Tyke Pierce Construction Company History

     Our family's story in Northwest Colorado begins with my Great-Grand parents, Albert John Ohman and Ida Amelia Scott Ohman. Albert was born in Sweden on January 12,1866. He immigrated to America at the age of 16 arriving in New York in 1882. From there he made his way to Minnesota finding work as a stone mason. Ida was born in Saint Paul Minnesota May 14th,1871. While staying with her sister and brother in-law Ida met Albert in 1894, and they where married on October 26th, 1895. All three of their children where born in Saint Paul: Pearl Violet (who was my grandmother) born July 31st,1896, Russell Clarence born November 20th, 1898, and Myrtle Irene born January 12th,1900.  

      In 1901, Albert along with his brother Ed began taking jobs helping to build the railroads. Ida had since been diagnosed with Tuberculosis, her doctor recommended she move to a higher and drier climate similar to Colorado's. So westward they went, first stopping in Iowa where home was two tents pitched out in the orchard for several months. As a "railroad family" tent living was regular fare with Albert moving west to keep up with the boom in new rail lines. In 1903, Albert signed a contract with the Denver & Salt Lake railroad company to head a powder-dynamite-crew. He ran a total of three crews of men blasting cuts through the granite outcroppings of the Rocky Mountains as the Denver & Salt Lake rail headed west. Denver was home for the Ohman family for approximately one year. They left the capital of Colorado by train, crossing the Corona Pass with it's lariat run up the Continental Divide, as David H. Moffat's Denver & Salt Lake rails continued to move westward with the hopeful goal of reaching Salt Lake City and connecting to the golden coast of California. The next temporary home for the Ohmans was in Rollins, Colorado. The whole family including uncle Ed living in a small cabin behind the cooks shack. Albert and Ed spent most nights camping out with the blasting crews. These crews would work well in advance of the railhead, blasting out a path for the rail bed.

     Russell recalled his father telling that his men were not at all the high society type and they preferred a brawl to a tea party any day. When his crew would set up to camp for the night, it was Albert's habit to take his bunk and bedroll some distance away from the others. He said he would much rather take his chances with the wildlife than with the men. Albert was a big raw boned man, who could maintain peace among the railroad roustabouts with the help of an ax handle if necessary.

     After spending the summer at Rollins, the family returned to Denver for the winter and for schooling for the children. With spring they again boarded the work train for the trip over the Corona Pass, past the Yankee Doodle Lake and through the wooden snow sheds which protected the train from avalanches as it traversed the east slope of the great divide above the timberline. The forward point of the Denver and Salt Lake City rail became the cow town of Kremmling, Colorado, and from Kremmling the Ohmans traveled by four horse stage coach over Gore Pass. There were several stops, with fresh teams of horses waiting at each station in the journey across the Buttes and up the Gore Pass. After taking the winding trail down Gore's west slope, the coach moved across the high meadow to the Penny Ranch which is now the town of Yampa, Colorado. Just one night was spent at the ranch, the next morning the journey continued on to Huggins. Here Albert, who was working several more miles to the west, met up with his family with a buggy and mule drawn wagon. Bumping along the wagon trails and fording the streams, Pearl remembered, they would stop to let the kids and the family dog run and stretch. They settled down in Oak Creek, Colorado, a brawling deep-shaft coal mining town, where they lived in a "railroader's cottage" (a house with walls of wood planking and a canvas top). The children were enrolled in school and this would be their home for the next two years.

     Pearl recalls that her father would keep 15-20 yellow sticks of dynamite in the coal stove's warming oven to dry them out for the next work day! Albert also kept kegs of powder inside of the tent home to protect them from the elements. Pearl also recalled that Ida was not happy about this and raised Cain with Albert telling him he was going to blow them all up! However the dynamite always stayed in the oven so it would be dry in the morning.

     As the Denver & Salt Lake City rails were tamped down from the high passes and through the canyon into the Pleasant Valley the Ohmans moved once again. The families new home was Keystone, Colorado a small rail and coal town west of Oak Creek. Here home consisted of two tents with board sides: one was the kitchen where Ida did all the cooking and baking and the other was a bedroom which had one bed for the parents and another for the three children. Ida had plenty of mouths to feed with Albert running three crews of men, pearl recalls how the men would always show up at the kitchen tent for Ida's coffee and rolls. The small pot belly stove they had was often insufficient so it was not odd to wake up with a heavy frost on top of the bedding. Pearl often told me, that if anyone had hardships her mother really did.

     When it came time to move again the Ohman family loaded up two wagons with all of their belongings and set out for Steamboat Springs, arriving there on October 7th, 1907. It would still be more than a year before the first locomotives would whistle into town and nearly five years before there would be regular train service. The children had missed a month of school and were quickly enrolled, with Pearl in grade five, Russell joining the fourth graders and little Myrtle in the second grade. Unfortunately, the Ohman's were met with great disappointment when they arrived in Steamboat. Albert had rented them a house paying three months in advance, but because of a housing shortage, they found the house was occupied by squatters that refused to budge. Luckily, the Harwig family came to their aid offering them hospitality while they looked for other living arrangements. They found one in the Fairview addition on the hillside overlooking the town of Steamboat Springs. It had a good soft well and a barn and an outhouse. But, this house had previously been employed as Steamboats pest house, where as it had been used to quarantine ill people with such contagious diseases as small pox and scarlet fever. Pearl said the neighbors warned them against renting the house, but they fumigated it and moved in the very next day. This became the Ohman's permanent home.       

