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PAGOSA PAST: Moving to Pagosa |
Jerry Driesens | 1/2/08
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The Post has invited longtime resident Jerry Driesens to share some (true) stories that reflect what Pagosa was like "when all of us urban refugees and 'gol durn REsorters' began descending on the area, and inevitably began changing it despite the fact that many of us would have liked to have closed the gate right after we, ourselves, had gotten in."
I think most of Pagosa’s natives would agree that to barely make it into the category known as an 'oldtimer,' one would at least have to have lived here when the San Juan Lumber Company operated the big sawmill at the junction of highways 160 and 84 (the Y).
The mill employed 300 people, which was more than the next four largest employers combined; which in those days would be, in order, the school district, the county, the forest service and the town. Timber and ranching pretty much defined the local economy, but there was significant tourism during hunting season and a little during the summer. Wolf Creek Ski area did not get its first chairlift until 1974. There was no radio station, no fast food restaurants, no convenience stores ( unless you count the Wayside Grocery (where Let it Fly is now) or Staner’s market (east of Hunan's). There was one doctor, one dentist and one lawyer.
There was not a single traffic signal in the entire county, yet.
 So, if that be the criteria, I guess I barely get to be an oldtimer. A purist might argue that the coming of the large development west of town — that we now call Pagosa Lakes — marked the end of the old era. There was, however, a fairly lengthy transition period before all the development of and in the Pagosa Lakes subdivisions began to play a significant economic role in Archuleta County.
When my wife, Joanie, and I arrived in 1975, there were just 38 homes built in all of Pagosa Lakes, known then as Pagosa in Colorado or as locals referred to it, the Eaton Development. The construction of the Pagosa Lodge had begun in 1973 and it had just opened in 1974. Ralph Eaton had bought out Art Linkletter and John Cameron Swayzee — the original fanancers of the Pagosa Lodge — in 1969, and greatly expanded his vision for the “new town” he hoped to plant there by buying much more land from ranchers John Stevens and Calvin Perkins.
Before I attempt to regale you with stories entitled: Farmer(s) Brown, Uncle John Steven, Build My Own Log Home, Elk Hunting, Cutting Firewood, Learning to Snowboard, Hossick Lake, Snowday — and others I have yet to write— I'd like to begin with how I got to live here in the first place. I suspect the stories to follow will be more entertaining, but let us start at my Pagosa beginning.
I was finishing my masters degree and graduate assistantship in the history department at Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff, while interviewing for teaching positions in the spring of 1975. An opening for a junior high social studies and crafts teacher with mandatory coaching in Pagosa Springs was posted on the bulletin board of the university’s Placement Office. Joanie and I had actually looked at land here in 1972. I had known Ralph Eaton from my high school days and was aware of the “new town” he was trying to plant west of Pagosa Springs. She and I had also backpacked the summer before in the Weminuche. But we never dreamed that we would “get to live” here someday. (That is how we still feel to this day!)
I had sent in my professional file from NAU, which included my transcripts, student teaching evaluation from Flagstaff High School and references from professors and previous employers. I was somewhat bewildered when I had received a little slip of paper from the Archuleta school district thanking me for my interest in their school system, but that they did not have any openings in my teaching areas at that time. I had explained that while I did not have a teaching minor in Art, I could get one by taking only two more classes that summer. I had also let them know that we were planning on coming through town in a couple weeks enroute to the San Juan Ranch located between Creede and Lake City to do a little fishing with Dr. David K. Strate, my graduate assistant advisor and friend, who owned the ranch.
Imagine my surprise to awakened by a phone call from Terry Alley, who was the principal of the Pagosa Springs Middle School at that time. He wanted to know if we were still planning to come through town in a couple days. He said he had been reading my resume, etc. and thought I might be a perfect fit for the opening they had for a 7th grade Colorado History teacher, a 7th and 8th grade Crafts teacher. He said I would have to coach at least two sports out of the three they needed coaches for: football , basketball and track.
If I was willing to coach all three – he thought it might be a slam dunk. Three sports seemed a little overwhelming for a first year teaching experience, but I was starting to get my hopes up. He asked me what time I would like to interview. I asked him what time the office opened. He told me 8:30am. I told him I didn’t want to sound overeager, but how about 8:00am?
Joanie and I stayed at a motel in Durango that Wednesday night before the interview. I could hardly sleep! This seemed to good to be true. Could this even be God’s will? We got down on our knees and prayed. I actually told God that if He didn’t want me to have this job in Pagosa, then for Him to please not let them offer it to me, because, if they did, I was going to take it.
I didn’t mean it flippantly either; it’s just that I had been turned down for so many jobs that I was well qualified for, that I was getting quite discouraged. It seems that Social Studies and Mens Physical Education had become the single most oversupplied major and minor. I guess all the draft dodgers finally had to declare a major and a minor to keep their deferments during the draft. (I had decided four years in the Coast Guard was a better way to fulfill my obligation to my country and give me four more years to figure out what I really wanted to do.)
