THE HISTORY OF HALLS STATION

Once upon a time there was a country store named Halls Station. Today it is just a dot...a highway marker depicts that at one time there was this fellow by the name of Halls who went out there and built a store building with a gas pump in front of it. They used to be called Mom & Pop stores....now-a-days they are called Seven Eleven, Kwik Stop, Kwikway...Mr Halls was mostly interested in making a decent living and was not inclined, I don't suppose, with what the future held for stores of the nature that he owned and operated. Well according to the scant history that I derived...obtained from my oldest brother Estel F. Schmeiser(March 6, 1912-July 8, 2004) before he passed off the stage of action, this Mr. Halls's store caught on fire and burned to the ground and all that was left on the northeast corner of this infamous intersection of Colorado Highway 94 and Lincoln County Road 11...And because of the fact that Mr. Halls's property was a small plot in someone's cow pasture...to this day all that remains is a pile of the concrete foundation of Mr. Halls's store and gas pump. So we move to the northwest corner of this intersection where Mr Ray Renck built a store and gas pump. Mr Ray Renck's luck at maintaining a business there was not much better than Mr. Halls's across the road and seeing as how Mr. Stringham had a corn field on that half section, all that remains of Mr Renck's store is the memory of a select group of hardy folks with a good memory of days gone by!!! So we move "catty corner" across the road to the southeast corner of this intersection and this is where Mr. Sears and Mrs. Bertha Stevens created a thriving business of a country store, a gas pump and a automobile garage repair business/blacksmith shop/welding shop....Mr. Sears Stevens not only knew how to build store buildings....there just wasn't much that he put his hands to that he couldn't do and maybe thats why him and his wife and two daughters fared so well on their corner of this Historic intersection....Halls Station.... However, all that remains there today is the memory. And unlike the two other locations of stores and gas pumps, Mr. Sears Stevens apparently had purchased his corner from the Durkee Ranch and it was deeded land that still remains fenced off from the rest of the world. At least that's the way I remember Halls Station from the last time I was privileged to visit out there in 1999...!!! Halls Station is located thusly...Back in "The Good Old Days" downtown Colorado Springs Colorado...used to be....well actually...standing smack dab in the center of the intersection of Platte Avenue and Nevada Avenue there is a humongus statue of General William Jackson Palmer, Founder of the City of Colorado Springs...1871....on his favorite trusty steed, a handsome stallion, which is about seven miles west of where Colorado Highway 94 originally had it's beginning a short distance west of The Road Sign that depicts "RUSH 33" miles east, and Halls Station is another 12 miles east of the..."RUSH 33"....United States Post Office/gas station/residence..a total of 52 miles...to the Colorado 94 Highway marker depicting Halls Station

IN THE GARDEN....My Mother's Garden

I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses; And the voice I hear, falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses........

MEMORIES.....I have MANY fond memories mixed with a few memories that are not so fond, not so pleasant to remember... some that I'd like to erase from my mind but they are stamped there indelibly and I find quite impossible to eradicate from my mind....of the nearly twenty years I was PRIVILEGED to live on my Pioneer Parent's HOMESTEAD on the high plains, the wind swept prairies of Eastern Colorado........

Then the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed. Genesis 2:7&8
(NET)
Somewhere along the way...I would imagine about the Spring of 1915...my Father and Mother planted a garden. And every Spring season Mother would make preparations for that garden to be planted for the summer. It was no easy task but it certainly was necessary...It was vital to our very existance as a matter of fact!!! A section of fence on the east side near the walk-in gate would be opened to allow my Dad's team of horses to pass through and then they were hitched to a one bottom plow to prepare the ground for planting. The soil preparation was followed by weeks of back breaking work making rows and planting the seeds that would eventually bloom/blossom/develop into some of the best food that I was going to be privileged to consume in all the rest of my life on God's green earth!!!

And a river went out of Eden to water the garden. Genesis 2:10a...Mother's garden was watered by a windmill at the top of the little knoll that her garden was situated on....a windmill that constantly...whenever there was a brisk breeze blowing....that pumped some of the softest best tasting water found anywhere in the State of Colorado....into a holding pond and this pond was surrounded by willow trees all the way around except for a narrow opening where the well pipe drained into the pond.

And the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it. Genesis 2:15......My Mother was the "Keeper" of our garden and as such the "dressing" of her garden was left up to her kids. There were three of us at home most all of the twenty years I was PRIVILEGED to live on that Beloved old HOMESTEAD. There was my brother Vern who is ten years older than me and my little sister Glida who is a year and a half my junior. It was our responsibility to keep the weeds out of our Mother's garden and to keep it watered.