(relaxing music) (upbeat violin music) - The Hutchinson Homestead
really represents the pioneering spirit
of the homesteaders who were arriving here
in the 1860s and 1870s. And it's a really
incredible history here because it embodies homesteading and really early
ranching history and high-altitude ranching. (wind blowing) - Everything that's
here was hand built, hand dug, hand built and it's still standing
over a 100 years later. - Because of the physical
buildings themselves you can touch them, you can smell them, you can go inside and
just feel the mustiness or whatever it is that
the human senses need. - Oh, wow. - I think the biggest change for me was seeing it
transformed from a place that was ours to opening
it up and welcoming people, which has been really cool. (children chatting) - It's a washboard. So you put it in the tub
and you wash your clothes. - The Hutchinson Homestead
and Learning Center is an authentic
learning experience, outside the classroom
in a real homestead. - It is deeply gratifying
to see the magic and the learning that
goes on out here. - [Andrea] I think it's a
place that people can come and kind of step
back into history and also see that it's
a piece of history that's a living history. - [Narrator] This
program was made possible by the History Colorado
State Historical Fund. - [Narrator] Supporting
projects throughout the state to preserve, protect
and interpret
Colorado's architectural and archeological treasures. History Colorado
State Historical Fund, create the future, honor the past. - [Narrator] With
additional funding provided in memory of Deanna E. La Camera and members like you. With special thanks to
the Denver Public Library, History Colorado, The
Colorado Office of Film, Television and Media and
to these organizations. (relaxing upbeat music) (tractor humming) (relaxing music) (tractor humming) (cow mooing) - We're one of those
rare longterm families that have managed to keep
together a piece of ground in our great state of Colorado. - Ranching is the oldest
industry in Colorado. The Indians owned
the land originally and then when the Ute Indians
were moved out the ranchers were allowed to come in. And the major reason the
Indians were kicked out was that you had ranchers
and miners and farmers who wanted that land
and they got it. - [Narrator] The Gold
Rush of 1859 brought more than just a flood of
miners to Colorado, it ushered in a stampede
of cattle ranchers. - And then miners had to
eat and along came cattle. After the Civil War a lot of
people were migrating out West. And so between mining and cattle country
Colorado really took off. - [Narrator] The railroad
would soon follow but like mining it would not always
provide steady employment. Cattle ranching on the
other hand has remained as steadfast in Colorado
as the Rocky Mountains. (upbeat adventurous music) - A lot of these
cows were driven up into these mining camps, they had slaughter houses. And that's where they
slaughtered the cattle and sold the beef. And with that money
these ranchers were able to expand their homesteads, buy more land, get more irrigation. - This landscape would've
been totally different then with no roads, no train, no anything other than
the way you got here, probably either by wagon or
most likely just horseback. So these folks
were true pioneers. - [Narrator] Cattle ranching
is not for the faint of heart. The strenuous lifestyle
has caused many ranches to change hands more
frequently than the weather, except a certain ranch
and homestead nestled in the crossroads
of the Rockies. - It's really
extraordinary in Colorado to have a working ranch that's still in the same
family for 150 years. - [Narrator] The Hutchinson
Ranch and Homestead is tucked between Salida and
Poncha Springs. It is the oldest
family-owned ranch in Colorado's upper
Arkansas River valley. - What makes the Hutchinson
Homestead different than some other
historic buildings is
this is still a ranch. This is still the same
ranch that was here 150, 160 years ago. It's the same grass, the same cattle, the same family. - Seven generations
of Hutchinsons are still working the property. I don't think you can
ask any more than that. It's very unique. - [Narrator] The founder
of the homestead, Joseph Sykes Hutchinson, was born in England in 1837. His father moved
the entire family to the land of opportunity
when Joe was 11. But the move to America
quickly turned tragic. - He had been one
of 12 children. He and his sister were
only two of which made it through the typhoid epidemics
back on the East Coast. - [Narrator] Orphaned on
the American frontier, young Joe went to live
with an uncle in Indiana. When the Civil War began