Mr. Alley had told me he had 200 applications for this job. So for God to not let them offer me the job seemed much easier than having them offer it to me, but this type of thinking certainly revealed more of a weakness in my theology than anything else.
I had shaved my beard for earlier interviews, and put on a sport coat and tie. Joanie stayed in the car parked out on Main Street in front of the school. Mr. Alley greeted me and informed me that he had gone through the pile of rejected applications as well as the ones with the correct majors and minors. He told me that while the base pay was $7450, I would start at $8250 since I had a masters degree which represented 4 or 5 steps above the base. Plus I would get $150 extra for each sport I coached. I suggested that football and basketball would be a good start for me since I had played both of those in high school. I told him that I had never run track officially, although a couple times I did come over from baseball practice and run the high hurdles in my baseball cleats. I was the decathlon champion of my class each year and of the whole school my senior year – much to the chagrin of the “ track men” of my high school, who looked with disdain upon us “baseball boys.” But baseball was my main sport and I would end up being the Pagosa Springs High School head baseball coach a few years later.
Mr. Alley proceeded to take me around and introduce me to the custodian, librarian and cafeteria workers. Wow, he’s serious! Then I had to go and meet the Superintendent, Abner Hahn. Mr. Hahn was pretty gruff. In fact, when he introduced himself, I thought he'd said, 'Admiral Hahn.'
Maybe it should have been.
He checked out my file and said, “ Mr. Driesens, it says here that you’re married. Where’s your wife? We don’t hire anybody without talking to their wife, especially if they’re from Arizona.” It seems they had had had a heck of a winter the past school year, (you newcomers better pray we don’t have any more of those — plus the longer us oldtimers have been here, the worse those winters were!) and a couple teachers from Phoenix couldn’t handle it, broke their contracts and left in February.
I told him that Joanie was out in the car and he said, ”Bring her in, Sonny.” I told him that she was in her jeans and hiking boots because we were headed 20 miles upriver from Creede to go fishing with Dr. Strate. He asked, “Do we look like we care? Bring her in!” He proceeded to tell Joanie how much she would not like it here — that there was nothing to do, the winters were hard and some men liked it but not women. She informed him that she was from Michigan and that Pagosa winters could not be that much more severe than Flagstaff and that in the 3 years we had lived in Flag she found the winters to be quite mild and sunny compared to Michigan.
She must have convinced him that she would “fit in” here in Pagosa with our love of the outdoors, fishing, backpacking, skiing, ice skating, photography, etc. I guess he also liked her spunk because when he found out what kind of work experience she’d had, he immediately hollered over to Mamie Lynch, the Business Manager, to announce that he’d “found just the girl” for the new bookkeeping position they’d just opened. He looked at me and said, “The school board will have to approve your contract, Sonny, but your wife already has a job!”
Mr. Alley then suggested that if we came to work in Pagosa that we’d probably have to buy a house. He said there were very few rentals available and when they did come up they were usually either very high rent, or barely fit to live in. He said that he did not have a real estate license (watch out for those guys), but he was aware of a couple houses in town that could be bought for around $29,500.
I thought, BUY? Are you kidding me? You mean instant middle class? I shaved my beard, now I’m getting a real job, and I have to buy a house, too? What will my friends think? Joanie reported that while she waited so long for me out in the car, she took a stroll down Main Street and found the Pagosa Springs SUN office and being a Thursday, the newspaper was hot off the press. She had looked in the classified section under Rentals and there was nothing, not even one listed. After driving around with Mr. Alley to look at the outside of the two homes for sale (which we didn’t like and frankly $29,500 scared us), we returned to the office.
While we were there, Peggy Laverty called out of the blue and asked Peggy Cooper, Mr. Hahn’s secretary, if the school had any employees that would like to rent a cabin on the bluff of the San Juan River for $100 per month. It seemed that they didn’t like to rent to San Juan Lumber sawmill employees, because the mill usually ran out of saw logs in late winter and would lay off most of the workers until they could get back into the cutting areas in the national forest the next summer. The unemployment checks took several weeks or months to materialize and in the meantime, they received no rent and were too kind hearted to evict people, especially in the cold. School employees, on the other hand, received a paycheck 12 months a year – even those of us who only worked 9 months.
We drove out that sunny May day in 1975 and told Ms. Laverty that we loved the cabin but would not be returning until late August because I had to take some arts and crafts classes for another teaching minor and I had to learn to weave and macramé since Weaving and Macramé was the name of one of the classes I was to teach. ( Did I say real job?) She told us that would be just fine and to write her a check for $100 and she would hold it for us and apply it as September rent. (Wow, Lord, how did my prayer of little faith go, again?)
I was trained to teach in junior college and was now taking a job teaching junior high. Hey, at least I got the junior part right, and we were going to get to live here!
Yay, God!
Longtime Pagosa Springs resident Jerry Driesens is the broker owner of Jerry Driesens Real Estate. He has been sharing his memories of life in Pagosa Springs during the last quarter of the 20th century, in a series of Post articles. You can visit his website at pagosare.com. |
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