Midway House (Conifer, Colorado)

Infobox_nrhp | name =Midway House
nrhp_type =

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caption = Midway House, c. 1960.
location = 9345 US Hwy. 285
Conifer, Colorado 80433
nearest_city =
lat_degrees = 39
lat_minutes = 32
lat_seconds = 59
lat_direction = N
long_degrees = 105
long_minutes = 17
long_seconds = 03
long_direction = W
area =
built = March-October 1889cite news |first=Katie |last=Kerwin |title=Happy Trailblazers: Meyers Ranch settlers look at the bright side of trading serenity for convenience |work=Rocky Mountain News |id=9701290386 |page=46A |date=1997-01-26 |accessdate=2007-10-29 ]
added = September 18, 1990
visitation_num =
visitation_year =
governing_body =

Midway House, also known as Broken M Bar Ranch and Meyer Ranch, is an 1889 Queen Anne ranch house located near Conifer, Colorado. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

History

The land now known as Meyer Ranch was homesteaded by the Duncan McIntyre family in the mid-1800s. Located near the South 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 a stopping point on the stagecoach route from Denver 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. 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 1940s with horses pulling skiers to the top of the slope.

In 1950, Norman and Ethel Meyer bought the ranch including Midway House. [Culver, Virginia (2007-04-22). " [http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_5723187 Rancher learned to hold her own] ". "Denver Post".] In 1959, they bought McIntyre's original homestead. The Meyers sold convert|400|acre|km2 of their convert|600|acre|km2|sing=on 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.

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" episode "Mega Movers" (#337), which followed the move of a cabin and an 1870 hay and stock barn closer to the ranch house.

References

External links

* [http://www.co.jefferson.co.us/openspace/openspace_T56_R15.htm Meyer Ranch Park] page from Jefferson County Open Space
* [http://rmstructuralmovers.com/tv.html Photos of the barn and cabin move] from Rocky Mountain Structural Movers
* [http://www.coloradoskihistory.com/lost/mountlugo.html Mount Lugo/Meyer Ranch] ski area description at Colorado Ski History