SPEAKER_04 0:00

BBHD, the Frequency. Good morning, Boulder County. It's Wednesday, May 6th. I'm your host, Shea Castle. And this is The Frequency, a weekly local podcast covering the news, events, and voices shaping the Boulder Valley. Did you know Tony Hawk once landed a McTwist at Netherlands Skate Park, which he also helps pay for and name? In the May edition of Caribou Current, Tyler Hickman tells the story of mountain skate culture, while editor Jesse Gray profiles CU's best football team, Emo Legends American Football, whose drummer is a CU Boulder professor. In just a minute, we'll hear my contribution to this month's Caribou Current about Ward's last surviving hotel and the women bringing it back to life. But first, here are the headlines.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Mining's gone through several booms and busts, and I think that right now it's kind of looking like folks are starting to become more interested in it again. And some of the older mines, like the cross mine, are reopening. And so one of the things that we're looking at is some of the impacts that it has on our community in terms of water, potential impacts on Barker Reservoir, which is the big reservoir here in Netherlands that is a big source of water both for the city of Boulder and for the town of Netherland.

SPEAKER_04 1:28

The owners of a 10-acre mine in Netherland have withdrawn an application to reopen and expand their operations to over 200 acres. A public hearing was set for later this month for state regulators to issue a final decision on the Cross Mine, which has been producing gold, silver, zinc, lead, and copper since the 1870s. But under current owners Grand Island Resources, or GIR, Cross Mine has been shut down and cited for numerous water quality violations. GIR's bid to reopen and expand took years and drew much criticism and community interest for a myriad of unresolved issues. The town of Netherland, just a few miles downstream, was an official party to the application and registered its own concerns with the plans. That was town manager Jonathan Cain talking just a moment ago. We sat down for a full interview on the application with Jonathan. It was supposed to be our next episode. But last week, GIR suddenly withdrew its application after more than a year in process. The company is expected to try again with a new application. We'll keep you updated as the story develops. A bill to regulate the use of license plate reader technology has been pulled from the Colorado Senate. Boulder's Judy Amabole blamed a lack of support for the demise of Senate Bill 70. Lawmakers were reluctant to vote for the bill amid heavy opposition from law enforcement, who use shared networks to access cameras across a broad geographic area. That can make locating suspects across jurisdictions easier. But it has also spurred concerns over mass surveillance, civil rights violations, and misuse by federal immigration authorities. Read more from the Colorado Sun at the link in our show notes. You can listen to a February 18th interview with a local cybersecurity expert about the dangers of license plate reader technology at boulderfrequency.com. Residents of San Lazaro Mobile Home Park in Boulder are organizing for a potential purchase of the community. The owners have issued notice of an intent to sell, required under state law to give residents of mobile home communities first dibs to buy their park. Resident-owned communities have become increasingly common thanks to advocates and lawmakers fighting to preserve parks as critical affordable housing for families. San Lazaro, located in East Boulder, has struggled for years with poor water quality. The city of Boulder has attempted to negotiate with the current owner to annex the property into city limits, which would allow the park to access municipal water and sewer, but they have been unable to reach a deal. About 80% of residents have already expressed interest in purchasing the property, according to organizers. We'll have more details in future episodes. Boulder High School is celebrating 150 years in operation. Colorado's oldest public high school was founded in 1875, making spring 2026 the end of its 150th school year. Community members are invited to celebrate at the school on Friday, May 8th, from 4:30 to 6 30 p.m. Register at the link in our show notes. Superior is getting its own mural festival. Boulder-based nonprofit Streetwise Arts will partner with the town of Superior for an October 4th festival this year. Artists can apply to participate through the end of May. Learn more at Superior Muralfestival.com.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

I think what I tell the most is the lineage of women in these mountains. Because we always talk about the mountain, the miners, and the men. They're really quiet around here, but the women in this town are just as fierce. People are sh would be shocked the contribution women have had on this divide. You could get 300 acres and you had three years to homestead this up, and some of the women that came up here to do it were then denied even after they did the homesteading until a man went to Washington to stand up for them and said they need to get their land. Just phenomenal stories. The women who built the Continental Divide Trail, the first mule train that was operating up here by a woman. Like the stories of the women and the fierce independence up here are so impressive of what they were able to do.

