In Rio Blanco, we are rightly proud of our White River fishing. Our lake fishing is equally impressive. Early on, upriver landowners recognized that bigger lakes meant better fishing. One individual single-handedly improved the fishing lakes upriver: Swede Anderson. Using mules and a Fresno scraper, he dug ditches and moved earth to create dams. A Fresno scraper is a flat-bottomed metal scoop dragged behind a team of horses or mules.
Swede was hired by the 101 Club, now called Rio Blanco Ranch, to build a dam just below the confluence of Big Fish Creek and the river. He is credited with creating or improving Rainbow Lake, Boulder Lake, Doris Lake, Anderson Lake, Lake of the Woods, Skinny Fish Lake, and McGuiness Lake. He sometimes built up old beaver dams or made new dams to collect water. Swede also worked on land and stream improvements for the 101 Ranch and stocked fish by hauling them on horseback to the lakes. He built a small cabin on the ranch property near Hauskins Creek, which was later moved down the river to what became known as the Watson Place on the ranch. When Ron Hilkey and his wife managed the 101, they lived in this same cabin. Ron would snowshoe from the cabin up to the ranch buildings to check on them.
Later, Anderson opened a small resort near Trappers Lake. He obtained land patents in 1917, 1922, 1925, and 1928 for land upriver.
According to the 1920 Census for Rio Blanco County’s South Fork of the White River, Anderson was listed as married, though no wife was named. He was born in Wisconsin to Swedish parents. His full name was Hjalmar Theodore Anderson, but he was more commonly known as H.T. Anderson or simply Swede, likely because his given name, pronounced “Yal-mar,” was difficult for many to say.
H.T. was born Dec. 29, 1886, in Spirit, Wisconsin, to Alfred and Caroline Anderson, who had immigrated from Sweden in 1880. He later moved to the Pacific Northwest, where he worked as a logger. H.T. married Violet W. Moss on May 24, 1916, in Glenwood Springs. Violet grew up in Denver and was living in Fort Collins at the time, though it is unclear how they met. H.T. registered for the World War I draft in Rio Blanco County, listing Violet as his wife. However, she did not stay in the area long.
Only two newspaper references mention her: one stating that H.T. Anderson was visiting Meeker with his wife, and another listing Violet Anderson as a county stenographer. By the 1920 Census, Violet was living in a Denver boarding house on California Street and working as a stenographer.
Rio Blanco County land records show H.T. sold his ranch to George William Clark in 1926 and 1928. In 1930, he was employed by the Rio Blanco Ranch for $200 a year to maintain the river and keep non-members from fishing on private land. By 1940, census records list H.T. as a farmer near Aspen, Colorado, where he had lived since at least 1935.
In the 1941 draft registration, H.T. listed Meeker as his registration location but provided an address in Miami, Gila County, Arizona. No record exists of him serving in the military. According to his draft registration, he was working for a major construction company, W.L. Bechtel. Gila County was home to large copper mines operated by Phelps Dodge Corp. It is likely that by this point, H.T. was spending winters in Arizona and summers in Colorado.
Bill Jordan of Meeker, who met Swede Anderson as a child, recalled that Anderson always wore a suit every Sunday, even if he did not attend church. In 1969, the Rio Blanco Lodge presented him with his 50-year Masonic button.
Hjalmar Theodore Anderson died in September 1970 in Phoenix at age 83.
Sources: Story suggested by Chuck Reichert; A History of the Upper White; This Is What I Remember; Rio Blanco Historical Society; Ron Hilkey; Bill Jordan; The Geezer Gather at ERBM Rec Center; Rio Blanco Ranch History by Philip Wiseman O’Neil; Ancestry.com; Bureau of Land Management; U.S. Forest Service.
By ED PECK