People
Collection for person entities.
Pages
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- Hap Harris
- An early Mesa County band leader. His band played dances all over the area. According to Richard “Dick” Williams, who played with Harris as a drummer, Harris could put together a “good band,” but demand for his services were so great that he often had two or three different bands that were capable of playing simultaneous concerts.
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- Harald Pop Sorensen
- First name spelled Harold in some sources
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- Hardy Decker
- A Chief of Police in early Mesa County. He was known to notify a member of the Handy Chapel if an African American came into the county and needed assistance.
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- Harg Eskridge
- A member of the Stockton-Eskridge Gang, which was a criminal gang based in Durango, Colorado. They were cattle rustlers.
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- Harley Tripp
- Contributor to "The place they like best", local historian involved in historic preservation. (source: The place they like best A Gunnison Valley Journal.)
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- Harold "Red" Rowland
- Peggy Rowland, one of Aspen's last remaining ties to its mining heyday and a woman revered for her pleasant nature. She was born in 1915, so she didn't have direct knowledge of Aspen's silver mining era in the 1880s and 1890s. But both sets of her grandparents were in Aspen from near its founding as a silver camp, so she heard lots of direct accounts about the old days. Her maternal grandfather was Al S. Lamb, who came to Aspen in its infancy in 1880 and established a drug store on Hyman Avenue, according to an interview with Peggy in the book, Aspen: The Quiet Years. Her grandfather grubstaked miners during the boom and continued to operate the store well after the bust of 1893. Her grandparents on her dad's side of the family also came to Aspen in the 1880s. Her dad, Ed Cooper, had a bookstore in the Wheeler Block building. Peggy was born in Aspen but her family moved to Denver in 1919 because her dad couldn't make a living with his store in the dying town. "They never really wanted to leave Aspen," said Roine St. Andre, Peggy's daughter. Peggy returned every summer to hang out with her grandparents and ride horses. She recalled in The Quiet Years that her grandpa operated a barter system at his store. He traded goods for everything from eggs to horses for use when Peggy visited. Harold "Red" Rowland was the son of a miner, and grew up in Aspen working on and off for the Midnight Mine. He also worked on a water diversion tunnel near Aspen and did occasional work on ranches in the valley before leaving town in 1939 for more consistent work in Denver. During Ruth's summer visits to Aspen, she met Red and they married in 1939. Their hearts belonged to Aspen, however, and they returned in 1946. Red started working for the Aspen Skiing Corp where he had a hand in the construction of nearly all of the original chairlifts on Aspen Mountain. He eventually became vice president of construction for the company. Red retired in 1977 and passed away in 1987. Friends recalled Peggy as a woman who loved the outdoors, an excellent gardener and an enjoyable person to be around. Peggy didn't take up skiing until she was in her 40s, but she was hooked, and skied regularly into the mid-1980s. She was also an avid equestrian. She and Red regularly took pack trips to various parts of the backcountry around Aspen. A friend kidded Peggy about her and Red being Aspen's original hippies because they rode their horses up to their wedding at Maroon Lake in 1939. Peggy had a life-long interest in education. She earned her degree in home economics from Colorado State University. After she raised her four kids in Aspen, she taught school and was the Pitkin County superintendent of schools for several years. She was also active in the Episcopal Church and helped form it in Aspen. Peggy also was a longtime member of the Philanthropical Education Organization, one of Aspen's most enduring, if somewhat obscure organizations. The Aspen chapter was chartered in 1917 with Peggy's mother one of the first members, according to a 1975 article in The Aspen Times by Mary Eshbaugh Hayes. She remained active in the philanthropic organization until recent years, Zanin said. Peggy also kept in touch with friends through a bridge club. The members would take turns hosting one another at their homes, and Peggy dazzled other members with her flower garden. "She loved her garden," St. Andre said. "She kept at it " down on her knees weeding " into her 80s." She and Red moved roughly 30 years ago to Shady Lane from the house at Francis and First that had been in the Rowland family since about 1900. St. Andre said her mom didn't consider leaving Aspen after Red died and despite all the changes she witnessed. "We have the nicest place in Aspen," St. Andre said. "Her roots were here. Why would you want to leave Aspen?" She recalled that her father always said, "I'd rather be a fire hydrant in Aspen than a millionaire anywhere else." She believes her mom subscribed to that theory as well. Excerpted from The Aspen Times and Living it Up in Aspen: Post-war America, Ski Town Culture, and the New Western Dream, 1945-1975 by Edward Duke Richey
