Television series like Yellowstone, with its stunning backdrops, paint a grand picture of a dynastic family. Though it was Henry Persse who promoted the area as a resort it was another family, the Helmers, that found ways to make Roxborough’s resources work for them.

Franz and Judith (Scholl) Helmer were Austrians by birth. Like thousands before them, they came west under arduous conditions in their early 40s. Their son John also accompanied them to what was then known as Kansas Territory. Not long after, another son, Anton, joined them.

In 1883, the Helmers acquired a cabin on land originally owned by Civil War veteran Amos Miksch. While theirs was a modest existence, it was the sons, especially Anton, who saw the possibilities.

In 1888, John and his wife, Nellie, bought the cabin and land from his parents for $800. They grew their family with daughters Pauline and Julia and son John, who died early. A 1910 picture shows a major expansion of their holdings at that time. On the Highline Canal, easy access allowed for the ample irrigation needed to feed their beef cattle, dairy cows and crops. The daughters were very close, so much so that they arranged a double wedding.

The more prosperous of the Helmer boys, Anton, was 36 years old when he married Czech-born Denverite Mary Jaksch. She was a mere 20 then and would bring seven more Helmers into the world. Anton sought more living space and chose to homestead east of the hogback, near what is known today as Roxborough Village.

Among their children, Anthony was clearly the driving family force. Called “Toney,” he married Helen Skinner, a daughter of the family that bought the original Persse homestead. Toney and Helen moved onto the property in the early years of their marriage and named it “Sundance Ranch.”

Though Anton was aging, Mary was quite active, with a keen business mind. In 1919, she purchased the remaining assets of the Silica Brick and Clay Company, which went bankrupt due to poor management. The lime kiln, remnants still standing by the road to today’s Roxborough State Park, manufactured a white lime-silica brick. It used coal from nearby Lehigh and lime brought in via a spur on the Colorado and Southern Railway.

Mary wisely chose to concentrate on mining local clay and silica for the building trades, and Toney was her man to manage it. Demand was strong and the Helmers family snared a healthy U.S. government contract to provide materials for the Air Force Academy construction in the 1950s.

It was ranching, however, for which the Helmers were known far and wide. In that endeavor, Mary’s son George excelled with the special skills required to manage animals of all stripes. Sister Cecila and her husband, Mel, rounded out the threesome devoted exclusively to ranch operations, though Toney made significant contributions as well. By 1970, the Helmer family had amassed 3,600 acres stretching almost the length of the entire pinnacle formation.

The Woodmoor Corporation acquired 3,200 of those acres for development in the early 1970s. The homeowners who turned Roxborough into a neighborhood found the same serenity and rapture that Henry Persse celebrated and that the Helmer family enjoyed for more than 100 years.

 

 

Article and photos by Joe Gschwendtner