in 1861 he enlisted and would rise to
the rank of captain in the Indiana Infantry. (upbeat banjo music) After the war Joe was lured
West by the Gold Rush, determined to make a new
life in the Rocky Mountains. But while looking for
fortune he found love. - [Andrea] Annabel McPherson
came across the planes from Sparta, Wisconsin, with her family. - She had been
educated as a teacher and there was a dance
at a place called Dayton which is now Twin Lakes. And at the dance Joe
showed up and she showed up and as I say to people, the rest is history. Well, Joe and Annabel
were married in 1868 in a little place called Helena which would be today's
Chaffee County. - [Narrator] The young
couple put down roots before Colorado
was even a state, or the town of
Salida was founded. Joe and Annabel chose the
wide open spaces of the area to carve out a life as
Colorado cattle ranchers. (relaxing banjo music) - The oldest building on
site was built in 1865 up in Cache Creek
by Annabel's father, John McPherson and
then they dismantled it and brought it down
here and rebuilt it. - Annabel had a stipulation
that she wanted a house that had a stove in it instead of one of those
open air fireplaces. - [Narrator] And so the
second property was built, the iconic house that
still stands today. - Basically, it's a two-story
house with a wing on it. It is called Carpenter Gothic and one of the most
interesting things about it, it had an upstairs bedroom
with a little balcony that came out to look over
the South Arkansas River. (relaxing guitar music) - The main ranch house
was built in 1873. And so after the family
moved into the ranch house what had been their first
cabin became a granary. They kept oats and
barley and grains there because it was really the most
tightly constructed building on site and so it was
the most critter proof and insect proof. - [Narrator] To
survive the remoteness of the high mountain planes
the Hutchinson Homestead had to become self-sufficient. - And if they didn't
work they didn't have it. I mean, it's sort of like, well, I'll do this
wood because I know if I don't do the
wood I won't be warm. So that's what they did. - Homesteading and ranching
is definitely not easy. It's extraordinary
to me to think about what Annabel's daily life
might've been like back in 1870. At that time the family
had cows that open ranged across hundreds and
hundreds of acres. And the management of
a really large ranch is a constant daily task. - The height would've been
in the early 1870s with about, we think somewhere
around 1,500 head. There was no national
forest at the time, no fences so the cows probably
went where they want to. - [Narrator] The
ranch was growing and so was the
Hutchinson family. Four sons arrived, Art, Bailey, Harold and Joe. With Annabel's help running
the ranch Joseph Senior was able to own and oversee three general
merchandise stores, one in Cache Creek, on in what is now Poncha Springs and one in Saguache called
Hutchinson and Henson. Joseph was politically
active and served in both the Colorado
Territorial Legislature and subsequently the
State Legislature after statehood was obtained. Just as the family
was truly settling in as high-altitude cattle
ranchers, tragedy struck again. Joseph Sykes Hutchinson
died from a brain tumor. He was just 42 years old. - That left these
boys to be raised by, which I really consider the hero of the whole thing, Annabel. Because here is a single woman, not divorced but widowed, in a place that barely
has the railroad, probably not left
with a lot of money. - Annabel ran the
ranch by herself and raised four boys. I know that that
couldn't have been easy, cooking and cleaning for them. I have one child and
that's very challenging to run the ranch with her. (Abigail chuckling) - If I could go back in
time and meet (someone), it would be Annabel. To really get to hear her
stories from when she was 12 and coming across the
prairie in a covered wagon, to what it would've been
like to try to run a ranch and raise kids and be
a homesteader in 1868? (upbeat banjo music) - The elder two boys became
the true ranchers here. They never married
and they were the ones that really did a
lot of the work. - Annabel and
Joseph's first son, his name was Art, and he, to me, it seems like he must've
been a bit of a character because he did
help run the ranch. He lived his entire life here. There's a funny quote
of his that says, "Every family
deserves a gentleman "and I am that gentleman." - My namesake, uncle
Art Hutchinson, he was a diary keeper
and took pictures. - Uncle Art talks
about Indians coming and sitting on their horse
