The Augusta-Keating High Country Homestead District - Part I of II

The Augusta-Keating High Country Homestead District is located on both sides of Colorado Highway 165 going south from McKenzie Junction. It starts at Mile Marker 1 and continues to Ophir Creek Road.

Kouba Family

LOCAL HISTORICAL LOREAfter his homestead in Yuma County was awarded in 1916, Reuben took Julie and David to the Apache Valley, in Huerfano County. Reuben operated a dairy farm and ran cattle. He used a green wagon with red trim and yellow painted spokes, to take the milk to Rye every day.

Kouba Family

Richard Bigelow remembered the first vehicle to cross the new bridge, over Greenhorn Creek on Boulder Avenue, after the 1947 Flood. Reuben Kouba, a Czech, who was known to locals as ‘a horse expert’, had one son who lived out near the Clennin Ranch.Mr.

Robert Austin and Beth Laura Thompson Totten

Robert and Beth farmed just east of Rye and owned the land the Rye Fish Hatchery was built on.Robert was born in Ontario, Canada in 1875. He was the sixth of seven children born to John and Isabella McEwen Totten. His father, John was born in Ireland; his mother in Ontario.

The Rye Trout Farm and Fish Hatchery

“To tell the story of Rye properly, we have to talk about the Indians who lived here centuries before a white man ever saw it. One of their favorite camping grounds was near the big spring which makes the state fish hatchery at Rye possible.” (“Old Trails along the Arkansas” by G.A.

The Herron Family

Henry Herron, or sometimes spelled Herren, was born in Union County, Georgia in 1858, the seventh of eight children of Levi and Cloe Ann Picklesimer Herron. They moved to Pickens County Georgia just to the south of Union County where Henry began school.

The William J. Gambell/Gambill Family - Part I of II

This family originated in Ashe County, North Carolina and therefore, is considered part of the ‘Georgia Colony’. The entire family came west, as far as Missouri. Many family members eventually settled in Colorado.William and Nancy Landreth Gambell were both born in Ashe County, North Carolina.

The Wilburn Boyd Burkett Family -

LOCAL HISTORICAL LOREPart I of IIBessie ‘Edna’ Burkett Snider Bondurant A few weeks after the flood waters took her family, the devastated Edna delivered their daughter, Lois, in their home on Greenhorn Road. Lois grew up on this dairy farm and attended the Rye School.

The Wilburn Boyd Burkett Family -

Part I of IIOne of the last families to come to Rye from Ashe County, North Carolina, Wilburn’s family grew up near Rye.Wilburn was born in 1862 in Ashe County, the second son of six children of Nathaniel David Jr and Catherine ‘Katie’ Hardin Burkett.

The Wilbar Family - Texas

LOCAL HISTORICAL LOREPart III of IIIPreston and Mary Jane Wilbar Tuttle’s last child, Romulus Morrison was born in Palo Pinto County, Texas in 1901. By 1910, the family had moved to Dallas where Preston opened a dry goods and notions store.