Ride to Animas Fork

The ride to Animas Fork just about killed my mother.  “If you wanted to do this kind of driving, you should have rented a Jeep,” she said, her voice a fifth higher than normal.  She squeezed the armrests of her seat in our rental minivan as my father grinned slightly and maneuvered over the rocky dirt road at ten miles an hour.  “And why is the cliff on my side?”

My brother and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes.  “You’ve got no sense of adventure, Mom,” he said.  I marveled at his courage.

“When the fuel line breaks over one of these rocks, you can make the eight mile hike back to town to get the tow truck,” she snapped tensely. In spite of her misgivings, 45 minutes later we did make it in one piece to the ghost town of Animas Fork.  Located along the river fork of the same name, this once-prosperous mining town sits at eleven thousand feet in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains.  It was the highest elevation at which a newspaper was ever printed.  It is hard to imagine now that there was ever enough life in the town to warrant the printing of a paper; harder still to imagine that electricity and a railroad once ran to it.  The promise of mining, however, was enough to draw people here until the 1920s, when it began the painful process of earning the title “ghost town.”  Remnants of the latest inhabitants still remain, most notably tattered faux brick wall coverings from the 1950s.

A brisk breeze sent us all scurrying for our windbreakers upon disembarking, despite the August date.  A handful of buildings, scattered throughout the small river valley, were alive with perhaps a dozen other tourists.
“I can’t believe we came all this way to look at some burned-out old buildings,” said my mother.  I ignored her, swiping the camera from my father.  I was determined to capture some of the soul still left in these places.
The first building I entered was the Gustafson House, built by Scandinavian immigrants Alma and Ivan Gustafson.  They were some of the few people to brave the winters of Animas Fork, when the snowdrifts were often higher than the rooftops.  I stood there on the railed porch soaking in the beautiful view: fourteen-thousand-foot mountains in the background; meadows running down to the river in the fore.  I imagined myself in Mrs. Gustafson’s place, dressed in layers of prairie dress, looking out over my home, seeing someone I knew walking down to the river to draw water.  An untied calico ribbon from my bonnet blew across my cheek; the smell of wood smoke from my stove filled my breath.  A pair of fellow tourists, chattering noisily in Spanish, broke the fragile creation of my thought.  I took a shot with the camera and went inside.

It was a large house, with six or seven rooms (even an “inhouse”).  I skirted holes in the floorboards as I made my way towards the back.  A bit to my surprise, I could neither hear nor see anyone else from the very last room.  I rested my arms on the window ledge.  It still sported some frayed semblance of a screen.  I looked out at the two-story house just across the way—the “Bay Window House,” as it was known. 

“Mrs. Gustafson, are those new draperies you have?” called Mrs. Braddert from the second story of her home.

“Yes, zey vere sheept een on zee train from Deenver,” Mrs. Gustafson shouted proudly out of her window.  “I haf been saving for dem.  Vould you like to come see?”  Mrs. Gustafson liked to invite her neighbor over as often as possible ever since Mrs. Braddert’s husband had been lost in the mine cave-in last year.  With four children to take care of, the poor woman needed a shoulder to lean on.

“Oh, yes, I’ll be right down!”  Mrs. Braddert disappeared from the window.

Minutes later, an older man with a John Deere cap helped his wife out of the gaping hole where the Bay Window House’s front door had once hung.  I brushed away the window screen fibers clinging to my forearm and left the house to find the rest of my family.

We toured several more buildings, all alike and all different.  I photographed peeling layers of burlap-and-paper insulation, sunlight filtering through cracks in planked walls, and leaning doorways that had once framed someone’s life.

“Taking pictures of old burnt boards?” asked Mom from behind me.

I simply shrugged.  “Someone has to do it.” She merely smiled and shook her head.  Crazy girl.

Finally I headed over to the Bay Window House.  Better kept than the other buildings, it was the only two-story in the area.  Something about the society in which it existed can be inferred from the fact that it had a reputation for an architectural feature as simple as a bay window.  I eyed the ancient railless staircase suspiciously.  Curiosity, however, won out over caution, and I ventured up the creaky passage.  At the top of the stairs was a brickwork duct, once connected to the potbellied stove on the lower level, that carried the stove’s warmth to the upper. I wandered through a handful of rooms before I came to the one that bore the house’s namesake.  The window itself looked out over the Animas River.  The mountains rose abruptly in the near distance, with the mine that gave the town its life visible on the farthest one.  I wondered what kind of room this had been.  It certainly must have been one to show off, to have visitors in; housing the family’s most prized possessions to be gazed at with admiration.  There might have been a colorful rug, skillfully woven by and cheaply bought from the local American Indians.  Perhaps some fancy candelabras graced the walls, a small table may have held a dearly purchased phonograph, a couple of carven chairs, a small upholstered sofa.  Just the sort of place a mischievous child could wreak havoc in.

Nathaniel Braddert clapped his hand over his mouth as the wax broke off in his fingers.  He had only touched the half-melted candle gently because the deep red wax was so pretty.  Now he would get a spanking from his father and possibly bed without dinner for being in the parlor without permission.  He was in the process of attempting, in his seven-year-old wisdom, to stick the dripping back onto the candle when he saw a man running down the hill.  He was shouting something Nathaniel could not make out, but from the tone he knew something was wrong.  Suddenly heedless to the trouble would be in, he dropped the wax and ran through the house.

“Mother, Mother! There is a man from the mine running this way and shouting!”  His sisters jumped up to run with him toward the door when he passed them at their sewing.  As they burst together out the front door, Nathaniel saw there had been no need to alert their mother.  She had been drawing water at the river and was now flying up the hill toward the man, skirts hitched up and apron flapping wildly.  They watched their mother grab the man by the arm as he passed, jerking him to a halt.  Both gasped for breath.  The man gesticulated wildly up the hill.  Nathaniel felt his throat close up as his mother froze with the news, then fell on the man’s shoulder and began to sob.  The man held her awkwardly, yet sympathetically.  He, too, had lost a spouse once.

My father walked up behind me.  “Wow, that’s some view, huh?”

I blinked and took a deep breath. “Yeah, gorgeous.”

“You taken enough pictures?  Mom wants to go soon because it’s starting to look like rain.”  He shook his head.  “I’d like to come back someday, rent a Jeep and go farther up the road; see some more stuff.”

“That’d be good,” I said.  “Yeah, I’m ready.”

By the time we got back to our car, it was the only one left in the lot; we the only people.  I stood outside my door a moment before getting in, staring back at the empty, soulful windows that had seen so much.  It seemed almost a shame to relegate them to a tourist attraction, to be put up for viewing by people who considered them merely a curiosity to be explored and forgotten, not understood and appreciated.  A cool mountain breeze blew through the wildflowers as it had blown through the curtains of the houses so long ago.  Then I got in my 21-st century vehicle to leave the town watching over its riverbanks and memories.

There are spirits in Animas Fork.  Not the ghosts of people long dead, but the spirits now too rarely felt, of fortitude and perseverance, grit and bone-breaking hard work, true friendship and dedication.  These are the things Animas Fork has preserved for so long and will continue to share with those willing to stand a moment in the shadows of the pioneers.