and looking at the house and then riding away. They didn't quite
understand this new thing that was coming to the
valley, this structure. And at the time it
was a large structure 'cause most people were living in basically two-room
houses at that time. - This would've been a
major place for the Utes to come through and probably
stop here at the house. And we have many stories, uncle Art talking about
Colorow and the bands pulling up to the house and
Colorow himself was a chief and he would come in and eat. - [Narrator] By
now the Hutchinsons had established themselves. But ranching was not
making them rich. To make ends meet
Annabel got creative. - She sold eggs and
dressed out chickens and turkeys for people in town. - One journal entry
that stands out as being pretty
humorous, really, is it took place on
Christmas Eve, 1914. And I guess, according to uncle Art, the turkeys were out and they
were sleeping on the fence and a kyote came in
the middle of the night and stole these
turkeys off the fence and dragged them
off and ate them. Meanwhile, their three dogs
were asleep under the bed in the cabin and
never heard anything. And so on Christmas Eve
they lost their turkeys to kyotes meanwhile
their ranch dogs slept through the whole experience. (Andrea chuckling) - [Narrator] Annabel's
sons, Art and Bailey, were naturals at ranching. - Bailey was a historian
and he wrote ledgers and he kept records
of everything. - [Narrator] Joe
would eventually
become County Sheriff. Harold philandered his family onto the other side of the law. - Harold married a lady by
the name of Grace Green. Harold, working
for the railroad, would come back from the
route and the mainline route down into Pueblo and on his
way home started stopping at another house. - Grace came to town
one time and saw him, Harold and Mrs. Bode walking
down the street arm in arm and they went into this barn. - And Grace came to
her door with a pistol and said you are basically
messing around with my husband and I don't like it, and shot her and killed her. (relaxing rock music) It must've been a major
story at the time. Grace was acquitted because
she was protecting her home, by a jury. So she did not serve any time other than probably
a little bit. - Harold was the bad
boy because of it and he got kind of
kicked out of the family. - [Narrator] Harold moved
to Pueblo and got remarried. His only son, Mills, stayed behind to work on
the ever expanding ranch. (relaxing guitar music) In 1916, Annabel bought
the adjoining property. Fortunately, a
stranger showed up to help with the added workload. - ["Art"] Old dad
Stenson was a fellow that basically appeared
on the ranch at one time. - So they went over
and investigated and here was a man sound
asleep next to the fire and they woke him up and
took him into the homestead, into the house and fed
him and he never left. - And somehow or another
he had a personality that got along with the two
boys and they brought him in and he lived with
them until he died. In fact, they helped bury him
up in the Poncha Cemetery. - [Narrator] Later, in 1916, Annabel was also laid to rest. It was now uncle Art's
turn to run the ranch, but not from his parent's house. - Uncle Art, we
had his cabin there that we know he built
after he wanted to move out of the big house. - Art didn't like
the main house. It was too crowded for him. - ["Art"] And he put a roof
on it and he put hay on it and it was his cabin. - I think he did
drink quite a bit. He had a bottle up, they call it 101 Hill. - And he kept a bottle of
whisky under a rock up there and I guess at
lunch he'd sit down and he'd have to go all day
so whether it was 101 Proof or 101 brand whisky
I don't know, but we've always
called it 101 Hill. - [Narrator] Art
was not the only one who wanted his own place
on the growing homestead. Joe and Annabel's
grandson, Mills, got married and built
a house right nextdoor to the main house. - ["Art"] My
grandfather decided, I think about the
time they got married, that he needed a house that was
separate from the big house. So Mills grew up on
the place and really became kind of the
romantic view of a cowboy. He wore the big 10 gallon hat and was apparently
a really good roper and he liked to
ride bucking horses. - [Narrator] By the mid-1930s
cowboys and ranchers were faced with a
changing landscape. Hutchinson cattle now
had to confront fences, grazing rules and roads, so did the Hutchinson ranchers. - The worst thing that happened to the ranch the whole time was when they put
Highway 50 in right here. They split the ranch in half. - It was a dirt road
and as traffic got more, you know, with Model T's
and A's going up the road and packers and I think
