Here is one version of how the story goes …
Kate Lindvig was a mail-order bride from Denmark who got off of the train in Nebraska to meet her new husband, took one look around and got right back on the train — headed west. She made her way to Aspen, where she ran a boarding house. When one of her tenants couldn’t pay his bill, he gave her a title to some land in Old Snowmass.
Kate moved out to the property and lived there year-round, unmarried, for most of her life. Over time, she homesteaded over 600 acres. She rented little one-room cabins to hunters and trappers, while raising cattle and farming the few vegetables that would grow at such an elevation. She had electricity powered by the falls (hence the name: Snowmass Falls Ranch) and once in a while she drove her cattle to town the old-fashioned way to make ends meet.
In the 1940s my grandparents, Bob and Ditty Perry, wanted to buy Snowmass Falls Ranch for a cow camp to graze their cattle in the summers. They had the Mount Sopris Hereford ranch in Carbondale, which Ditty’s father, DRC Brown, purchased from Mr. Grubb. The ranch was now theirs, with a piece on the hill carved out for Ditty’s oldest brother, DRC Jr., whom we called Darce. (Ever-the-“small world,” my maternal grandfather, Tom Moore, was an architect and he designed the house in Carbondale for Darce and his second wife, Ruthie.)
So, Bob and Darce went to the land sale with the verbal agreement that Darce would spend Ditty’s money for half of the total price and Bob and Ditty would be the sole owners of Snowmass Falls Ranch. Ditty’s father died when they were young, and her brother controlled her money until she was 35. (A different era! I would like to point out that 2024 marks 50 years since a woman could get a credit card in her own name. And, in the name of equality, mine are all maxed out.)
Anyway, Bob and Darce went to the sale together, but they were late and a couple of brothers had already bought the land for $5,000. So they tracked the brothers down and offered the full amount, plus a couple of good horses. The brothers agreed to the deal and that was that, or so Bob thought.
In the 1950s, the guy charged with selling Kate’s place, as it was called, had the mining rights, and a woman of his acquaintance ended up owning them. She brought this to Bob’s attention, probably hoping he would give her $5,000 and a couple of good horses but, as some of you may already know, there’s a bit of a stubborn streak in the Perry bloodline. Bob and Ditty took it all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court, where they lost the case. However, the woman could not afford to pay her lawyer, so she gave him the mining rights as payment. Then, Bob went and bought them from the lawyer.
At one point, Darce, the loveable rascal that he was, claimed he owned half the ranch. After all, he had accompanied Bob to the sale and, as it turned out, maybe he had not used Ditty’s money. Perhaps he used his own, or even his wife’s money that day. So, my grandfather paid his brother-in-law half again the sale price of the land and finally owned the cow camp outright.
Bob and Ditty had seven children and the next eight decades were chock full of cattle drives, picnics, campouts, hunting trips, packing trips, family reunions, weddings, christenings, memorials — although we never did have a true Viking service by sending a loved one’s body (on fire!) over the falls. And, if I outlive him, I’ll have to come up with a new plan for my husband’s funeral, as his wishes might be frowned upon by Pitkin County Open Space.
For the last eighty years our family has called this land many things: Kate’s, Cow Camp, Snowmass … My whole life it has just been there, at the end of the road, a silent yet stunning sanctuary. A place to hideout and daydream. A place to explore. A place with a remarkable story.