EDITOR’S NOTE: In honor for the Town of Meeker’s 140th birthday in September, we are publishing the histories of the Town’s founders who’s names are listed at the White River Museum and on the plaque on the boulder in front of the courthouse.
When the Army occupied the White River valley (1879-1883) they kept the troops busy by improving the road from Rawlins. The road was realigned and new bridges built to accommodate the heavy traffic of supplying 2000 men. The road became known as the Government Road. The Army was not known for originality. The journey took several days with oxen, mule, or horse-drawn wagon. One of the resting places where water and grass was available was in Routt County (now Moffat). It was a natural place to lay over and spend the night. It soon became known as “Lay Over.” Soon, there enough ranchers and settlers lived in the area to warrant a post office.
Albert J. Gregory wrote to the Post office Department desiring to be the first postmaster and suggested the name “Lay Over.” For whatever the reason, our ever efficient Postal system shortened the name to “Lay.” Lay, Colorado, was born, some 18 miles west of what later became Craig along Highway 40. A.J. Gregory was appointed its postmaster Aug. 12,1881, by Thomas L. James, Postmaster General. When news that the Camp on the White River was being abandoned, A.J. Gregory saw an opportunity and became a Meeker Townsite shareholder. The next year, in 1884, when herds were converging on the White River Valley, A.J. Gregory and Ezra Flemming drove 1,500 cattle down from the Laramie Plains. Ezra had the famous Cross L brand in Rio Blanco County among others. Gregory had the open A with a bar connected to the bottom of the “A” ( ^- ). A.J. Gregory was the owner of a meat market in Laramie about 1874 and Flemming was an 1880 homesteader and cattleman in Albany County, Wyoming. The two were quite successful in the White River valley. In 1886 Gregory was the Garfield County commissioner for the 3rd District [Meeker] and president of White River stock growers association.
Albert began life in Charleston, Maine, born to Amos Gregory and Sarah Chandler about 1848. When he married Nancy Jennie Haley in 1870, Boston, Massachusetts, his occupation was listed as “Piano Forte Maker.” Wow, that was quite a leap to cattle drover in Wyoming 1880. The February 22, 1906 issue of the Rocky Mountain News announced: “GREGORY DIES FROM EFFECTS OF HOLDUP. A. J. Gregory who was livestock agent for the Denver & Rio Grande here [Salt Lake City] at one time is dead at Provo insane asylum. Gregory was clubbed by holdups two years ago in Denver, and never recovered from the effects of the blows he received.” In May of 1904, A. J. was brutally slugged and left unconscious on Stout Street between 17th and 18th in Denver. The concussion left him mentally unfit. To get him care, Nurse Egan took him by train to the Provo Insane Asylum to be closer to his family. He left a wife, Nancy, and two children: Rodney Albert and Claphane Norma Gregory. Albert J. and Nancy are buried in Fairmount Cemetery, Denver.
Sources: TIWIR vol 2 page 50; The Last Frontier 1974 by V.S. FitzPatrick; Museum of the Northwest; Ancestry.com; Federal Census records; Wyomingnewspapers.org; Coloradohistoricnewspapers.org;