the dust would get bad on the dirt road. And so Mills would take
this irrigation ditch and turn it out in the
middle of the highways. And they said these guys
would go by just cursing Mills because they were getting
mud all over their car. - [Narrator] Mills and his
wife would have three sons, Wendell, Jake and Joseph. - [Narrator] It was
Wendell and his wife, Sue, who would eventually take the
reigns of running the ranch, but not immediately. - Uncle Art told him, he says, you know, Wendell, you need to go out and
get some more education. And he did and did well. He had decided that he
would let the younger boys have the first
crack at the ranch, and Jake started it. - [Narrator] Wendell's
love of animals led him to study veterinary medicine. - [Narrator] He left Salida
to take over a vet practice in Gunnison in the early 1950s. But eventually he received
a plea from his brother. (relaxing instrumental music) - [Wendell] I'll say
there are some things that have not changed so much. - ["Art"] We still do a lot
of the traditional ways. Calves are born traditionally
February, March. Branding, that's
the only legal way of having livestock cattle
registered in Colorado. The Colorado Brand
Board regulates that. Our brands go back to the turn
of the Century and before. So we still use that. We do that every spring, typically in May. - The ranching lifestyle, the only way I can describe
it is you're on 100%, 365 days a year. (upbeat banjo music) - We try to be done
pretty much in April so that they're big enough
to go out on the range and be with their mom
and walk distances. So we're still traditional in
keeping the seasonality going. Typically, in Colorado we
have the monsoon season that hits somewhere
after 4th of July, 10th or 12th. And that's usually what kind
of regulates the second crop of hay that comes in. (relaxing instrumental music) - I mean, rangers bail
after the third generation. They're like, I'm
done with this. It's hard work. Everybody since the
second generation had to take second jobs in
order to stay ranching. - [Narrator] Land rich
and cash poor is often the way cattle ranchers
describe their lives. Hard work and long
hours never deterred the Hutchinson family,
especially Doc. In the early 1950s
he ran the ranch and his veterinary practice. - He became, well, he is a legend here
because he was the kind of guy who didn't charge much. He wrote of a lot of, they just can't afford it
but the animal was sick. I can remember Christmas
days when you're sitting down to eat and all of a
sudden somebody's bringing in a sick calf and
he gets up and goes. - [Narrator] Through the years
the chores never changed. Just as in 1868 when the
Hutchinson Ranch started life revolved around birthing, branding and raising cows
from one season to the next. - Our cows are very special. They go back to the 1880s
when they were short horned, basic breeds and then
it became more Hereford and then now we're
more of a Red Angus. But the basics are still there. - [Narrator] As the
family continued to focus on the hard work of ranching
they eventually moved into newer and bigger homes
and the homestead sat vacant, with time and the elements
taking their toll. All the while Wendell felt
that the original buildings should be saved for
future generations. - So the Hutchinson
Homestead used to be kind of falling down, lots of old junk, lots of old equipment
lying around. - It was basically
settling into the ground. The roof was starting to sag. - These buildings
were always home even though we lived a
quarter of a mile up the road. You'd come down here and of course your
grandmother lived here, the apple trees are here. I loved the blacksmith shop. - I would have to say
my favorite building of all the buildings that's been restored
is the saddle house. We spent so much time in
there when we were younger, going in and out for
halters and saddles. I loved the smell
of it in there. - I think uncle Art's
cabin is my favorite just because it's one room, it's small, it's very efficient and it's comfortable,
it's homey. (relaxing piano music) - [Narrator] In the
1960s and '70s survival of the ranch remained in peril. But Wendell continued to
turn down countless offers to sell it to make
way for subdivisions or a golf course. - [Andrea] Wendell's
vision was to preserve it so that future generations
could see what life was like in those bygone days. - He wanted it to be
open to the public. He wanted it to be
preserved and he wanted it to tell the story of
our ranching heritage, high-altitude ranching
heritage here in Salida. - Back in 2003
this site was named as one of Colorado's
Most Endangered Places through the Colorado
