This is a letter written by George Parr DeVinny. The letter is undated, and we found it in Alice DeVinny Hardy's desk just a few years ago (2000?). We are not sure how it appeared there, but guess that Dex's family came upon it and gave it to Mother. The letter follows. [Carol Lee Hardy Walker]
Well, Dex -- My parents moved from Pennsylvania to the plains of western Nebraska for my mother's health when I was a small boy and my early recollections was some real pioneering. I remember the sod house with the roof covered with sod and the times I moved my blankets under the table to keep dry when it rained at night. And when we had an Indian scare when it was reported a band of Indians was on the war path and was headed down through out section of country. How the neighbors who was quite thinly scattered were planning how they were going to protect themselves. However, they never quite got to our settlement. Those early settlers sure endured many hardships -- one water well which was about 150 feet deep supplied water for settlers for several miles around. As a boy though, I really was happy and enjoyed the wide open prairies.
My sister married a newspaper man in the small county seat town and I was placed to live with my sister and husband to learn the printer trade which I have followed mostly through life. During the meantime, after my folks starved out on the homestead, [they] moved back to the central part of Nebraska to Lexington, then called Plumb Creek, where I finally went. Got me a job with a newspaper there and where I spent several years and where I met the only girl in my life and who is still my main guide and helper.
After barnstorming in numerous print shops and newspaper ventures, I decided to look for some place of better opportunities. I guess my early experience kind of put the pioneering spirit in my blood, so in talking to a friend who had been to Colorado and had filed on some land in the west end of Montrose County where a co-operative company was attempting to take water from the San Miguel river up on Wrights Mesa. This was a tremendous undertaking by people who were very short of finances. I was told by one of the men who was interested in the undertaking a story that I think had a good part in my decision not to join the project. They had two camps, one at a sawmill that was supplying the necessary lumber for flumes, etc., and the ditch camp for the workers on the canal line. Well the story goes that one of the camps would cook up a pot of beans and place a piece of salt port with a wire attached so they could remove the pork and send it to the other camp and use it to place in their pot of beans. Anyway, the proposition looked too tough for me and I proceeded on over to Norwood to sorta get the lay of the country in general.
He painted quite a glowing picture for the future of the undertaking. He and wife, mother and brother were leaving soon with two covered wagons and driving through and would be glad if I would accompany them, which I decided to do. Leaving wife and two small children, to come later, we headed west with two fine teams of horses and good equipment. I did not realize that we could expect so many hardships on a trip of this kind. Many long drives, and feed and water were scarce. There was not room to accommodate all in the wagons for sleeping and my bunk was under a wagon on mother earth for a bed, and after killing a few rattlesnakes close to some of our camps, caused me a little uneasiness on several occasions. But the trip had its pleasant experiences also. I'll always remember my first sight of the mountains. One late afternoon we just came to the crest of a hill when there spread out before us was the range of the rocky mountains. It was a very impressive sight for me, being raised on the level prairies of western Nebraska.
We arrived in Montrose late one evening and camped for the night in the then elephant corral just west of the railroad tracks, and the old buildings have just recently been dismantled. A little incident occurred the next day on our way across the plateau where we camped one night on our way to then called Pinon. Along late in the afternoon, noticing some deer tracks I took the rifle, thinking of a mess of fresh venison for breakfast when I was ready to give up bagging my deer I realized it was getting dark and then I realized also, that I was lost and after wandering around until it was dark, I decided the only solution was to just set it out until daylight. Being late in October it was quite chilly, and finding I had no matches, I spent an anxious night. Anyway the next morning I luckily found the road and noticing by the tracks which way they were traveling I found the camp and the boys just saddling up a horse to try and find me.
Well, that is about the story. We arrived here in the fall of 1899, and of course I dropped into the Norwood Leader newspaper office about first place, and the editor said, Well, what can I do for you, and I said I am just a tramp printer come in to get a smell of the ink. Are you a printer, he said -- That's right, I said. He pulled a key out of his pocket and said here's the key. This place belongs to you. Well, he explained that he was a dentist, that he had to take the place over for he had loaned the owner some money, and he just left and he had it on his hands and was trying to keep the paper alive -- and if I would keep it going all I took in was mine -- and when he wanted any money he would ask me for it. He explained there was a good furnished apartment in the back of the building and I could move right in. I sent for the family and published the paper for 2 years, and have spent the years since close around Montrose.
Posted March 31, 2003
