Love Ranch in 1929. Photo provided by Suzy Kelly.
Stories of the adventures of residents of Chalk Creek Canyon (then known as Chalk Creek Gulch) make history come alive. Suzy Kelly provides this recollection of earlier residents of the canyon, Mark and Jo Love.
“Jo Love told me about their cross-country ski trips in this area. The trips were all day long and required backpacks with lunch and water. They would leave at first light and did not want to be out after dark. However, they did some moonlight skiing.
Mark and Jo Love in 1927. Photo provided by Suzy Kelly.
Because Mark was a mountain man, hunter, trapper, and cowboy he knew the area and what was needed for a trip. He carried supplies for a fire and sleeping bags.”
After marrying in 1926, Jo and Mark bought the Brewer Ranch, which is still there. He was a guide and wrangler for Byrd Fuqua’s dude ranch, Byrd Colony.
This photo is of Jo and Mark Love who had skied from their home at Love Ranch in lower Chalk Creek to St. Elmo in 1927.
Over their years at Love Ranch, they cross-country skied all over the gulch. They even skied over Tincup Pass to a party and dance at Tincup.
Love Ranch had some small log cabins and Mark added more. There was no electricity in the Gulch at this time so it was kerosene lamps and wood stoves to heat water.
The cabins were rented in the summer to tourists. Mark took Jo on hunts for mountain lions, big horn sheep, bears, and other animals in the Yukon. He also taught her to fish, camp, and hike in the mountains around their home in Chalk Creek Gulch.
They had a few short years together in the mountains they loved, until a horse he was riding, slipped and fell on him. He died from the accident in September 1930.
Jo continued to live on the ranch and rent the cabins. She died in 1976 at the age of 86. The Love Ranch sign is still in Chalk Creek and her home and cabins are there.
Found in her scrapbook was this short verse,
“The nicest thing in the world to do
Is to love the man you are married to”
By Suzy Kelly
Editor’s note: Kelly adds that Jo Love had a good friend Agnes Vail, who climbed and hiked all over the west. She invited her to visit and after her death, the falls at Cascade on Mt. Princeton were named after her: Agnes Vail Falls. These falls were the scene of a tragedy a number of years ago when several members of one family were killed in a rock slide.
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