Since 1969, James R. ‘Jim’ Bishop has found, hauled and set by hand over 1,000 ton of rocks to construct his castle. Born in 1944, he is the oldest son of Willard Lee Vincent and Pauline A. Perse Bishop. Willard was born in Indiana and Pauline in Pueblo both in 1919. They were married in Reno, Nevada in 1941. Willard and Pauline Bishop had three other children: Johanna, Susan and Willard Jr.
In 1959, at 15-years-old, Jim dropped out of Pueblo South High School, during his junior year. According to Jim he left school “over an argument with his English teacher who yelled at him ‘You'll never amount to any thing Jim Bishop!’” He talked his parents into cosigning for him to purchase a 1.25 acre parcel (according to Custer County Assessor’s records) of land bordered on three sides by the San Isabel National Forest. The cost was either $450 or he paid $450 towards a total cost of $1,250. Jim saved the money “from mowing lawns, throwing newspapers, and working with his father Willard in the family ornamental iron works”.
Jim and his father, Willard “spent the next ten summers camping out on the land and doing the groundwork for a family cabin on the site.” Jim learned to enjoy swinging an axe and wielding a shovel or pick to clear a spot for the cabin on the heavily wooded lot.
In 1967, Jim married Phoebe Marie. She, too, loved the mountains. Two years later, they started to build the cabin Jim had envisioned ten years before. Rocks were plentiful and free, so they used them and started a one-room stone cottage. Jim and his father, Willard traded off: one week operating the iron works shop and one working on the family cabin. (The Custer County Assessor’s office recorded a one-bedroom, onebath structure being built on the site in 1962.) In the spring of 1971, they realized they needed a water source. Willard salvaged a large metal tank from the Sacred Heart Orphanage in Pueblo to become a gravity fed cistern. Once the 40-foot metal cylinder was moved to the site, Willard began surrounding it with stone, building a staircase up the side of the tank. Construction of the cottage and the work on the tank was slowed by the short building seasons and the demands of the family iron works business which supported them.
As the walls of the cottage grew and the stone climbed the metal tank, friends and local residents began to make comments that the stone tank resembled a turret and together with the cottage was starting to look like a castle. By the following spring, Jim began embracing the idea of building a castle. The oneroom stone cottage with an ‘Eiffel Tower’ shaped fireplace and a stone encased water tank became the beginning of a castle.
As the project expanded, so did the need for rocks. Jim secured a permit to haul rock from the Forest Service, which had to be renewed yearly. Other materials, notably cement was hauled up to the site from Pueblo or occasionally Canon City. Over time, some materials were donated.
The building continued with no plans, blueprints or drawings other than the one Jim eventually drew to illustrate his book "Castle Building from My Point of View". Jim used books and pictures for inspiration, typically working from one part of the building to another. In 1978, a fire burned over the top of Greenhorn Mountain. It added to Jim’s worries about the castle walls falling outward. He decided at that point to construct ‘Notre Dame’ type buttresses to add strength to the walls.
After installing the first square windows in the walls of the castle, Jim “claimed he would never use square shapes again unless it was truly necessary.” From that point on, the windows, walls and doorways were arched instead of square.
(to be continued)
