter Ruth remembers it well. Ruth Perry: He loved Aspen, and it was really his life. And great many men made money in Aspen and departed and left for Denver and New York, but my father really, really loved the country, and he wanted us to grow up knowing and loving the country, which we all did. Speaker 1: His love for the country led him to purchase five ranches in Colorado. He also bought Hallam Lake and the house overlooking it, now the Paepckes House, so their horses could be kept nearby. Brown continued his interest in Aspen and in mining. As the president and principle investor in the Free Silver Mining Company, he tried to join the existing workings of the Smuggler and Mollie Gibson mines and search for new veins of silver at lower depths. By employing widespread use of electricity, he reached the 1,500-foot level and nearly finished exploratory work in 1897, but rising waters thwarted his efforts. The next year, he made mining history when he secured two deep sea divers to keep the electric pumps in operation. Unfortunately, the low profit margin in silver production did not permit the project to continue. His commitment to the community extended to his work on Independence Pass, where he was determined to turn the trail into a real road. David R.C. Brown became ill in 1929 and died in his Aspen home a year later. He left an estate of a million and a half dollars. A group of friends formed an honor guard to accompany the casket to the top of Independence Pass. From there it was conveyed to a cemetery in Denver.--Aspen Hall of Fame video transcript
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- David Rothman
- Contributor to "The where that tells us who we are: A Gunnison Valley Journal," Poet, writer and musician. His poem is reprinted, with permission, from Allen T. Brown's Dominion of Shadow. (source: The where that tells us who we are: A Gunnison Valley Journal)