SPEAKER_04 5:59

That's Mason Moyer, a resident of Ward and another fierce mountain woman. During her 30 years in Boulder County, Mason has lived in or outside Netherland, Jamestown, and Raymond. For the past 18 months or so, she's resided in Ward's last surviving hotel, bringing it back to life after a more than 70-year break in operations. Mason spoke with me during a tour of Hotel Columbia, which officially opened for business last month. A small cafe attached to the hotel will serve healthy breakfasts, lunches, and takeaway meals for day hikers or locals. Just make sure to bring back your organic, reusable containers for the next patron. A hot tub and sauna weren't up yet during my visit, but Mason promised they would be operational by summer, along with more bathrooms. The seven-room hotel, former miners' lodging, shares just one bathroom. The last time Hotel Columbia was operable was in 1950, under the ownership and care of Emma Fairhurst. Emma and her husband Albert opened the hotel in 1901 after a fire burned dozens of buildings in Ward, which was then a thriving and populous town.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

So part of the history, this property goes all the way down to the end of the dirt road down there. And this hotel was the McClancy. And there was about five hotels in the town of Ward, and there was about 5,000 people that lived here at that time. And you can kind of see how clustered it was, but the McClancy was at the end. And one of the maids or somebody put out a box of hot ashes and it burnt down 52 buildings. And it was on January of 1900, December 1900.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

That area in front of us was heavily populated with homes and people, but now it's just like an empty space. But it's hard to imagine that there were actual homes there for people and they all just burnt in the fire.

SPEAKER_04 7:57

That second voice you heard was Grigit Gill, Mason's partner in Hotel Columbia. Part of an extensive and storied Boulder County family, Grigit most recently owned beloved South Boulder restaurant Tandori Grill, which she sold in 2023 amid a divorce. Mason, too, is an experienced business owner. She currently owns Milk House, a hair salon, but has had a hand in a number of other businesses and political ventures, including being a founding member of the Boulder Progressives. Regular listeners of this podcast will recognize her as an organizer with Big Tent Boko, a group petitioning to add two more commissioners in Boulder County. Both Mason and Grigit were looking for community and a new direction in life when they stumbled upon Hotel Columbia.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

We're both in our 50s and we both have owned businesses and we were kind of done doing what we were doing in respective fields. We both wanted to do another business, but neither one of us wanted to do it alone. And then at one point, when we found this, it had been on and off the market for several years. And I was like, let's go look at it. So this rock wall that's on the back side of here, there was a torrential rainstorm the day that we came. And it literally the water was running through the wall and out. And I took a video of it. I was like, well, that's interesting. How did we like embrace the flow? No. That didn't discourage you though. No, because to me everything looks fixable.

SPEAKER_04 9:29

That ethos was seriously tested by the 125-year-old hotel. That leaking rock wall meant all the floors and part of the walls had to be ripped out and replaced. Mason moved in during the bitterly cold winter of 2023 and 2024 without functional heat or a shower. In January, the main water line busted. Then the septic line froze and needed replaced. Like the sturdy, independent women who came before them, Mason and Gergit did all the work themselves. Honoring the women of the mountains is an important part of Hotel Columbia. The bookshelves are filled with local biographies and history books. Pictures of the hotel's two owners are front and center in the living room. Emma Fairhurst and her niece, Hazel Schmoll, whose legacy extends far beyond the historic property. When Ward's population dipped to just four full-time residents after World War II, Hazel was one of them.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

So she graduated Chicago University as one of the first female botanists. And she became the state of Colorado's first female botanist. And she came here back here to Ward, where Emma was. But the other cool part of her was that one, she owned a ton of land. Hazel gave the land to the Christian camp that's up on Overland. She owned all that farmland. She never married, never had any kids. She farmed all of it. And I don't know how Georgia O'Keefe found Ward, but she came here and she's got several famous paintings of the church that's directly behind us. And she became very, very close friends with Hazel and lived here a lot after she came back from New York and before she started Ghost Ranch. We just heard a story. We're in Georgia and wanted to attend, so there was no roads, obviously, and they rode horses up to an event at Estes Park, stayed overnight in a tent, and then rode their horses back.

