WSP04798

• File Number: 8141
• Description: Fryingpan-Arkansas Project
• State: CO
• Basin: Arkansas
• Water Division: 5
• Date: 1/1/1964
• Author: R W Danielson
• Title: Ruedi - a biography of John Ruedi
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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The following information was furnished to the Colorado
Water Conservation Board by Dr. Ralph Wesley Danielson, Metropoli-
tan Building, Denver, Colorado. Dr. Danielson's father and a
brother were locomotive engineers on the old Midland Railroad.
Dr. Danielson and his brother Clarence are writing a book on the
history of Basalt which they intend to publish sometime in late
1964.

RUEDI -

A man who enters vitally into the early history of settle-

ment of the Frying Pan area is John Ruedi. He not only bought a

tract of land in the southeast part of the Basalt neighborhood,

but about 1897 he took up a homestead in the valley which was known

as Ruedi. It was a water tank stop for the Midland Railroad. The

dam which in the near future will be constructed for the Fryingpan-

Arkansas Project will be located in his valley_ Thus his name will

be preserved in a monumental manner.

Born in Switzerland, and coming to Colorado from Missouri,

Mr. Ruedi was a pleasant, quiet man, almost a recluse, about whom

very little was known according to his neighbors. He was six feet

tall and had very black hair. A bachelor, he lived alone except

for the time his nephew, Hugo Miller, from Switzerland, stayed

with him before he settled in Meredith.

John Ruedi was kind and obliging to those who lived in

the vicinity. He picked up the mail which was dropped off the

train at the water tank, and took it to his neighbors, the Hough

family. In return, they loaned him their books and magazines.

Gladys Hough, Mrs. Frank Wachob, remembers that he read all of

her parents' books with great interest in the five years the