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. . ,... 4 "I i 0 j.. V John R. Smith, sone of Mr. Ruedi' s neighbors the will Smiths, furnished the information that John Ruedi arrived in Lead- ville in 1890. With Charles, "Cap" Noble and will Smith, Ruedi prospected the Frying Pan country when they went on hunting trips from Leadville. They sold the game they shot to the construction crews of the Midland. After homesteading, livestock became the principal income of those living at Ruedi until about 1905 when the Roaring Fork Plaster Company built a mill there. The Smiths and the Browns each built a log hotel for the mill workers. In 1918, the mill was dismantled and sold for scrap. Mrs. Smith bought the Ruedi station and converted it to a tearoom. Charles Curtis, present owner of the hotel, dismantled the tearoom and built cabins. The Will Smith ranch is now owned by Leon Nelson who operates it in conjunction with his father's adjoining place. Mr. Smith died in 1942 at his home in Basalt. His wife passed away two years later. Their son, John R., left Ruedi in 1920. trying his luck in the oil fields of Texas, Arkansas and California, but always yearned to return to the Frying Pan region. He and his wife, Florence Olson, whom he met in Grand Junction, now live in Minturn, Colorado, where he is foreman for the Rio Grande roundwhouse. They have three childen, John with the F.B!. in Denver; Roy with the F.A.A. in Denver; and Iva Jean who married Lynn Kanikas of Minturn and has a three-year old boy. Hugo L. Miller, a nephew of Ruedi, was an Oxford Univer- sity graduate. He hd some very educational books. His mother had left him some Suez Canal bonds and the interest on them furnished -4-