When the oil companies began buying up land in the Piceance area, Miller Hill Cemetery was deeded along with the rest of the ranches. Through the efforts of the Rio Blanco Historical Society, RBC commissioners, Lila Cox, and Phyllis Lake, Exxon-Mobile deeded the cemetery and access to the Meeker Cemetery District in 2011. Even before that, Rio Blanco County was watching over it and even paid to have bronze plaques installed in 1964. The Meeker Cemetery District currently watches over it. Previously, local Piceance Creek families took care of the burial ground. Among them was Patti [Collins] Anderson, who made it her mission to care for several cemeteries in RBC. She arranged for Carlson Memorial of Grand Junction to make new granite markers in 2016 to replace the ones in poor condition or missing. Patti’s husband, Harold Anderson, mixed concrete and set the stones in place. The Meeker Cemetery District paid for them. Research was carried out by several members of the RBC Historical Society and county staff. There is a second bronze plaque on the site with the names of people who lived in the area. These later names are memorials, they don’t necessarily reside in the Miller Hill Cemetery. The first burial may have been Burnetta Beatrice Moore Bainbrich, born 15 June 1835 in Grundy County, Missouri, and died 15 Nov. 1898. The latest gravestone I saw was Nina Patterson Burke, 2nd Lt. U.S. Army WWII, 1921-2014. A small flag was waving there, evidence that family and friends still visit. As newspaper space allows, I will attempt to give you short biographies of people in the Miller Cemetery or on the bronze plaques. I am going to do this chronologically by death date.
The year was 1896. Exciting things were happening. Utah became our 45th State in the Union. Wilhem Röttgen has discovered a new electromagnetic radiation. It was later named X-rays and used to work on Wilhem’s tooth. The Tootsie Roll was invented in 1896, which caused the cavity in Wilhelm’s tooth. He may have regretted both discoveries. Nicholas the Second became the last Tsar to rule Russia. Henry Ford tests out his first powered vehicle he called the Ford Quadricycle. And James Cole died on Piceance Wednesday, Jan. 29, 1896. His name and dates are on the memorial plaque at Miller Hill Cemetery. Ed’s research: James M. Cole is buried in Highland Cemetery. His obituary in the Meeker Herald mentions his Masonic membership. Born James Mollison Cole, Jr. on Feb. 22, 1844, in Indianapolis, Indiana, to James M. Cole Sr. (1813-1880) and Sarah Jane Sturgeon (1820-1860), James was married in 1872 to Anna Hughes (1854-1917). Through their daughter, Maude Annette Cole Tillotson, they are connected to several Piceance Creek and Rifle, Colorado, families: Tillotson and Wilshire. The Cole family were neighbors of the Thomas Burke family on Piceance. In the 1880 Census, James M. Cole was a carpenter in the mining town of Fairplay, Colorado. His neighbors included a boarding house, home to 17 Chinese Cooks, laundry workers, and laborers among others. MORE NAMES TO FOLLOW NEXT WEEK.
By ED PECK
