Narrative of the Resolution Mountain Real Estate Frisco Properties
The history of the Resolution Mountain Real Estate Frisco Properties dates back to the settlement of Summit county back in the early 1800s. The first permanent residents of Summit county area were trappers and mountain men, amongst them a man named Henry Wallace. Henry was a lifelong Rocky Mountain trapper, found a spot at the base of Buffalo Mountain served by a small creek offshoot of Meadow Creek and Lily Pad Lake, and set up a permanent camp. This site would eventually become known as Resolution Placer. Back then most inhabitants of Summit County were seasonal or transient, either making their way back down to Denver and Colorado Springs for the winter or moving on to less severe weather valleys. This served the stoic Wallace just fine as his view of people was bothersome at best. Henry saw flecks of gold in the stream bed next to his camp, but dismissed doing anything more about it on the basis that trapping was his trade and mining was “just too damn much work.” As more people began migrating up into the mountains (a couple dozen people) and the wildlife diminished the antisocial Wallace abandoned Frisco and headed north to where he could find more wilderness.
Eventually by the mid-1800s true permanent settlers made Summit County home. Homesteaders and Ranchers carved out their land, amongst them the Dooley Family. Orson Dooley established his homestead around where Henry Wallace set up his camp and extended it all the way to the rocky base of Buffalo Mountain. With a stunning elevated view of Ten Mile Creek and the growing Main Street of the newly named town of Frisco (so named as a joke in reference to the big city of San Francisco) Dooley became a prominent early citizen. On a winter trip down to Denver Orson met a young typist at the Denver and Pacific Railway and Telegraph Company named Julia Bartram and convinced her to marry and move to Frisco.
The Dooley family settled in and a few years later Julia appealed to her husband to help out her destitute older brother Henry. Henry “Hank” Bartram was a down on his luck, habitual gambler with a nasty temperament and reputation in Denver for fighting and getting thrown in the drunk tank. Dooley offered Hank ranch- hand work and Hank agreed, understanding that he was banned from almost all saloons, poker halls, and brothels on the Front Range anyway. After only a few days in the main house Hank stormed out and moved into the dilapidated remains of Henry Wallace’s shack. Not too long after that Hank stopped doing any of the normal hard work that everyone did on the ranch. The Dooleys did not have the heart to kick him off the property so they left him to himself. Hank had saved a few of the dollars Dooley paid him and promptly lost it all in card games in Breckenridge and Silverthorne.
The saloons and poker rooms in Summit County were full of the new wave of settlers to the High Country- miners. Hank heard stories of gold nuggets falling out of the ground and huge swaths of silver just below the surface and decided the was going to get in on the rush. He knew his brother in law was only concerned with ranching so Hank figured he could mine all of the easy ore without having to share. Not knowing where to start, a drunk Hank staggered out of his cabin looking for nuggets. He made it down the placer outside his shack a bit (because bourbon was a downhill kind of drink) and couldn’t find any of the fist sized chunks of gold he was sure was there. He found flakes of gold here and there around the stream and tried to trace them to the motherlode without success. Eventually Hank stumbled around to a trickle of water coming out of the hillside where he thought the gold had to be and sat there staring at it. This spot on this hill just above his shack would become known as Resolution Ridge.
In the days and weeks that followed Hank raided his brother in law’s barn for tools and picks and shovels, salivating in the riches he was going to plunder. It was hard for the Dooleys to miss what Hank was up to but the gentle Julia felt it might be good to let him scratch around and Orson knew it wasn’t worth the fight to try to get his broken tools back. Hank began digging into the hillside where the current Old Portal Building is on Resolution Ridge. Not knowing whether to dig down or across Hank chose horizontal for no other reason other than it was too hard to lift rocks up out of a shaft. Hank hacked together a lean-to roof of hand hewn timbers over the entrance so that he could sort his riches without anyone seeing.
With more determination than anyone thought, Hank burrowed into the hill for his spoils. Three or four times he was sure he hit it big in a new vein, and rushed down into the town assay office clutching a chunk of rock, only to be devastated when it was proven to be pyrite, fools gold. A long time passed, more false lodes signaled, and, lo and behold, much to everyone’s surprise- as Hank Bartram had become known as the pitiful drunk who didn’t know where or how to mine- Hank finally hit a large quartz deposit. Quartz often signals gold and sometimes has gold is veined into it. As Hank dug deeper he found exactly this, gold veined into the quartz he was mining. He had become dangerously low on sour mash and other necessities so after a few loads of the gold veined quartz he stopped, smashed and crushed the small amount of quartz to extract the gold, and cashed it in. Knowing he was about to be wildly rich Hank went straight to the saloons to tie on a well deserved reward. During his weeklong celebration and alcohol inspired generosity Hank romanced Ruby Felder, the waitress at a basement bar in Dillon and herself known to imbibe. Ruby for her part saw a chance to hitch her wagon to a newly wealthy and generous man and a way out of the sawdust covered and foul smelling bar.
