Meet Richard
Richard, born in 1933, is a Kansas native. He likes to say “I wasn’t born in Colorado, but I got here as fast as I could.”
Richard and his wife Sheryl, moved from Kansas to get their teaching degrees from the University of Northern Colorado. They both taught in Greeley, Brighton, and Poudre School District in Fort Collins. After being an administrator at Putnam Elementary and Juan Fullana for 25 years, Richard retired in 1999.
After exploring the Gould area for several years, and pursuing his passion for hunting, fishing, and rambling around the mountains, Richard and Sheryl decided to buy some property in the area. While building their cabin, they befriended Johnny Anderson and his wife who owned Ken Del Cabins (now the Powderhorn Cabins). Johnny could see how much the pair loved the property, and when time came to sell, he went right to Richard and Sheryl. As it stood, in 1967, at the age of 35, they barely had enough money to finish the cabin they had started up the hill! So, naturally, Richard asked his dad, who, naturally said “heck no!”. Undaunted, he approached a good friend to go in on the property together, and bought the 40 acre property. Soon thereafter, Richard and Sheryl were able to buy out the partnership and assume sole proprietorship of the Powderhorn.
Over the course of several years Richard and his family worked tirelessly to improve the property one cabin at a time. After several thousand hours of hard earned sweat equity, the pair were able to resurrect more than 12 cabins of the original cabins on the property. Each cabin has been lovingly restored to its original condition and tastefully equipped with period appropriate wood burning stoves.
At first, the Powderhorn cabins catered to the sportsman and outdoorsman who came to North Park seeking monster trout, trophy elk, and abundant deer. As time passed and Richard's four daughters grew up among the cabins, the Powderhorn also began to welcome vacationing families from all across the country who came to the mountains seeking the quiet simplicity of living in cabins among the lodgepole pine trees.
To this day, Powderhorn Cabins are still in great demand by the sons, daughters, and grandchildren of the original families who came vacationing to North Park. Reservations are often made months in advance. The Powderhorn continues to care for those original cabins by consistently upgrading essentials and creature comforts. Examples being our recent round of the purchase of brand new mattresses, and bedding, the ongoing upgrade of refrigerators, a property wide installation of metal roofs on many of the rustic cabins and, of course, keeping our antique wood stoves in tip top shape.
At 89 years old, Richards wry smile and dry wit will animate the conversation. And, if you are extremely lucky, he may share a secret location for where to land the biggest brown trout, or maybe, just maybe, have the opportunity to connect with a majestic bull moose.