One evening several of us from this neighborhood were spending a social evening together discussing the various escapades pulled by dude guests. One in particular seemed especially amusing: When the McCullys were still running the ranch, a number of their guests wanted to go for a long horseback ride up in the mountains. “Should you become lost,” he told them, “just tie the reins, drop them on the horses’ necks, and give them their heads; they’ll come home all right.” Sure enough they became lost, so dismounted and did as Mr. McCully had instructed them to do. The horses returned to the ranch all right—riderless. It took the McCullys several hours to find the guests.
“Well, we shouldn’t laugh at dudes, no matter how green,” said Lola, “when we first bought the place we were the greenest dudes on the ranch. Didn’t even know which side of a horse to mount.”
However, they have learned, and Chair Mountain Ranch is now a very popular, well managed resort.
The river flows on to Cleveholm, the famous Redstone castle, built in 1903 by J. C. Osgood for his first wife, the “Lady Bountiful” of Redstone. Every Christmas all the children in the village were urged to write letters to Santa Claus. They were delivered to Mrs. Osgood and she personally saw to it that every child received what she or he asked for; not a cheap, shoddy toy, but the very best money could buy.
One Christmas the school was giving a program and Christmas tree, to which all the people in Redstone had been invited. Right at the height of the festivities the wax candles on the tree set fire to the cedar branches. Some of the men quickly grabbed the tree and threw it through one of the windows, thus averting what might have been a terrible catastrophe. The parents were very grateful for the presence of mind and quick action of the men; the children were very downcast that their carefully planned and often rehearsed program had been so rudely interrupted and their beautiful Christmas tree ruined.
The next year when Mr. Osgood had a firehouse built it was located on a lot adjoining the school house grounds.[2]
Cleveholm was patterned after an old English castle. It originally contained 26 rooms, each with an immense fireplace. The wall coverings, upholstering, and covers for the bookcases and reading tables in the library were hand-tooled elephant hide. Light green silk brocade was used for wall coverings, drapes, and upholstering in the music room. Dark maroon plush decorated the walls in the dining room, and all the wood work and furniture were mahogany. The parlor is an especially large room, two full stories high on the inside, and lavishly furnished. It also contained the famous Osgood coat-of-arms.