15860 S Elk Creek Road Will's Haven

The family has and continues to celebrate graduations, birthdays, anniversaries, and many holidays at the cabin together.  Evenings sitting out under the stars, lazy afternoons, shopping at the Emporium, long walks along Elk Creek are just some of the great memories we have and we look forward to many more! 

We do not have much information about previous owners.  We were able to track one down who provided the following:

My father bought the cabin in approx 1969 for 6k and my uncle bought the cabin just below it for 4k. So we had access to Elk Creek.  We had large family gatherings using both cabins but always had poker parties and the actual gathering at your cabin. My grandmother who was born in 1887 and came to Colorado in a covered wagon taught all of us to cook over the old cook stove. I hope it's still there?  It was a Kalamazoo. We made everything on that stove from homemade soups, syrups, venison, thieves rancheros etc. We didnt use the propane at all.

I used to gather water from the creek and bring it up to the cabin to do dishes, clean and wash up. I did it quite a bit as you can imagine. All of the kids tubed Elk creek and the South Platte regularly. We ran wild and free up there, every weekend, learned chores and the value of hard work. I personally moved the outhouse and redug a new hole. We would purchase coal first at the Bucksnort which was a store then. People from the area would ride horseback to the store for coal, nails, canned goods etc.  The store was located on the left, through the entrance with a small bar in back to the right. Saturday night was always packed with locals, not many Denverites and usually had someone playing live music. There was dancing galore. Kids danced, grandparents danced, and an occasional drunk would fall in the creek!

Once the store stopped, the entire building was turned into a saloon, becoming Bucksnort Saloon.

We then would have to drive to Buffalo Creek to get our supplies at Greens Mercantile. Mr. Green, his wife, and daughter ran a beautiful general store in a big hand crafted rock building. As you walked in the door, the meat counter and butcher shop was to the right with rows of canned goods, flour, fishing supplies, candy, coke, knives, ammo, and other necessities of mountain life. You could buy a fishing license there and it was the only place for miles that you could get a license. Mr Green kept the coal under the building in big, heavy burlap sacks. We would buy a whole sack, probably about 100 lbs for the winter. You would get a hot fire going, throw in a few little chunks and it would keep that fire burning most of the night. If you put in a bigger chunk, say the size of a softball, it would last well into the next day. It was my job to stoke the fire every morning so I was always the first one up. I'm still a morning person to this day and do my best work first thing.

It was hard for the womenfolk to go to the outhouse in the middle of the night, so we kept a chamber pot handy. Grandma still had one from the 1800's so they put it to good use. I still have it at my cabin. I have an off the grid cabin on 36 acres on the Western Slope. It's a beautiful property and could be a full blown home but I refuse to modernize it.  The house next door, can't even seem or hear them, is selling for 899k.

We bought that cabin from a veterinarian that was a former WWII pilot. I cant remember his name. Maybe Doc Bolton. You would have to check the county records. He flew B-52's over Germany if I remember right. He gave me his flight jacket. Its heavy, made out of horse hide. I still have it.

We used to eat breakfast out on the little porch area. One time, the county plowed the road wrong up above us and rock and dirt filled that whole area. It knocked down the fence where the split rail fence now stands. Dad and I dug it out, probably 4 ft deep and put up that split rail fence.

Once the Denverites discovered the Bucksnort, they came in droves on the weekends. They would illegally  park on our driveway, block us in, then drive off of the rock and timber retaining wall between our driveway and the road. I had to rebuild that retaining wall at least a dozen times. That's one of the reasons why we sold. Too many green horns!

Richard Ratliff: 303-440-0072

Christine Ratliff: 303-506-6752

Aubs Ratliff: 808-840-7040

Brandon Murray: 808-315-0986