Historic Glassier Farmhouse (2020)

Take a drive along Colorado Highway 82 and follow the Roaring Fork River to Emma, a ghost town that thrived 125 years ago. Emma was becoming a bustling community by 1900, with a depot on the Rio Grande Railroad, a school, merchants and services, and several growing families.

But there is another mid-valley story to be told. It’s just outside of town. It involves a vast valley, fertile farmland, and immigrants from the Italian Aosta Valley. Ranching and farming took hold in the area. Take a hike or bike ride down the Rio Grande Trail, just north of the Pitkin-Eagle Countyline, and you’ll cross the property we’re talking about. 

See the old brick farmhouse over there? Frederick Glassier spent most of his life there. Glassier homesteaded near Emma about 1891, and things went along pretty well for his farming business. The farmhouse was built in 1904, and as Fredrick’s farm aspirations grew, he purchased the house and surrounding land, settling down there with his wife, Freda, and raising their six children.

Ranching in the valley was steady, while agricultural crops were iffier. But potatoes seemed to thrive well in the soil around Emma. A variety, the “Red McClure,” seemed to grow best in the red valley soil; it was in this soil that Frederick planted his first potato crops. The years passed, potatoes flourished, and Fred and Adele raised six children. They all worked the red earth. The love of the land, ample water from the neighboring Home Supply Ditch for irrigation, and good markets were all keys to the Glassier family’s successes.

The first half of the century was profitable for the Glassiers, even during the Depression and on into the 1950s, when daughter Joyce noted, “The Red Soil was the money maker.” The Glassiers were paid a premium for their superior-quality red potatoes. The family was quite self-sufficient with pigs, chickens, a few dairy cows, and some fruit trees on the place.

Among Fred and Adele’s family was namesake Fred H. Glassier, who, along with his wife Freda, subsequently maintained the historic family farm. The produce slowly dwindled, workers grew scarce, and Fred passed away. Freda was able to maintain a few cattle on the property until age 84. She died in the Glassier house in 2009, a family treasure she had maintained for 61 years. 

The farm could have been turned into commercial property. Large acreages could have been staked out. Huge homes (and profits!) could have been built there, with pristine views of the Roaring Fork River, the distinctive red cliffs nearby, the sprawling valley to the southeast, and majestic mountains in the outlying distance.

But several saw the glowing history in the sagging structures and the still-fertile farmland, its red soil, and the rights to water from the Home Supply Ditch as vital to bringing the fantastic story to life once again. 

In 2013 and 2014, Pitkin County Open Space and Trails, along with Eagle County, Great Outdoors Colorado, the Town of Basalt, and the Mid-Valley Trails Committee, partnered to purchase the 282 combined acres of Glassier Open Space. In 2015, the first Glassier Open Space Management Plan was adopted. Since then, Open Space and Trails has been managing and rehabilitating the property to uphold community goals and historic preservation standards. The Glassier Farmstead is currently in phase one of rehabilitation, which includes restoring the historic Victorian Glassier House. Other structures and improvements on the farmstead will be addressed in the future.  

Learn more about the Glassier Farmstead and rehabilitation efforts.

-By John Cutler, guest author

Fredrick H. and Adele Glassier. Photo courtesy of Randy and Wendy Glassier.