Showdown at Virginia Dale

Sunset, August, 1998 by Fish Peter

"That plaque is new," Larson points out.

"They've stabilized the fireplace," says Darleen Zollinger.

"It's just hanging on," observes Connie Fahnestock.

The building we're tiptoeing around stands on a hillside east of the crossroads of Virginia Dale, Colorado. That's in Larimer County, north of Fort Collins. The station's name makes it sound grander than it is - makes it sound like a gaudy, Wild West edifice out of High Noon. But what we see is a listing, whiskey-colored cabin with pillowcases stuffed in the gaps between logs. Put it this way: the Virginia Dale Stage Station is not a building you think would inspire bruised feelings, a lawsuit, and civil war within a 77-year-old women's club. That it did says something cautionary about the West in the 1990s.

The station was built in 1862 as a stop on the Overland Trail. The Overland was an offshoot of the Oregon-California Trail: it veered southwest to Denver, then looped north into southern Wyoming. For a brief period in the 1860s, it was a vital route for Western travelers. Virginia Dale was one of its home stations, where passengers stepped off their Concord stagecoaches to get a bed, a bath, and bad food.

Elizabeth Larson, Darleen Zollinger, and Connie Fahnestock are three relative newcomers to Virginia Dale - or at least they're counted as newcomers, although Zollinger has lived here for 13 years. Zollinger was the first of the three to join the Virginia Dale Community Club. Founded in 1921, the club is composed mainly of women from old-time ranching families who gather each month to swap recipes and reminiscences. Zollinger thought it would be fun to get to know them. Later her friends Larson and Fahnestock joined, too.

"It was a sweet little club," Fahnestock says. "Each meeting started with a prayer. You'd go around and discuss a topic of the day. You'd have homemade cookies and punch, and plan the next meeting. It was lovely."

One of the nicest things about the club was that it had inherited the stage station, which stood near the group's newer - built only in 1909 - clubhouse. "We all fell in love with the station," Larson recalls. Larson is an enthusiastic woman - even her mane of hair seems larger than life - who taught school in India and California before settling near Virginia Dale. She began investigating the station's history. She learned that it was a prime example of piece-sur-piece log construction, and that it had been operated by a shady figure named Jack Slade. He named it for his wife, the voluptuous, volatile Virginia. It was the last remaining station on the Overland Trail. And it was in need of repair.

"The foundation was about to go," Zollinger says. "Something had to be done." The trio decided to apply for a grant from the Colorado Historical Society to shore up the station's foundation and, they hoped, turn it into a museum. A Fort Collins architect drew up plans. To rally public support, Larson - by this time club treasurer - produced a magnificent Internet Web site, detailing Virginia Dale's colorful past and hoped- for future. Colorado television stations and newspapers ran feature stories.

What happened next is open to varying interpretations. What both sides do agree on is that all hell broke loose.

To understand why that happened, go back down the county road to U.S. Highway 287, find a rise, and look south. You'll see the edge of Fort Collins. Not long ago, it was an isolated ranch community and college town. Now it's the northern node of the more than 2 million person Front Range. From here 125 miles south to Colorado Springs, pastures and alfalfa fields are being plowed up for houses and semiconductor factories. Virginia Dale thought distance would protect it from such changes. No more. "This part of Colorado is being discovered," says Derek Roberts, who is not only a fourth-generation rancher but also a real estate agent here. The old ranches are being subdivided and sold to newcomers from Texas and California, he says. As a real estate agent and rancher, he has mixed feelings. "My real estate business is good," he says. "On the other hand, it tears me to pieces."

As Larson, Fahnestock, and Zollinger see it, fixing up the Virginia Dale station got linked to all of that - to houses and newcomers and ranchers forced off their land. The club accepted a grant to fix the foundation. But turning the station into a museum, with publicity, was a threat. "They were afraid busloads of Californians would come in and destroy the area," Zollinger says.

The conflict came to a head at a club meeting that carried certain echoes of High Noon and other classic showdowns. Punch and cookies were forgotten: the topic of the day was the station. "One club member said she'd rather have it rot than have outsiders come in," Zollinger recalls. Treasurer Larson was accused of misappropriating $100; the case briefly went to court and was dropped. So divided was the club that it ceased holding meetings. Restoration plans were shelved.

"There were a lot of hard feelings," says Gladys Ellerman, former president and now treasurer of the community club. "Three or four people wanted something the majority of people did not want." She adds: "The stage station is a peaceful hideaway. It sits in the middle of a private ranch. If you turned it into a public museum, you'd have looting, you'd have stealing."