Preservation, Inc. Program. And then in 2006 the
Hutchinson family chose to donate the historic site, so that two and a half acres
with all the old buildings to the town of Poncha Springs. And then the town
partnered at that time with a non-profit organization called Salida-area Parks,
Open-space and Trails. And so it was because
of that partnership and because of that
donation that all of the preservation work
was able to be done. Almost a million dollars
was raised mostly through the State
Historical Fund and through National Park Service - Save
America's Treasures Grant to do three phases
of preservation work. - This is called a
Gothic-style house. Well, of course the building was on the Most Endangered
Places list. That was for a reason. Because of roof decay much
of the interior finishes had already collapsed. There was no floor and the
building was literally rotting into the ground. (vehicles driving by) A good winter snow storm
would've taken it down. All of the porches had
rotted and sunk down. Although Doc Hutch had
put a new roof on it, that roof was 30 years
old and deteriorated. We lifted the entire
original building up and had to move it out
so that it projected out over the highway
in order for us to put a new foundation
underneath it. (upbeat banjo music) Joseph Hutchinson
signed the wall inside of this building in 1898. Much of the exterior
trim had deteriorated. - Oh, wow. - Originally this door was
supposed to be replaced as part of our preservation. I was fortunate enough
to get a woodworker who actually took apart
the original door, replaced broken panels and
saved all the original hardware. The unique thing about
this hardware is, if you look in the key slot
right below it there's a screw and then there is a square nail. The carpenter that put this
on obviously dropped the screw that was supposed to go into
this doorknob on the ground and to replace the screw
back then was a 60-mile trip to Canon City. So he put a square nail in it and 137 years later his nail is still allowing
this lock to work. - One of the absolute
most amazing artifacts that we have here at the
homestead is a melodeon which is a pump organ. And it was Annabel's
mother's melodeon and it came across the
prairie in a covered wagon in 1860 when the
McPherson family came from Wisconsin to Colorado. And Annabel's mother,
Helen McPherson, brought this melodeon with her and we still have it here today. - And for the longest time, when we first started this
was stored over at Hutch's. We didn't see it till
probably the second or third phase, but we'd always heard
stories about it. It is so neat that we see it now that they've gotten
the legs fixed. And so this is the first
time I've been back here and saw that it's
actually standing here. - The melodeon is a
pump organ, basically, and not so sophisticated. It doesn't work currently
but plans are in the works to hopefully get it restored and allow us to hear
the beautiful music that Annabel probably
played on it. So now we can go back
into Annabel's bedroom, the main bedroom. (pump organ music) The building was
full of surprises. This is a Grit Magazine. It's the story section
and it's from 1928. We did find material
dating from the 1880s in the building
throughout the process. - This is Annabel's
bedroom and obviously her and Joseph slept upstairs. He died very early
on in their marriage. In fact, all the boys were
11 and under when he died. And so then this became her room and even in the
diaries they talk about this being Annabel's room. And so that's the room we're in. - The unique thing
about this room is when we took up this
original flooring we got to the last board that
would've been put down by the carpenters at that time and they put an 1872 nickel
underneath their flooring. We actually put that
nickel back in the floor because that's good luck
from the carpenters. We also put in a 2013
nickel from our work. It is the only room
in the building that we were actually able to
save the original flooring. (upbeat violin music) All of the wallpaper on
this wall is original. The borders are original until
we get down to the back wall. - [Narrator] Restoration
projects don't normally start with a beekeeper
but this one did. - The inside of the walls, I mean, there were bees
kind of floating around because there were these
big beehives hiding behind the walls. So we knew, whoa, this is something we
need to deal with. - All of these walls on
the West side of the house, both stories, had bees in them. - Before we started
anything we had to deal with the bees that
had lived here for, even since uncle Art
wrote in his diary. - In Art's diaries where he
