Fraser Colorado

A stagecoach sits outside one of the Cozens Ranch buildings in 1903

Cozens Ranch then and now

1911

 GROCERY STORE OF YORE, 1911. This image shows the Gardner family posing in front of their store back in the day. View is looking southish, so the future ski area and Vasquez peaks would be directly behind this building. Not sure where it sat exactly, but *probably* about where the Conoco station is now on the corner of Highway 40 and Eisenhower. Looks like a wagon load of supplies being delivered including a box that says "ECCorn" with "flax" underneath

CORONA STATION! We've posted this one before, but this is the most detailed version we've yet seen of the train station and looooooonnnnnnnggggg snow shed up on top of the Great Divide at Rollins Pass. Fraser folk always called it Corona as that's what the station name was, but most call it Rollins Pass. About 1915.

1948

DOWNTOWN FRASER, 1948. One lonesome car parked in front of the Fraser Bar, later dubbed "The Bloody Bucket" after a deadly shooting in the place, on a dreary looking spring day back in 1948. Buildings sat on south side of Eisenhower Drive (then Main Street) about where the old post office and library later sprouted up, now home to Grand county and a long term rental.

EDNA TUCKER checking her backyard weather station back in 1955. For a decade or two, roughly the 1950s's and 1960's, Fraser was on the map and somewhat well known due to 1) Being the vacation/fishing spot of General then President Eisenhower and 2) Being the "Icebox of the Nation" thanks to the daily updates from Edna and her official weather station that put Fraser in newspapers across the country and brought some commercial buzz via brands wanting to use the cold as a way to tout their products' toughness in the cold...Zerex antifreeze and Goodyear snow tires being the two most well known examples but there were others as well. Indeed, this photo was taken by a Time-Life photographer in town to snap photos of the hardy Fraser folk for a magazine article. Either Ronald or Edna had to send the weather report every two hours via a “teletypewriter” to the national weather service.

 

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