When the money finally ran out and the hangover subsided Hank went back to his quartz lode to pull out his vast riches. Only a few feet from where he previously stopped the vein dried out entirely. Hank chopped around furiously trying to pick it back up but the deposit had fully petered out. Devastated Hank quit and shut himself into his cabin for weeks nursing his sore hands and beaten spirit. Eventually Ruby Felder made her way up to Hank’s place with news that she was pregnant. What was a thoroughly defeated Hank Bartram did his best to rally for his soon to be child. Ruby stayed in Dillon and had no interest in marriage to Hank. Hank managed to find a reserve within himself to try to provide for his new family and worked the mine hard. After a while and more of the same failure he just could not do it any longer. He bought a bottle of whiskey with his last dimes, waded into the Blue River, and let it sweep him down where he hoped it would take him to the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon, and ultimately the Sea of Cortez.
Hank had left Ruby and his baby his stake in the mine. Ruby soon gave birth to Henry Bartram jr in Dillon. The Gold Rush ended and the bustling mining towns like Parkville, Masontown, St Johns, Dyersville, and Kokomo all died off. Ruby got sick and died of tuberculosis when Henry was young. After Ruby’s death the Dooleys deeded Hank’s one acre mine and cabin to Henry. Henry lived with local townspeople until he was old enough to be on his own, which in that time was still very young. After that Henry lit off to all corners of Colorado fighting in the Native American skirmishes, working railroads, lumbering, ranching, mining coal, and generally drifting. He rarely made it home and when he did would not stay for long. While cordial, the next generation of Dooleys and Henry did not become close.
After many years Henry came back to Frisco permanently. Henry was a leather tough man made harder by the jobs, experiences, individuals, and seasons he had endured. Unlike his wretched father people knew enough not to risk getting on the bad side of Henry. He was always in nasty company, the rough faces constantly changing. Nobody really knew what he did but everyone in town was scared enough to suspect it was of an outlaw nature. He demolished the old cabin at Resolution Placer and rebuilt it to accommodate many. Henry’s home became known as a haven for brigands, a hideout for unsavory characters, a base of operations for the Henry’s outfit. Sometimes a crew would come together over the course of a few weeks, disappear for a couple of days, show back up all at once in a frenzy, then filter out. Nothing illegal ever happened in Frisco itself but when heists, robberies, and holdups occurred in Colorado Summit County locals suspected Henry. The local sheriff had no reason to check on the hideout and frankly was scared to do so.
One year a gang assembled, took off quietly in the night, and were ever heard from again, including Henry. Months later came news that a rail shipment of gold leaving Victor had been hijacked by four men. The four were killed but the five chests of bullion stolen were never recovered. No one ever showed up at Henry Bartram’s place in Frisco again. The properties stood vacant and unused for years.
The mining industry picked back up in the first part of 1900s and activity sprung up at Hank’s old mine at Resolution Ridge. Technology had increased and big mining companies took over the industry from individual miners in the High Country. A company called Resolution Mountain Mining bought Resolution Ridge. Resolution Mountain Mining saw the opportunity old Hank had missed in his little operation. A large deposit of gold was present just beyond the Old Portal Building and the company built a Headgear operation to get to it. They drilled an adit deep into the living rock leaving the natural climbing ridge exposed at the top of the operation. They hit the vein and found that it was more expansive than they thought and travelled down the slope far enough to warrant building a main operations building, processing plant, assay office, and dry house downslope to capture all of the deposit. The motherlode Hank had been searching for was there all along. Resolution Mountain Mining made millions.
With this new strike came a mini rush to the Frisco area, claims were staked all around the base of Buffalo Mountain and in Officers Gulch up Ten Mile Creek. Resolution Mountain Mining researched the area, staked additional claims, and carved out a company town in the enclave with the dozens of miners on the payroll. Five claims down the road from Resolution Ridge their next bonanza came in. Drilling straight down they found a huge stope of gold that exceeded even that of Resolution Ridge, and aptly named this claim Resolution Stope. A modern mine skip elevator was built directly over the deposit, the processing plant attached to its back, and the warehouse, dry house, offices, and mill extended off to the sides. Resolution Stope became one of the most advanced and richest claims ever in Summit County history.
Resolution Placer, Resolution Ridge, and Resolution Stope are all now owned by Resolution Mountain Real Estate and have been built to incorporate the incredible history of Summit County, Colorado, and the American West. Built with the narrative above as a backstory to each property Resolution Mountain Real Estate owns shows the richness and character inherent in the development and construction of this enclave. The final product has tried to represent and respect this history while incorporating 21st century finishes and conveniences into these fantastic homes. Hopefully you find these properties as inspiring as we do.
Resolution Mountain Real Estate
Copyright 2015