talks about hanging wallpaper in an upstairs bedroom and
he got stung three times. And so he quit hanging
wallpaper till the next day. - We had a professional
come from Dallas, Texas. What he did was take a sensor, a heat sensor and he
ran it across the wall and wherever it was the hottest that was where
the queen bee was. Here's all the bees
flying around here because they're being disturbed and they've got smoke
going everywhere to keep them calm. And we're carefully
taking off board by board 'cause we're trying to
get to the queen bee. - We got approximately
five pounds of honey out of the bee hives. - And we saved the honey
and we sold it out here. We jarred it and sold it. (upbeat trumpet music) (upbeat banjo music) In addition, there was a tree
growing out of the North wall of the old homestead building. - Primarily, it had grown
inside the walls of the building and it was definitely a
challenge to get it out. It took us some thinking
but we got it out and everything came out good. - [Narrator] Uncle Art's
journal provided a window into the past which allowed
the restoration team to faithfully reproduce
paint colors and wallpaper. - Reproduction wallpaper was
one of the biggest things because we had to find somebody in the United States, hopefully, who had hung muslin. - We did save one wall
of the last wallpaper that was put on. We had an expert from Tennessee who knew how to hang
wallpaper on muslin. - The proper method.
- Really, it's a proper method to do it over wood.
- Wood. - We're standing in the
original kitchen area of the homestead. This is the original wallpaper. We did put up protective glass
so people couldn't touch it but we were able to get
samples and send them off to match what was original. If you look up you can tell
how much they lived in here. You'll notice the original
paint was a very bright paint. We left uncleaned
portions of the ceiling up just to show what it looked like when we started the project. The original house
actually stopped right where this door opening is. In 1898 they added this
kitchen portion on. - There was on year that
a laborer came through and wanted a job and
lived in the old house and this guy painted
the kitchen blue to keep the evil spirits away 'cause he was afraid
the house was, I think, haunted or something. - During construction after
we heard this story when, you know, we'd get in bad moods,
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00:38:37,981 --> 00:38:37,949
somebody would get in a
bad mood and it's like, go stand in the kitchen. (laughing) You just need to
go to the kitchen, get your attitude cleared up
and then come back to work. (Colleen laughing) (relaxing upbeat music) (footsteps on wooden stairs) - In this area, this was the master
bedroom when Joseph and Annabel lived here. Roof leaks had actually
caused all of the ceilings and all of the wallpaper on
the sidewalls to collapse. We were again able
to save enough to match the original
wallpaper patterns. And you can see, again, in other areas so that we could tell the
story of the building, we left original wallpaper and the wood so that you could
kind of go back through time and not necessarily see a
brand new wallpapered building. The second bedroom, the smaller bedroom was
apparently Art's bedroom. It's one of the few rooms
that we were actually able to save the original linoleum
so it's quite fragile. Luckily for us the Hutchinsons
had documented plantings so we were able to replant
several of the native trees. We also were able
to take cuttings from some of the
original apple trees. (upbeat music) - [Lewis] A lot of the
logs for these later cabins were actually Cottonwood logs which came from down
here on the river. - We couldn't just go
to the lumber store and buy Cottonwood logs. So we actually got permission
from the Hutchinsons and went out on their property
and harvested Cottonwood logs to replace the bottom portion. - [Narrator] The restoration
work spanned 10 years and covered more
than 10 buildings. - There's the ranch house, saddle house, granary, uncle Art's cabin, blacksmith shop,
the milking barn, draft horse barn, chicken coupe, loafing shed, equipment shed and the privy if you consider the outhouse
one of the buildings. (upbeat instrumental music) - So we finished in 2013
with the Visitor's Center, that was our last piece. And Hutch was still doing okay. I believe that was the
last year of his life but we did a grand opening. He came, he knew exactly
what we were doing. He was honored and celebrated
and his kids were here. I think Art and
Andy were both here. - [Narrator] Wendell Doc
Hutchinson died September, 20th, 2014, just five days shy
of his 90th birthday. But he kept his
