Midway House, also known as Broken M Bar Ranch and Meyer Ranch, is an 1889
Queen Anne ranch house located near
Aspen Park, Colorado
Aspen Park is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place (CDP) located in Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. The CDP is a part of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population of the Aspe ...
. It is listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
.
History
The land now known as Meyer Ranch was homesteaded by the Duncan McIntyre family in the mid-19th century. Located near the Turkey Creek wagon road, they fed and lodged travelers.
The property was purchased in 1883 by Louis Ramboz, who had the house built in 1889 from lumber milled on the property. Midway House served as an overflow house for a stagecoach stop
on the route from
Denver
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
to
Fairplay, named because of its location midway between Denver and
Bailey.
The ranch reportedly served as the winter quarters for animals of the
P.T. Barnum Circus in the late 1880s, but there is no record of P.T. Barnum ever coming to Colorado.
A board inscribed "Circus Town 1889" was found in the house during renovation in 1955.
After Ramboz, the ranch was owned by Ralph Kirkpatrick from 1912 to 1950 and run as a working ranch with a hillside cleared for skiing in the early 1940s. Skiers were transported from the road to the base of a single rope tow in horse-drawn sleighs. The ski area was known as Mount Lugo and, though it closed in 1942, the hills at Meyer Ranch are still enjoyed by cross-country and backcountry skiers.
In 1950, Norman and Ethel Meyer bought the ranch including Midway House.
In 1959, they bought McIntyre's original homestead. The Meyers sold of their ranch to Jefferson County Open Space in 1987,
which opened Meyer Ranch Park to the public in 1989. The house remains in the Meyers' ownership. As of September 2010, a preliminary agreement has been negotiated to conduct a feasibility study for the establishment of the house as a museum.
The location appeared on the pilot episode of the
History Channel documentary series ''Mega Movers''. It first aired on April 27, 2005, as a segment of the ''
Modern Marvels
''Modern Marvels'' is an American worldwide television series that formerly aired on the History Channel and is currently shown on Story Television. The program focuses on how technologies affect and are used in modern society. It is History's f ...
'' episode "Mega Movers" (#337), which followed the move of a cabin and an 1870 hay and stock barn closer to the ranch house.
See also
*
References
External links
{{Commons category, Midway House (Aspen Park, Colorado)
Meyer Ranch Parkpage from Jefferson County Open Space
ski area description at Colorado Ski History
Houses in Jefferson County, Colorado
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Colorado
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Colorado
National Register of Historic Places in Jefferson County, Colorado