PINE
BROOK, MYTHICO-PRIMEVAL
By Peter D. Goldfinch
When one looks
out over the hills of Pine Brook, it is easy to wonder how they appeared in
an earlier time. And perhaps one might indulge in the human tendency to
idealize the past. Was it like The Forest Primeval, or The Peaceable
Kingdom, innocent and pristine prior to despoliation by the
European-Americans? Woodlands of tall Ponderosas bordering on luxuriant
grasslands filled with wildflowers, populated by stately elk, deer,
occasionally some bison, antelope, American Indians passing through, wolves,
bear, all kinds of birds…the whole shot. Your humble correspondent recently
succumbed to such a naïve, bird-brained fantasy, until the Voice of Reason
suggested a trip to the library for a sense of the Pine Brook foothills
flora and fauna of a century ago. The mythic image was shattered by a story
of deforestation and slaughter which would have put one of your modern day
environmentalists on a life-support system.
The decline of
the mammal population began as early as 1811-11817 when Missouri River
beaver trappers worked the front range. With the gold rush of 1859 came the
European-American hordes, the beginnings of Boulder
Town,
and the onset of changes due to heavy ecosystem use. Until that time there
were millions of bison and antelope on the plains, and some could be seen in
the foothills. Gray wolves, grizzly bear, elk and mule deer had flourished
at the intersection of plains and mountains in the Boulder are.
In 1860, the
Siberian-Americans (Arapahos) held their last antelope hunt, with thousands
of pronghorns killed near the settlement of Valmont – the last such harvest
in the Boulder valley. The Arapahos themselves were “harvested” in the Sand
Creek Massacre of November 9, 1865, and never returned to their ancestral
homeland in Colorado. By 1918 there were only 1000 pronghorns in Colorado.
Elk, which had formerly wintered in the grasslands near the mountains, were
mostly exterminated by the late 1880’s. The last plains bison in
Colorado
was killed in 1888. Elk and deer were hunted for food. Professional
hunters provided venison to numerous front range mining camps, which
peppered the canyons and hillsides. A biological survey of Colorado in 1906
reported no mule deer to be found in Boulder and Larimer counties.
An observer in
Pine Brook in 1890 would have noted few or none of the aboriginal four-footeds
and two-footeds, but would have seen and heard many cows and bulls. The
place was crawling with cattle, as ranging on the plains gave way to
ranching in the foothills. The Maxwell Brothers Registered Herefords, for
example, ran cattle all the way up Two Mile Creek over the area that is now
Pine
Brook
Hills.
Their red brick mansion, built near that creek by J.P. Maxwell in 1906,
still stands, overlooking Wonderland Hills. Leonard Wittemyer homesteaded
most of Sunshine
Canyon,
and even in 1995 there were briefly some cattle on that property. The
Betassos had 712 acres near the present Preserve, and there were others, as
well. Haying was done in the meadows. Barbed wire fences criss-crossed the
area; one can still encounter some of their remnants.
Many canyons and
hillsides resembled terrain pounded by bombs and artillery in wars.
Extensive logging had eliminated most of the mature timber in Boulder
County,
to provide for mine props, fuel, town and railroad construction. Much of
what wasn’t clear-cut was burned off, accidentally or intentionally. Some
prospectors set fires to clear the vegetation so they could search for
minerals more easily. In 1871, for example, there were 51 indictments for
illegal fires in Boulder
County.
You can see a vivid representation of the forest cover, then and now, in The
Colorado Front Range, by T. Veblen and D. Lorenz, using the technique of
repeat photography from the original camera position. In paired photos
taken at intervals of 75 to 120 years, a dramatic increase in Ponderosa in
the lower foothills is apparent, from bleak and blasted in the originals to
the green, well-forested contemporary views, reflecting fire control since
the 1920’s, very little logging since the 1960’s, and, of course, no more
mining operations chewing up the landscape.
And, with all of
this, various foreign species entered into the ecology, like the starlings
imported from England via New York City in 1890. Downy Brome, or Cheatgrass,
came from the Mediterranean area as a shipping contaminant, first appearing
near Denver and now extending across the US. We even had wild donkeys in
the 1920’s, released when mines farther up the canyons closed.
So, it seems
that a century ago was no Golden Age of Nature in the foothills. More like
a war zone in some regards. The Ponderosas and some wild animals are coming
back vigorously, others never to return. No more cows mooing, bulls
bellowing. Maybe Paradise is now.
Maybe never.
From
The Pine Brook Press, 1994 |