family's legacy alive and inspired others to see
the importance of this place. - And then in 2015 the
baton got officially passed from SPOT to Guidestone. And now Guidestone, Colorado, is the non-profit
organization that partners with the town of Poncha Springs
and the Hutchinson family to really oversea
all the operations and management of the
site and development of all the programs
and opportunities here. - This couple moved from
Canon City by wagon. Can you imagine that? It takes about an
hour now by car. - [Abigail] So today
the Hutchinson Homestead and Learning Center is a
place where we really aim to bring the history of
Colorado and agriculture to life through
education programs and tours and community events. (children chatting) (relaxing music) (chickens clucking) At our Pioneer Camp
some of the activities that the children get
to do include things like making homemade beeswax
candles, soap making. And old fashioned laundry which
is one of their favorites, which always makes me laugh
because most children today have no interest in helping
their parents do the laundry, right, but you give them
a washtub and a washboard and a ringer and
they are so excited and they can sit and
do laundry for hours. - I need the board. (relaxing music) - [Margaux] Faster. - It doesn't work. - [Margaux] You have
to do fast and then. - That was close. - [Margaux] Yes. - It's hard. - [Margaux] Yes, Lindel. You will see what's
happening after. - [Child] Dogs can't
have ice-cream. I feel bad for them. (children chatting) - You see, we still have salt. - Wow. - Yeah. - [Margaux] It doesn't
have time to be created. (children chatting) ♪ Well, I had a little chicken ♪ And it wouldn't lay an egg ♪ So I poured hot water
up and down his leg ♪ ♪ Oh, the little chicken cried ♪ And the little
chicken begged ♪ ♪ And the little chicken
laid me a hard boiled egg ♪ ♪ Turkey in the straw ♪ Ha, ha, ha ♪ Turkey in the hay ♪ Hay, hay, hay ♪ Stir it up, shake
it up any way at all ♪ ♪ Play a little tune called
turkey in the straw ♪ (river flowing) (relaxing upbeat music) (bus breaks releasing air) (upbeat banjo music) - What animals actually
would you be raising as a pioneer that might
be really important to have as part
of your homestead? - I'm a third grade teacher at Longfellow
Elementary in Salida and we bring them to
the Hutchinson Homestead to give them a firsthand
account of what it was like to be a pioneer who homesteaded
part of this valley. (upbeat banjo music) - This activity is packing
the wagon challenge and is what we are doing is
there's things you'd pack in the wagon over
here and you'd try to pack it in straw bales. (children chatting) (children chatting and laughing) - They used to have to
build their own barn, house and a lot of other stuff and they had to
feed the animals. - [Narrator] One of the
children's favorite places on the homestead is the tunnel that was once used to
move cattle from one side of Highway 50 to the other. (children chatting
and echoing in tunnel) - [Narrator] It's magical and
leads to acres of open space to run free. ♪ Where seldom is hear
a discouraging word ♪ ♪ And the skies are
not cloudy all day ♪ - I feel kind of connected
because there's a lot of old stuff here that
was used back then like old horse-shoesies
and axes and stuff, shovels and all
that kinds of stuff that we use at the ranch. - I like how they
built their own houses. - One of the other neat
things that we have as part of our interpretive materials
here at the homestead are called passports. We have 17 different passports and each passport represents
a different individual who has lived or worked
here over the course of that timeframe. And on one side of the
passport is a picture of that person and their name and on the opposite side is
the generation of the family. So you can learn a
little bit more and some of the kind of more personalized
stories can come out in those passports. - I'm the sixth generation
of the Hutchinson family. Annabel McPherson
is my great, great, great, great grandmother. Today's lifestyle,
the cost of living, you have to kind of have
supplemental income. People are coming for
weddings and people are coming for corporate retreats
and they love our ranch. They love the barn and
obviously that makes me money. But ranching is not
super lucrative. The lifestyle's
not for everybody. There's really a lot of
times that it's stressful. It's a lot of work but then the next day
something beautiful happens, you have healthy, wonderful baby calves running
around and the sun's shining and it makes it all worth it. The best part about the ranching
lifestyle is the seasons. You always are looking
