Gimme Shelter
When Joyce and Robert Holcomb purchased property in the Magnolia/Coal Creek Canyon section of Boulder County southeast of Nederland in 1975, it entitled them to run for office in the High Country Fire Protection District, which, while primarily a Gilpin County enterprise (formed in 1972), covering sections and townships near Rollinsville and Pinecliffe and additional areas north of Black Hawk and Central City, also included old mining districts southeast of Nederland with mostly dilapidated cabins used as summer homes, and a wedge of Coal Creek lying in Boulder County.
At the time, the Holcombs lived in Arvada, or at least this was their address in 1984. Prior to this, in 1978, Joyce Holcomb ran for a 2-year term on the High Country Fire Protection District, and when she was elected and set up the 1980 board election as secretary, she provided a Golden mailing address in the announcement of the upcoming election in the legal notice section of the Weekly Register-Call newspaper. At this May 1980 election, Robert Holcomb was elected to a 4-year term, and when he became secretary and wrote up the announcement for the 1982 election, the mailing address he provided for questions or correspondence was Nederland, with an Arvada home telephone number.
It is unclear whether the Holcombs actually physically lived in all these different communities in 1980 and 1982 and 1984, whether this was a mailing address provided by the district (i.e., tied to the district and not to the person holding the office of secretary at the time), or whether the Holcombs lived (or at least maintained a residence) in one single place (like in Gilpin County or the Coal Creek section of Boulder County) but their mailing address was not "allowed" to be their true physical address. Lacking a closer post office, Coal Creek could have potentially "required" a Golden mailing address into the early 1990s (believe it or not, some long-time Black Hawk residents insist they had to list their mailing address as Golden into the 1990s, even though they lived in Black Hawk, which would only make sense to me if Black Hawk didn't have a functioning post office at that time, which it definitely did, or if they lived in a nebulous nether region between Black Hawk and Golden), or maybe it was just simpler for someone physically living in Denver but with a second summer residence or weekend getaway in Coal Creek to pick up the mail at the Golden post office on their way through.
If the board functioned as typical small-town fire district boards do, they would have met once a month. So the commitment required for a dedicated board member generally living and working outside the district to attend meetings, especially one 30-60 miles away, would have had to be genuine. Recognize that High Country board members were likely not active volunteer firemen for the district, as this would have been a conflict of interest given a paid fire chief, so while the commitment was genuine, it wasn't superhuman, as someone living an hour away certainly couldn't have responded in a timely fashion to fire calls.
In any event, Trustee Holcomb was re-elected to the board as an incumbent in 1984, and ran again for a two-year term in 1988. This board, typical of a lot of small-town boards, had a lot of turnover, so various roles, like board president or board secretary, were likely filled on an interim basis as required, with fairly fluid job descriptions and responsibilities of board members.
8000+ feet elevation, with six months of cabin fever followed by six months beholden to the whims of tourists, is not the kind of place conducive to raising a family and finishing out your life (then throw in the introduction of gaming in 1990 and a complete uprooting of what was until then a fairly low-key, "we're all in this together" rubric), so very few Gilpin County residents today lived there in the 1980s. Even fewer folks working or volunteering for the High Country Fire Protection District currently (absorbed into the Timberline Fire Protection District in 2011, but "High Country" still is stenciled on some of the trucks) were around, or even know people who were around, 30 years ago.
So it is not particularly surprising that no one, including long-term Gilpin County residents, including current Gilpin County and surrounding fire district volunteer firefighters and board members, has yet been located who remembers anything of 10+ years of Holcombs administering the High Country Fire Protection District in the 1970s and 1980s. Which is both a completely explicable, and a completely inexplicable, thing...*
*This does not mean I didn't eventually locate people, either still living in Gilpin County or outside of Gilpin County but still in Colorado, who remembered Bob Holcomb service as board member for the High Country Fire Protection District (intriguingly, none of these folks remember Joyce Holcomb's two year stint on the board, and their involvement bracketed hers). But their memories are a story for a different time, and a real newspaper.
At the time, the Holcombs lived in Arvada, or at least this was their address in 1984. Prior to this, in 1978, Joyce Holcomb ran for a 2-year term on the High Country Fire Protection District, and when she was elected and set up the 1980 board election as secretary, she provided a Golden mailing address in the announcement of the upcoming election in the legal notice section of the Weekly Register-Call newspaper. At this May 1980 election, Robert Holcomb was elected to a 4-year term, and when he became secretary and wrote up the announcement for the 1982 election, the mailing address he provided for questions or correspondence was Nederland, with an Arvada home telephone number.
It is unclear whether the Holcombs actually physically lived in all these different communities in 1980 and 1982 and 1984, whether this was a mailing address provided by the district (i.e., tied to the district and not to the person holding the office of secretary at the time), or whether the Holcombs lived (or at least maintained a residence) in one single place (like in Gilpin County or the Coal Creek section of Boulder County) but their mailing address was not "allowed" to be their true physical address. Lacking a closer post office, Coal Creek could have potentially "required" a Golden mailing address into the early 1990s (believe it or not, some long-time Black Hawk residents insist they had to list their mailing address as Golden into the 1990s, even though they lived in Black Hawk, which would only make sense to me if Black Hawk didn't have a functioning post office at that time, which it definitely did, or if they lived in a nebulous nether region between Black Hawk and Golden), or maybe it was just simpler for someone physically living in Denver but with a second summer residence or weekend getaway in Coal Creek to pick up the mail at the Golden post office on their way through.
If the board functioned as typical small-town fire district boards do, they would have met once a month. So the commitment required for a dedicated board member generally living and working outside the district to attend meetings, especially one 30-60 miles away, would have had to be genuine. Recognize that High Country board members were likely not active volunteer firemen for the district, as this would have been a conflict of interest given a paid fire chief, so while the commitment was genuine, it wasn't superhuman, as someone living an hour away certainly couldn't have responded in a timely fashion to fire calls.
In any event, Trustee Holcomb was re-elected to the board as an incumbent in 1984, and ran again for a two-year term in 1988. This board, typical of a lot of small-town boards, had a lot of turnover, so various roles, like board president or board secretary, were likely filled on an interim basis as required, with fairly fluid job descriptions and responsibilities of board members.
8000+ feet elevation, with six months of cabin fever followed by six months beholden to the whims of tourists, is not the kind of place conducive to raising a family and finishing out your life (then throw in the introduction of gaming in 1990 and a complete uprooting of what was until then a fairly low-key, "we're all in this together" rubric), so very few Gilpin County residents today lived there in the 1980s. Even fewer folks working or volunteering for the High Country Fire Protection District currently (absorbed into the Timberline Fire Protection District in 2011, but "High Country" still is stenciled on some of the trucks) were around, or even know people who were around, 30 years ago.
So it is not particularly surprising that no one, including long-term Gilpin County residents, including current Gilpin County and surrounding fire district volunteer firefighters and board members, has yet been located who remembers anything of 10+ years of Holcombs administering the High Country Fire Protection District in the 1970s and 1980s. Which is both a completely explicable, and a completely inexplicable, thing...*
*This does not mean I didn't eventually locate people, either still living in Gilpin County or outside of Gilpin County but still in Colorado, who remembered Bob Holcomb service as board member for the High Country Fire Protection District (intriguingly, none of these folks remember Joyce Holcomb's two year stint on the board, and their involvement bracketed hers). But their memories are a story for a different time, and a real newspaper.
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