A visit to Pioneer Town is like a trip back into early years of the county

By Paul Ash, The Valley Heartbeat

CEDAREDGE - One of the many prime attractions of Cedaredge is Pioneer Town, located just two blocks south of downtown Cedaredge. Visitors can travel back 100 or more years in time at the special attraction, operated by the Surface Creek Valley Historical Society. The entrance to Pioneer Town is through the Cedaredge Welcome Center, a visitors information center at the east entrance to Pioneer Town. It contains free informational brochures about Cedaredge, the Surface Creek Valley, and Grand Mesa.

Volunteers with the Cedaredge Area Chamber of Commerce, who staff the welcome center, can help with directions and suggestions for the best places to visit in the area. A special dedication ceremony for the new welcome center was held in 1996, when it opened.

Pioneer Town, a continuing project of the Surface Creek Valley Historical Society, allows guests to take a look back at the early years of Delta County. It includes an actual old town main street and many other buildings filled with historical treasures of the past.

One of the new additions to Pioneer Town is Doris' Doll & Toy House, which includes a premier doll display and collection. Probably the most visible structure at Pioneer Town is the historic Stolte Packing Shed, a Cedaredge landmark for decades in the fruit packing business. Through remodeling, this stately shed has been converted into a multiple-use facility.

A monument to the early settlers, Pioneer Town is complete with many original restored structures, furnished and outfitted with the artifacts of that period.

Guided tours take visitors through a country store, a log cabin, a unique, multi-sided grain silo, an old-time saloon, and the many other town buildings that house the marshall's office, the Wells-Fargo office, the jail, bank, and creamery.

In addition, the tour along the wooden boardwalks and paths includes a visit to the working print and blacksmith shops, the States Mining Museum (which contains a replica of an old Doctor's Office), and the Sutherland Museum of Indian and Western History, located to the west of Pioneer Town's Main Street, which offers one of the nation's most extensive arrowhead collections.

Finally, visitors can complete their tour with a moment of meditation in the award-wining Chapel of the Cross and enjoy the magnificent leaded glass windows and the impressive two-story-high cross that dominates the view from within. The chapel is available to the public, for a fee, to host weddings or other special events.

Pioneer Town began with the original donation of the old Coalby Store and the Jail, which are now a part of the old town Main St. Soon after, other buildings were donated by Roy Girling and moved to their present locations, and other building donations began coming in.

The blacksmith shop represents the last of a series of such businesses, as Cedaredge at one time boasted five blacksmith shops. The restored shop of today features many of the old machines used by blacksmiths of by-gone eras, donated by Melvin Doughty of Doughty Steel in Delta. Other stops along the road of Pioneer Town include:

-The old Coalby store, which was originally located four miles west of Cedaredge. It was originally used as a community building. Inside are original post office boxes from the first Lazear Post Office.

-The Print Shop. The now-antique equipment inside was originally the home of the Surface Creek Champion Newspaper and Print Shop, which was operated between 1904 and 1943. On its presses, the original Olathe newspaper was printed and many of the early-day papers are on display.

-The Lizard Head Saloon features a bar which was originally from Crested Butte.

-The Creamery, where locally famous Challenge Butter was originally made.

-The First State Bank, which features a chair donated by the Tabor Opera House in Leadville.

-Barber Shop, complete with antique chair and all the supplies and equipment used by Old West barbers.

-Sand Creek School House, left abandoned and donated to Pioneer Town, has been restored close to its original features. The school educated youngsters from the grades 1-8 and was used from the early 1900s to the 1930s.

-The Peterson Cabin, a log house built in the 1880s and donated in 1984.

-Silos, built in the 1916-17 period, were originally used to store grain.