    The first Denver and Salt Lake City train pulled into Steamboat Spring Colorado on December 13th, 1908, but the line was still being completed and the service was irregular. In 1912 after much fanfare the railroad began regular passenger and freight service with the inaugural runs being greeted by hundreds of valley residents and the ringing of church bells.Bottles popped in Brooklyn and the celebration lasted for days. 1912 also marked the approaching end to Albert’s career as a railroader and Moffat’s dream of a line to the West Coast as his finances dwindled. In 1913 under new management the D&SL extended to Craig and there it stopped. The two main reasons that Albert stopped his career as a railroader were 1.) Ida was weary of tent living and work gangs and felt it was no way to raise a family so she told him the family was staying in Steamboat Springs. 2.) The times were changing Albert had used hand drills to cut the channels for his powder that opened the road bed for the railroad. By 1913, steam powered drills were being used with large horse drawn machines. It would have demanded a large investment to continue so Albert stepped aside although he was to continue his dangerous blasting work on projects in the county for several years to come. Albert worked completing a number of construction contracts in the valley. In 1909 he did the contract for the excavation of the 175 foot long open air bathing pool for Steamboat. In 1910 he completed the contract to blast out a new shaft for the juniper mine north of Oak Creek. In 1916 he completed the contract for widening the highway between Bear River and Mount Harris. In 1917 he completed the contract for the excavation of the new Steamboat High School.
         In 1922 he completed the contract for building 1.5 miles of the Steamboat Brookston road. He contracted several of the blasting jobs for building the road over Rabbit Ears Pass. He also worked at the stone quarry on Emerald Mountain which was south of town, blasting out huge chunks of sandstone. Then the stones were cut into slabs and transported by four horse drawn sledges down into the valley where they were used to build the Episcopal Church and several of Lincoln Avenue's finest buildings. He also worked for several years in the construction business with his son in law Joel Anderson. Albert died on August 8, 1938 at the age of 72 and Ida died November 15, 1960 at the age of 89.

      My father Woolsey Lloyd Pierce was born in Miller County Missouri on April 10th, 1918. Everyone called him Lloyd and he named his construction company W.L. Pierce Construction Company. He quit school in 1933 at the age of fifteen, to go to work at the CC camps that had been started by the government as a worker relief program. This is where he got his start in the field of construction. He was only in the CC program for about a year, when he and a cousin decided to hop a freight train and go in search of work. Like so many other people of this time period he was looking for a new permanent home and a chance to build a better life.

      He came to Steamboat Springs in 1937 and took a job working at the Pine Grove Ranch, putting up hay and helping with the wheat harvest. On one occasion he had gone into town and taken himself out for dinner at the Harbor Hotel restaurant where Miss Ruth Violet Anderson just happened to be his waitress. She didn't seem to be paying enough attention to Lloyd so he proceeded to take the salt and pepper shakers that where on his table home with him. He figured she would soon be out to the ranch to retrieve them, as in those days when something went missing from a table, it was deducted from the waitresses pay check. Lloyd was right and Ruth was at the Pine Grove Ranch the next day, though at this point she did not go on a date with him. That fall Lloyd decided to go to Brown's Park as he was offered a job there wrangling wild horses for the Johnny Grounds Family. As he was leaving town he stopped by the Harbor Restaurant to tell Ruth Violet that he would be coming back soon to marry her. Whether, she was trying to play hard to get or just being contrary, she told him that she doubted if that would ever happen! Lloyd worked for the Grounds Family that entire winter and returned to Steamboat as promised in the early spring of 1938. He had not forgotten about Ruth, soon they where dating and Lloyd finally convinced her to marry him. They went to Denver to get married on July 19th, 1938. Ruth wanted the Reverend Fooks, who had, until recently, been the Congregational Church minister in Steamboat Springs to perform the ceremony, his daughter whom was Ruth's good friend stood up for them. Lloyd and Ruth had four children all born and raised in Steamboat Springs, Colorado; Thomas Joel born December, 31st, 1939, Carron Ingrid born October 2nd, 1941, Lloyd Bertrand (Tyke) born October 4th, 1950 and Debra Sheen born  December 12th, 1952.

     In that same summer of 1938 Lloyd had been hired by Pete Darvey to build a new house on the old Carren Ranch north of Columbine. The newlyweds lived there in a two room log cabin on the north end of the ranch along Box Creek into late fall. In 1939 Lloyd teamed up with his Father in-law Joel Anderson to build a Swiss Chalet type home for Rex Gill. Lloyd had also purchased a two ton truck that did not have a dump bed. For spare money he hauled gravel for people which he hand loaded into the truck and then back out of the truck on the other end!
    At the beginning of World War II: Lloyd pulled up his tools and decided to do work for the war effort. Doing work for Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, Lowery Air Force Base  and built the first barracks at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. He took his family with him to work on the building of Camp Hale Training camp for the Tenth Mountain Division and they lived in a one bedroom shack in the "Pando" work camp that my mother said: was so small, that she had to sit on the foot of the bed in order to cook on the stove. On their way back to Steamboat he had loaded all of their belongings including the dismantled shack on to a trailer, which came unhitched on the road heading up hill on the North side of State Bridge. The whole thing went off the road and into the Colorado River, and they lost everything. 