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- Harold "Whit" Whitcomb
- Dr. Harold Whitcomb, known affectionately as “Dr. Whit,” died at his home on March 2, 2006. He was 79 years old.Dr. Whit was born on Jan. 30, 1927 in Harrisburg, Pa. He attended Mercersburg Academy, Haverford College and Temple Medical School. He played college basketball and football, and the 1948 Philadelphia Debutante list described him as “eligible, owns tuxedo, can dance and converse.” His college years were interrupted by two years of duty in the Navy during World War II. It was there he picked up a book on human anatomy, immersed himself in it and determined to become a doctor. In 1953 Whit, his first wife, Yolande Shaw, and his two children, Michael and Deirdre, moved to Denver to begin his medical internship. He was chief resident in internal medicine at the University of Colorado medical school in 1958-59. That year, his sister, Martie Sterling, and brother-in-law, Ken, persuaded him to move with his children to Aspen and combine family forces at the Heatherbed Lodge. He commuted to a staff position at the VA Hospital in Grand Junction until Dr. Bob Oden stopped him in Sardy’s Hardware Store one day to ask him to join the Aspen Clinic.In Aspen, Dr. Whitcomb was always a presence. A patient gave him a full-length, oversized raccoon coat. Each winter he appeared around town like an amiable Kodiak bear. He led parades, made house calls and presided at hospital benefit dinners. In his office he greeted the sick with hugs – or sometimes an impromptu dance, always with a listening ear and open heart.Music was his soul food: concerts in the music tent, duets at home. He loved to sing, dance, play his bass. In the early years, on a rare night off, he could be found at the Red Onion displaying his exuberant jitterbug style. He even appeared in a special Wheeler Opera House performance of “Sunday in the Park with Harold” and later in the musical adaptation of “The Quiet Years.” He owned a beautiful baritone voice and could sing Vaughn Monroe classics better than Vaughn. But jazz was his passion. In 1967 he co-hosted the first jazz festival at the Hotel Jerome, featuring Count Basie, and Cal Tjader. He played his familiar red and white bass on stage at the Red Onion with the Eric Lawrence Trio, with the Dirty Old Men and later with Walt Smith and Friends at the Sopris Restaurant. In 1968 Whit married Polly Bent and became father to her two little girls, Verena and Thea. In 1970, their son Oliver was born. Whit and Polly’s life together was filled with adventure, sharing with each other their enthusiasm for wilderness. The family enjoyed hiking in the mountains and deserts and rafting many of the rivers of the West.Dr. Whitcomb was not an ordinary M.D. He was a true healer. Although trained traditionally as an internist, he was far ahead of his time, mixing healthy doses of alternative medicine, vitamins and bioenergetics into his practice. Forty-five years ago he was the rare physician who invited fathers into the delivery room, and before Aspen had its first veterinarian, he doctored numerous dogs, cats, horses and mules, often stepping outside the back door of the Aspen Clinic to treat an animal emergency. He rarely met a person he didn’t like – or who didn’t return the sentiment. He especially loved Aspen’s old ranchers and miners, and spent hours listening to their stories. He was elected Pitkin County coroner in 1970, a position he held for 12 years, and was an Aspen Valley Hospital Board member for another 12. He co-founded the Aspen Skiers Educational Fund and was an executive committee member of the Center for Frontier Sciences at Temple University. In 1987, after witnessing the departure of many of Aspen’s beloved old-timers, he began lobbying the hospital for an assisted living center. In 1990 the doors of the Castle Creek Terrace Assisted Living Center opened, and Dr. Whit became the medical director. In 2000 he was inducted into the Aspen Hall of Fame. Dr. Whitcomb is survived by his wife, Polly, and his children: Michael Whitcomb of Denver, Deirdre (“Dede”) Morgan of Brawley, Calif., Dorothea Bent of Basalt and Oliver Whitcomb of Hailey, Idaho; his sister, Martie Sterling of Tucson, Ariz; brother, Roger Whitcomb of Emmaus, Pa. and grandchildren Yolande, Peter, Isabel, Wheeler, Sutton, Austin, Tristan and Nikita.In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Pitkin County Senior Services, 0275 Castle Creek Road, Aspen.The public is invited to a memorial service and celebration Saturday, March 11 at 4 p.m. at the Hotel Jerome. The Aspen Time March 3 2006
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- Harold Albert Stafford
- He was born in Decatur, Illinois to William Nelson Stafford and Amelia Anthony (Schutt) Stafford. The 1910 US Census record shows that the family had moved to Yuma, Colorado by the time Harold was four. There, his father and mother homesteaded. Harold came to Western Colorado in 1931, where he worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps in CCC camp number 2 near Glade Park, helping to build Rim Rock Drive over the Colorado National Monument. He married Antoinette Sodja in Mesa County on April 3, 1985. The 1950 Census shows them living in Grand Junction with their six children. The census lists his occupation as a coal hauler for a lumber company. He also worked as a fireman for the Uintah Railway.