forward to the next one. It's so great to see the
cows load up on the semis and go out on green pasture. And then it's so
great when you get to spend all summer riding
and chasing them around and they're not
here at the ranch and it's a nice break. And then it just feels
like a weight is lifted when they finally all come home and you can see
them on your fields and drive out
there and see them. Without the cycle of life
and the seasons I don't know if I would do it, you know. We still do things very similar. They summered up on
our Marshall Pass lease which is just in the
mountains here West of Salida. So they push the cattle up
from the ranch on horseback. We still do that
every June, 15th. We start them down
in Poncha Springs and it's about a 10
mile push up the hill. And then they summer
in the exact same area that the cattle summered back when Annabel was
running the place. She had to figure out
when to sell them, when to take them to market, deal with price changes, deal with years of too much snow and years of not enough
irrigation, drought years. It's very similar I
would have to say, like our lifestyles, just kind of being a
steward of the land, taking care of the grass and
taking care of the cattle who are the ones
that pay the bills and that's why we're here. The cows make the ranch
totally worthwhile. I mean, ultimately we
are just grass farmers 'cause our job is to
keep the fields green and to raise hay. (wind blowing) The cows are the reason
I'm here for sure. They're my passion. I know each one of them
and hard to sell them when they're good
cows that get old. Easy to sell the ones
that are bad mothers and break fences and stuff. (Abigail chuckling) In 2014, Bryan and I had
a little girl named Aven, so she's now four years old. And she is the
seventh generation now at the Hutchinson Ranch. She's adorable, she loves
going out on the ranch with me but she doesn't
always choose it yet. But when she's at
school or when she's with other family members
she brags about it. She says, mommy's a rancher. Her goal now is to either be
an electrician like her daddy, Bryan, or like a
rancher like mommy, or actually a dentist
which I'm like, maybe you should go
with the dentist. (Abigail laughing) I'm just kidding. (relaxing music and
crickets chirping) - The Hutchinson Homestead and
all the other great ranches we have around Colorado are
very important, I think, because of the folk
spirit of the people. That you know a lot
about the people because of their language
and their customs and their traditions and
their art and their music and the ranchers are Colorado. - This is so important
to have this here for people to come to and understand high-altitude
ranching areas. It's just huge and they're
disappearing so fast. - Our ranching is
still changing. It's getting harder and harder
to make a living ranching. - It takes money
to operate a ranch. You have to clean the ditches. You have to maintain the fields. - Without public grazing
we couldn't be ranchers. If people wanna see ranching
continue I think they need to be aware of that. - The landscape has changed. More people are moving
in for various reasons, recreation being
one, nice climate. The Colorado
experience is changing and the question is now
how do we adapt to that? We put most of the ranch here, our part here into a
conservation easement. - They have preserved
open space in perpetuity that creates a buffer between
Salida and Poncha Springs but also is a treasure, a wildlife corridor. - It's still protecting
kind of the open space between two growing towns. - If the ranchers can't be here you're gonna lose
your green open space. You're gonna lose the
history of Chaffee County. It's really important to
work with your ranchers. - The legacy is a fact that it's a material visual
reference to the past. This is an important legacy
this community wants to keep and we're glad to be the
family that supports that. - To start a homestead
you need (mumbles). (excited children chatting) - [Child] Let's go. (footsteps running in sand) - By preserving the buildings
we are preserving the stories and that's the key part. The buildings allow us to
continue to tell these stories for generations to come. - Being at the
crossroads of the Rockies it's supposed to probably
continue to get more visits and more significance as time
goes on after I pass away and my granddaughter is
hopefully running the place. It'll be seen as a much
more valuable piece of Colorado history that
people had the foresight to preserve and honor. (relaxing instrumental music) - [Wendell] Back in
the saddle again, (mumbles) friends is a friend. (Wendell laughing) (relaxing instrumental music)