SPEAKER_04 11:28

Yes, it's that Georgia O'Keefe Mason is referring to. The famed American painter does indeed have a painting of the Ward Church, located right behind Hotel Columbia. It's unclear whether or not O'Keefe ever visited the hotel during her time in Ward, but it's not unlikely. President Teddy Roosevelt is believed to have stopped there during his 1906 trip to dedicate Mesa Verde National Park. As Colorado's mountain towns went from being the epicenter of the economy to sleepy little hamlets and now tourist destinations, it's important to preserve the history, Mason says.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Boulder's such a center hub of all of Boulder County, but it wasn't. It was just the stopping grounds, and Gold Hill was the first, and us and the mining communities were where everybody was trying to get to. I love the history of our county. And I feel like it's unfortunate that it's not centered more. What I've realized is that people are fiercely protective of the peace in the history, even though they haven't done a ton of preserving it, it is very important to them. They're very married to the mining aspect of this town and the pull yourself up from your bootstraps and fierce independence. And all of that has been the lineage of this town all the way through. Just like with our parks and services and forests, sharing that without exploiting it is super important.

SPEAKER_04 13:06

Historic preservation can be a tall order in Ward, which has a leave us alone ethos that became very apparent once I started reporting this story. Four different local historians turned me down for an interview, including some who have literally written books about the area's history and one who has a ward mailing address. Mason says there's an unspoken rule to not talk about Ward with outsiders. That's why it's been so important to her and Grigit to save Hotel Columbia without ruining the peace and quiet of the town. They envisioned a hotel and cafe as a quiet retreat. There are writing desks, not televisions, in the rooms, and they may even turn off the property's Wi-Fi to give guests a truly unplugged experience.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

The goal was always to have this be kind of a peaceful retreat where people could come and disconnect and sink in and read and write Luddite types, just like big boxes where things get really big and we have the Walmarts and everything else. I think we're on a trajectory where people are recognizing that we have to pull back a little and that the world's going really fast. And I want people to come up here and I want to do writing retreats here, and I want people to sit and again read and write. I want people to walk, come back, eat breakfast, maybe soak, hot tub, write, sleep. Um, and we're at that pinnacle right now where this town has been able to resist the outside influences for a really long time, and now the pressure is starting to really build. So, how do you preserve the history without again ruining it or exploiting it? Which we've seen with every other mountain town, right? Breckenridge, Leadville, all these other places. So, how do you get a county to want to preserve, help, and protect without overstepping, dominating, destroying the ethos of a community.

SPEAKER_04 15:20

You can read more about Hotel Columbia in the May issue of Caribou Current, out May 7th, or at cariboucurrent.com. Tune in Friday when we drop an interview with Lafayette's new poet laureate. Her poem, And Still, is this week's One More Thing.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

And still. A coyote walks onto the half-frozen waters of Wanaka Lake, and the winter sun, as startled as the people circling the shoreline, it pauses its slow creep behind the mountain and stares. Its last gasp light, slanted and golden, clings to the animal's coat, turning her form to treasure. Tempting, maybe, to imagine a time when wild things wandered a landscape not staked or claimed or platted or mined, before playground and parking lot, frisbee galls and the thwok walk of pickleballs. Just shh. The sucerant wind drifting across endless plain, first people's footsteps breaking tall, brittle grasses, and a coyote walks onto the half-frozen lake, but the past won't behave, refuses to humor our longing for a landscape that did not exist, and insists that the lake, like history, is man-made. A spring dammed in 1865 for thirsty farmland, and a coyote walks onto the ice. The lake soon, wider, deeper, the keeper of water needed to steampower a plant, electrifying the night, and again a coyote walks onto the ice, and it's easy to imagine pimpricks of luminescence pushing back the darkness from Longmont to Denver, the strength to sustain candescence moored on the south shore of the lake, our lake, its waters half frozen, tempting to forget the men who hauled coal from beneath our town to feed the plant, its power, the progress, a radiance we can't deny, and it's beautiful, our history, the ugly too, what we claimed, those we exploited, excluded, the slag piles left behind. Or are they a monument to what we must remember? And still, as a green-winged teal drifts the surface, unaware of danger behind him, not thinking of what comes next, a sun-golden coyote walks onto the half-frozen waters of Wanaka Lake, like it belongs there, like it did before, like it will again, like it will outlast the boathouse and pavilions and people circling the shoreline, staring in wonder as the sun slips at last behind the mountain. The future begins to say.