     When 1944 rolled around and a number of his friends had joined the armed forces, Lloyd decided to join the Naval Construction Battalion, landing him in the Pacific Theater. Some of the demolition experts in his company were the first to land on Iwo Jima. He ended up Chief Petty Officer in charge of the Base Shop Operations on Iwo Jima. When 1946 rolled around and his commanding officer tried to get him to re-enlist, offering him the rank of Warrant Officer, he declined. He was simply too home sick and wanted to get home to his family and his work in Steamboat Springs.

     After returning to Steamboat Springs, Lloyd and Ruth decided to buy a property near the 5th Street bridge, which they developed into the Anchor Motel. Here, they raised their family until 1960. In 1948 Lloyd partnered up with Rube Jensen (the manager of Steamboat Lumber Company) and they built four spec homes on Missouri Avenue-the houses where all done and sold in a matter of six weeks-they were sold for $8,500.00 each. Lloyd also became good friends with John Burroughs (the Author), who hired him to build two log cabins on Wither's Hill. John gave my father two boxes of inlay woods which he had gathered form all over the world which I still have some left in my shop today.

     By the year 1950, Lloyd's construction business was really taking off. He was keeping busy building commercial buildings in Northwest Colorado. In 1952 Phillips Petroleum Company asked him to build and develop their executive retreat at Lake Agnes on the East side of Rabbit Ears Pass. His company built all of the infrastructure, buildings, water/sewer systems, stables, roads, marina, and boat docks. He kept a crew busy with this project from 1952 thru 1959. In 1959, he built Steamboat's first condominium building which had only eight units. The project was built for Dorothy Wither and Gene Sternberg was the Architect. This Building is still located at the top of Crawford Hill on 11th Street with a great view of the 90 meter ski jump on Howelson Hill. This was the first project that Tyke worked on, he painted the insides of the closets.Tyke and his brother Tom worked with their father for many, many years. We both remember hand mixing concrete for all of our projects up until 1969, when ready mix plants eased some of our manual work load. In the year 1966, Lloyd, Tom and Tyke hand mixed enough concrete to build the spillway at Sherriff's Reservoir in one summer. We lived in an army tent for three months during this job.

     In 1963 Lloyd's Company built Steamboat Springs a new reservoir which held 5 million gallons of water and because it was built 100 feet higher then the old one, greatly improved the water pressure for the town.

     In the 60's his company also installed the water system for the Steamboat Cemetery from a pump station out of the river, the new courthouse annex, a large addition to the Yampa Valley Electric Building (which was  originally built in the 50's), Routt County National Bank at 3rd street and Lincoln, the R&B market, a residence for Ed and Marydene Root, and several other projects around Routt County. Lloyd was a community man, He was a member of the Kiwanis's Club, a life time member of the VFW Club where he served as commander for a couple of years, and he also served two terms on the Steamboat Springs City Council in the 70's.

     Both of his sons had the privilege of working with their father for a long time. Tom until he was hired as the Regional Building Inspector in Routt County in 1978 and Tyke until Lloyds death in 1995.

     The number of buildings and construction projects completed by Lloyd seems to be nearly bottomless. Banks, schools, hospitals, municipal water systems, utility buildings and new residences in a five county area. To name a few: Rifle State Bank in Rifle, the Fire station and Town hall in Meeker, the BLM Building in Craig, Moffat County State Bank in Craig, First Federal Savings and Loan in Craig, three additions to the Memorial Hospital in Craig, the Congregational Church in Hayden, the Yampa Valley Electric Building and two additions, Steamboats two Fire stations, four additions to the Steamboat schools, Steamboat's Catholic Church, The Old west Building, the Inn at Thunderhead Condominiums, the original Gallery restaurant at the base of Mt. Werner, the first commercial building at the ski area, two post offices for Steamboat, addition to the Kremmling elementary school, the Burns Post Office, the Eagle Post Office, and the Baggs Wyoming High School. 

     In 1990, Lloyd, Tom and Tyke sat down and counted all of the buildings on the main street in Steamboat Springs, there were only two that they had not built, remodeled or altered at some point in time. In 1974 they had 75 employees working with several jobs going at one time in Northwest Colorado. Colorado Macco which later became TIC was a subcontractor to W.L. Pierce Construction Company when the ski mountain was first being built. Ruth single handedly ran the office until 1974 when it became too much for her, at which point Tyke moved into the office to learn and perform that end of the business. Woolsey Lloyd Pierce died while working on a piece of property he had purchased on November 1st, 1995 at the age of 77. Ruth died on January 17th, 1989 four months short of her 70th birthday.