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Paul Martin Mead was the son of Dr. Martin Luther and Myra Mahetabel Jenkins Mead. Martin was the brother of Lorin C. Mead who
founded Highlandlake. In the early 1880s Lorin contacted his younger
brother, extolling the virtues of Highlandlake and telling him of the
urgent need for a physician in the area. In 1883, Martin brought his
family to Highlandlake, where they quickly built a home. To make the
move, a railroad car was chartered to transport lumber with which to
construct the new house, their household furniture and personal
belongings to the Highland Switch. Once there, everything was loaded
onto wagons and hauled the remaining three miles to Highlandlake.
Paul was the only child of Martin and Myra that lived to
have a family. Born in Albany, NY in 1869, he spent his boyhood in
Cleveland, and came with his parents to Highlandlake, Colorado in 1883.
He studied at Oberlin college and Colorado College and married Ariet
Palmer, a teacher in the Highlandlake School. Between the years of 1892
and 1912, he and Ariet had eight children.
His daughter Myra Imogene Mead Cope remembered that her
father was a strict disciplinarian, but also devoted and affectionate,
always doing things for his children's pleasure. He built play equipment
on the spacious grounds around their home, including two
merry-go-rounds, a big one for the older children and a little one for
the smaller ones, a see-saw board that revolved on a post so that they
could go not only up and down, but around as well. There was the "Giant
Stride," a revolving wheel mounted high on a post from which were hung
handles on ropes. The children would take hold of the handles, run a few
steps, and swing wide through the air in a circle. There were also big
and little swings hanging from tree branches. The biggest one had ropes
tied to the ropes that held the seat and a pair of boys, pulling on
these ropes in unison, would send the swinger high into the branches of
the tree. Finally there was a trolley, consisting of a little car on
wheels, which rode a track extending from the roof of one of the
out-buildings, far our onto the lawn. There were always tennis and
croquet courts.
The lawns were Paul's pride and joy. None of the farmers in
the area could be bothered with such an extravagance, but Paul leveled
the ground and dug little irrigation ditches to bring in water, and the
children had the job of keeping them free of dandelions, at a nickel a
bushel. He built cement walks from the house to the nearest
outbuildings, and even built the only brick outhouse in the area.
Paul Mead was the president of the school board for many
years, and in the late spring the entire school, plus the parents and
anyone else who wanted to come were invited to a picnic. Everyone would
come just before lunchtime, laden with baskets filled to overflowing
with food. The children were free to play on all the play equipment
while their parents kept watch and visited.
Paul loved music and had to have it in his home. He played
the organ and was for many years the church organist at the Highlandlake
Church of Christ. He also was a good tenor and Ariet sang soprano.
Shortly after their marriage, he purchased a big old Rosewood square
piano. Ariet started taking piano lessons as soon as it arrived and
eventually became quite proficient. About the same time that he
purchased the piano, Paul also acquired a cornet which he taught himself
to play and on many an evening the house was full of music, he with his
cornet and Ariet accompanying him on the piano. Paul eventually joined a
cornet band in Highlandlake and there was many an evening when after a
hard day in the fields, he would drive off for band practice or to play
in a concert. Sometime around 1903 or 4 he wrote a
song
extolling the virtues of planting sugar beets instead of wheat in order
to bring a railroad to town (Highlandlake).
In late 1905, the Great Western Railroad announced that
that they were building their railroad through the Highlandlake
district and they wanted to put a beet dump and a station on the eastern
border of Paul's farm. Paul immediately saw a business opportunity and
before the first track was laid, platted out lots and streets for a new
town. True to his love and interest for the children of his community,
Paul set aside land for a park and school in this still unnamed town
site.
As a
supporter of the local (Women's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.)
Paul added a clause to the deeds of the lots he sold. If anyone was
caught imbibing, selling or even having alcohol beverages on the
properties, then they would forfeit their property and ownership would
go back to the Mead family. Many of the lots in Mead to this day still
have this clause in their deeds. No one, to anyone's knowledge has ever
lost their homes or property to this clause though.
A month after the town was platted, the railroad laid tracks
through the new town and continued on through to the community of Liberty
and then onto Longmont where the sugar beet factory was located. At the
first town board meeting, which was held in Dalgetty/Daughty's store
(believed to be a dry goods store), on April 13, 1908, it was
unanimously agreed to name the town Mead after Paul Mead.
Paul rented the remainder of his farm sometime in 1908 and moved his
family to the "You-Bar-Kay" ranch near Lyons that he purchased a couple
of years earlier with the money he earned from the sale of his lots. The
family lived on the ranch until about 1912 when they sold it and bought
a store in Longmont. This proved to be a dismal failure, and both the
business and their home was lost. After this the family moved to the Red
Rock region of Berthoud. Eventually, Paul started working as a county
agent, first in Southern Colorado, then in Aztec, New Mexico. He later
moved to California, and finally to Hawaii. Once they moved to the
islands, the Mead's purchased two apartment buildings and became
active in real estate groups. He was also instrumental in founding the
Waikiki Branch of the Rotary Club. After his death the club erected a
fountain in his memory.
Paul and Ariet celebrated their golden anniversary at the
home of their daughter Pauline Mead Patraw in Hot Springs, Arkansas .
After the celebration they traveled back to Vermont to see the original
Mead homestead, returning to Hawaii shortly before the attack on Pearl
Harbor on December 7, 1941. They lived through the agony of war, and
shortly after the peace was signed Paul died at the age of 76 in 1945.
Paul's body was returned to his beloved Highlandlake and
buried next to his parents in the Pioneer Highlandlake cemetery. Ariet
went to live with a daughter in New Mexico where she died in 1961. Ariet
is buried in New Mexico.
Information on the life of Paul Mead was taken from a
history written by his daughter Myra Imogene Mead Cope.
Myra died on 11 Dec. 1977 at the age of 83. Additional information from
handwritten and typed copies of early Highlandlake and Mead town records.
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