While Martin still leased the ranch, in 1879, two men with a wagon approached the ranch at night, and inquired of him whether the road ahead was clear. Saying it was, but unable to clearly make out what the men were about, he let them on their way. Later, it was found out, these men were Samuel Woodruff and Joseph Seminole, two outlaws who had just killed wagonmaster Reuben Benton Hayward, and would hide his body beneath a bridge not far on their way from the Cold Spring Ranch. Martin was the first to have seen the wagon without three men in it, as the third had just been killed and was laying unconcealed in the wagon, between Mt. Vernon and Cold Spring Ranch. Had Martin approached the wagon, he most certainly would've been in grave danger; as it was, he became a key witness to the prosecution. After an interstate manhunt by the Rocky Mountain Detective Agency, Woodruff was intercepted in Big Grove, Iowa, while Seminole was captured with the help of the Indian Police at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The Hayward murderers were brought to Golden, and lynched from a railroad trestle before a trial could take place.
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In 1891 the Denver, Lakewood & Golden railway established
its own tramway line through the Cold Spring Ranch, bringing the latest
in public transit (including Pullman-built motors) to a place that once
served ox teams going to the gold fields. By this time, the ranch
had been pared down to a stock ranch of 600 acres, its western acreage
being sold to become the (on paper, not built for years) Pullman Hights
(sic) subdivision. In early 1900 the ranch saw a truly somber
moment in history, when the funeral of William C. Rooney (Johnson's
brother-in-law) took place in the Pullman building. Rooney was
killed in the line of duty as a guard at Cañon City attempting
to stop four prisoners from escaping, and his funeral entourage was
made up of 26 carriages of mourners. Later the funeral of Alexander
Rooney was also held here. |
In 1911 Johnson made the grisly discovery of a skeletal body on the ranch, having washed down in a gulch from South Table Mountain. These proved to be the remains of Maria LaGuardia, an Italian matriarch of Denver who had been lured to the mountain and murdered two years earlier by Angeline Garramone, for her money. In one of the most famous trials in Denver area history, Garramone was sentenced to life in prison for the brutal crime, with friends testifying she had given them threats of death if they ever told of the crime. Much of the remains of LaGuardia still reside somewhere at Long Gulch, the way where Quaker Street ascends South Table Mountain.
In 1932 Ralph and Mary Cotton, along with Lura Fitzgerald, rented the old Pullman House and operated the Cold Spring Service Station there, offering gas and a store for stoppers by, a modern translation of the building's original use. Nearby to the west of Rock Rest stood the Homestead Restaurant, the reconstructed Boston Company's building after it was dismantled in Golden for urban renewal in 1925. It served as a business of the growing Pleasant View community until its fiery demise in 1946.
The Cold Spring Service Station, which by now had its own building
in front of the old way station building, was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Charles
Brown in 1943. By this time the old building had a front porch and rear
addition making it over five times its original size, and was a well-known landmark,
a little thanks to its bright orange coat of paint which they toned down.
The Browns continued operating it as Brownie's Homestead service station and
lived in the old house until they built their own living quarters. Around
that time the old way station became the home of Clover Hardware, its third
and final commercial use. Where once persons could buy grub with gold
dust they now purchased television sets for their homes.
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Clover Hardware moved to the east of the historic
building in 1955. The Pullman building was all that remained of
the Cold Spring Ranch (the rest had long since been subdivided), and
it was abandoned and left to decay. In 1965 the Browns decided
to demolish the famous structure, stating it was a fire trap and they
wished to expand their garage (which never happened). Sid Squibb,
onetime head of the Gilpin County Historical Society, rescued the logs
of the building's first story and spirited them up to Central City,
ironically the same town Pullman once operated his store in. There
they lay in state for 32 years, while the service station eventually
closed and was replaced by other businesses. In 1997 the logs
were relocated to Golden by volunteers of the Golden Landmarks Association,
and the building transferred to the preservation entity's hands. |