Henry J. Hay and his brother J. Fletcher Hay journeyed to the White River valley in May of 1880 (according to “This Is What I Remember”). However, the Hay family history states that the two brothers traveled thru the Milk Creek battleground in 1879 and saw dead mules, still in their harness.
The White River Valley land was still owned by the Utes, but that did not stop Henry and Fletcher from locating their first ranch outside the military garrison boundaries. The Hay brothers settled on Dry Piceance. They were not the first settlers to the valley. I would say that title belongs to Duncan Blair, who came from Wyoming with a native wife.
Two years later, the Hay brothers relocated to lower Powell Park. There, they recovered the famous Agency plow which sparked the disagreement between the Utes and Nathan Meeker. The plow is presently displayed at the White River Museum.
Henry and John were true pioneers and watched as Meeker become a town in 1885 and Rio Blanco become a county in 1889. Henry was a shareholder in the Meeker Townsite Company in 1883.
When Rio Blanco split off from Garfield County in 1889, Governor Job A. Cooper appointed Henry our first county treasurer, a post he was reelected to several times until 1894. He served on the Meeker school board and held the office of U.S. Commissioner as Meeker from 1913 to 1923. As commissioner, he dealt with homestead applications in our region.
Meeker was growing. Capital was needed to fuel that growth. In 1890, Columbia Building and Loan Company of Denver had a local Meeker board with Henry J. Hay President; L. B. Walbridge, secretary; E.E. Fordham, treasurer and Charles S. Attix, insurance agent.
In 1892, in addition to being county treasurer, Henry owned an interest in Meeker’s two newspapers: the Rio Blanco News and the Meeker Herald. By November 1892, Henry had concluded that he was not cut out to be a journalist and James Lyttle bought back control of the Herald.
Lyttle declared the paper solidly Democratic as he took back his role as editor. The Dec. 30, 1899, issue of the Meeker Herald described Henry Hay’s almost finished house: “It is a seven room frame with hallway, numerous closets and three well lighted attic rooms…The seven rooms on the ground floor are grouped together in a manner which makes access from one to the other easy and convenient. The style of architecture is a modification of the Swiss chatelet.” The article goes on in detail much like today’s Home and Garden magazine. Closets in bedrooms were a luxury. Stand-alone wardrobes were the norm.
In 1923, Henry moved his family to Denver. Before they left, the Meeker Commercial Club gave him a big goodbye in recognition of all his hard work in promoting Rio Blanco County by writing many pamphlets.
Once in Denver, Henry’s health failed to the point that he was confined for six weeks and died on March 4, 1924, at the age of 76. Henry J. Hay was born July 23, 1847, in Peoria, Illinois to John Fletcher Hay Sr. and Cora Ault. Henry had one adopted son: Clarence Wilbur Hay and one daughter: Irene Cora Hay who was married to Dr. Harry Wear. Harry’s brother, Fletcher, another Meeker pioneer, died in 1927.
Sources: Rio Blanco Historical Society; This Is What I Remember books; Parr family; Coloradohistoricalnewspapers.org. Meeker Herald.
