https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/0c08648100dde84e78802ad7f3a3c30d.jpg a94f3779402d785dc235c862e388c543 https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/1dc649fa0d868843b6ade31b12c0ef0b.mp3 9f77b32883848b30663d8089f297ffcb https://voicesofignacio.cvlcollections.org/files/original/70a47da9812904c7b1c6c730b4a1eaf3.pdf c101742867a216578c30071b67c12272 PDF Text Text Voices of Ignacio Oral History Project Interview with Glen Walker April 2nd, 2025 Conducted by Daniel Frauenhoff and Cheyenne Munns Transcript by Daniel Frauenhoff �1 Preface ​ The following transcript is based on an interview conducted at the Ignacio Community Library (ICL), 470 Goddard Ave., Ignacio, Colorado, on April 2nd, 2025, at 1:00pm. It details a conversation between Ignacio resident Glen Walker and ICL staff members Daniel Frauenhoff and Cheyenne Munns. Mr. Walker discusses his efforts to establish Ignacio’s first library, career as the owner/operator of the hardware store, and other local history topics. It has been produced as part of the Voices of Ignacio Project, administered by the ICL, which aims to assemble and curate a collection of oral histories from residents of Ignacio and the surrounding area to preserve for community members, researchers, and future generations. Timestamps are based on the original recording, which is to be cataloged on the Voices of Ignacio Digital Collection website. Contents [0:00] - Introduction/The Walkers Come to Ignacio [1:48] - The Origins of Ignacio’s First Library [3:40] - Arranging Funding for the First Library [4:40] - The First Board of Directors [5:40] - Additional Funding for the First Library [6:10] - History of the Original Library Building [7:05] - Passing the First Mill Levy and Establishing the Library District [8:30] - Background of the New Library Building [8:50] - Financing the New Library Building [10:09] - Acquiring Land for the New Library Building [12:30] - Past Library Employees/Directors [15:58] - The McClanahan Connection [17:00] - Changes to the Library Over Time [19:15] - Other Community Members to Speak To [21:00] - Changes to Ignacio Over the Years and the Southern Ute Tribe [23:00] - History of the Ignacio Hardware Store [25:40] - Lawrence Wiseman [27:39] - Final Thoughts ​ �2 [0:00] - Introduction/The Walkers Come to Ignacio Frauenhoff: ​ It is Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025. This is Daniel Frauenhoff speaking and I am joined by [gestures to the right]. Munns: ​ Cheyenne Munns Frauenhoff:​ We are here on behalf of the Voices of Ignacio project, administered by the Ignacio Community Library, and to that effect our guest of honor today is Mr. Glen Walker. Mr. Walker, if you would briefly introduce yourself, where and when you were born? Walker: ​ My name is Glen Walker. I was born in Louisiana on June 25, 1942. My wife and I moved to Ignacio in 1974 and I still live here. Frauenhoff: ​ What was it that brought you out here? Walker: ​ We didn’t want to live in Denver anymore. We were both from small towns and it was sort of accidental that we ended up here. I had a longtime friend that moved to Durango to teach at Fort Lewis and he said ‘well why don’t you move over there,’ [Ignacio] so we did. It turned out to be a good choice for us. Frauenhoff: ​ So you’ve lived here ever since? Walker: ​ Yes, well, we lived briefly in Costa Rica for a couple of years. [1:48] - The Origins of Ignacio’s First Library Frauenhoff: ​ Was there any library in Ignacio when you first came here? Walker: ​ Nope, nothing. Frauenhoff: ​ And, as I understand, you were pretty closely involved with getting the first library up off the ground? Walker: ​ Yeah. I worked for the town of Ignacio, back years ago. I had a couple of jobs, I was the Assistant Town Manager and Recreation Director. The town had a business incubator over where the Southern Ute Adult Education [Center] is now. And I got sort of saddled with that after a while. We were trying to attract businesses to town and didn’t have much luck at it. But one day, where the deli is �3 at the grocery store now, there was a small cafe called Jerry’s Cafe. [To Munns]: Do you remember that? Munns:​ Yea. Walker:​ So one day I went over there for a coffee break, and there was only one other person in there, a gentleman by the name of Wayne Whiteman, who had just retired from being president of the Bank of Ignacio. So Wayne and I were talking and I asked him what did he think would help Ignacio grow, be a better place? And he said ‘what we really need is a library.’ [3:40] - Arranging Funding for the First Library Walker:​ Some years prior, he [Whiteman] and a few other people had raised some money to start a library, but they just couldn’t do it. And they still had $2500 in the bank. He said ‘probably the only entity that could do this would be the town, and we’d be willing to give them that $2500 to kickstart things.’ So when I went back to town hall I asked the town manager what he thought about that and he said ‘write up a proposal and we’ll take it to the town board.’ So I did, and did some checking on other funds, took it to the town board, and they all were in favor of it. [4:40] - The First Board of Directors Walker:​ So, [I] recruited some board members that the town appointed. They were: a gentleman named Larry Corbin, a lady that was on the town board, Elizabeth (Cindy) Gallegos, Donna Young, who at the time was the director of the Southern Ute Community Action Program, Dorthy Zahrt, who was actually finishing up a degree in education at Fort Lewis, her husband had been principal at the junior high here, and myself. [5:40] - Additional Funding for the First Library Frauenhoff: ​ And I guess you’d call that the first Friends of the Library or? Walker: ​ Well, no, we were the board, Board of Directors, or whatever they called us. I got a $5000 grant from the State Library Board and we started doing fundraisers. We had raffles, bake sales, cause we had no tax base. The town was supportive of it, but they weren’t gonna fund us very much, even though they bought the first building that was here. �4 [6:10] - History of the Original Library Building Walker:​ It was an old building that was, I think built in 1908 if I remember right, and it had been several things over the years, a furniture store, I don’t know what else. But at that time it was a woodshop, and the gentleman, unfortunately, was not able to make it here and the bank took the building back and they sold it to the town for a very, very good price. We started remodeling that building and we had lots of donations of materials, free labor, a few community service people [laughs], and we built the library basically from scratch. [7:05] - Passing the First Mill Levy and Establishing the Library District Walker: ​ ‘91 is when we became an official district, and I think that spring, the spring of ‘91, we had an election [that] established a very small Mill Levy and defined the Library District as being the School District boundaries. We opened with mostly donated books, of which the majority were Reader’s Digest condensed books [laughter], everybody in Ignacio and the surrounding area had a set of those and they brought ‘em, and, of course, we had to haul them to the dump. But that’s how we got started. I don’t know what else you’d want to know. Frauenhoff: ​ So you said that all happened around ‘91, give or take? Walker: ​ We started working on it late ‘87 or early ‘88 and we opened the library in ‘91. [8:30] - Background of the New Library Building Frauenhoff: ​ Now, as far as the building we’re sitting in today [present library], it was constructed in 2007, is that correct? Walker: ​ That’s correct. Frauenhoff: ​ So its on, or at least the court yard is on, the site of the old library. Were you closely involved with getting the funding together for this building we’re in? [8:50] - Financing the New Library Building Walker: ​ Yea, I was still Chairman of the Board at that time. We had two questions on the ballot. One was to increase the Mill Levy to, I think it was five mills, and I’m probably wrong on that, but it was a big increase over what we had. The other one was to approve the district issuing bonds to build the building. The bond issue �5 passed fairly comfortably, [but] the increase in the tax only passed by about five votes. I didn’t understand that because if we didn’t get an increase in the tax we couldn’t do the bonds, cause we couldn’t repay them. And this was all the easy part, way easier than getting this thing started originally, cause somebody else was doing all of the work. We hired an architect, and then, obviously, a contractor. [10:09] - Acquiring Land for the New Library Building Walker: ​ But there was still lots of stuff that had to be done, acquiring enough land was part of it. Where the parking lot is there were two small houses, real small. [To Munns]: Do you remember that? Munns:​ Yea, I remember. Walker:​ They became very expensive pieces of property [laughter] once the library wanted ‘em, but we bought those. We’d already purchased the [other] land, it was old, old apartments. They were built out of adobe and they were very small units from back in the ‘50s, I believe, when there was an oil boom here [and] somebody quickly put [them] up. And the town had purchased that. We applied for and got a sizable grant. I don’t remember how much it was, but one of the requirements was that we had to own the property. We had been leasing the property for a dollar a year from the town and they did the maintenance and provided insurance. Naomi Jones and myself went to the town board and pointed out how they’d save lots of money if they just gave it to us, wouldn’t have the liability, maintenance, etc. We weren’t gonna build this building if we didn’t own the property. So they deeded the property to the library and we got started on building.I left before the building got completed. My wife and I were spending as much time as we could in Costa Rica and when my term was up I did not feel that it was fair to be a part-time board member. So I left. [12:30] - Past Library Employees/Directors Frauenhoff: ​ Of course, Debbie Winlock, Dorthy William’s [present library employee] sister, was a director for a time in the old library? Walker: ​ Debbie started as a volunteer. We had a librarian, but we didn’t have a qualified librarian for what we could pay. To be honest the library just barely existed, but it was open and we had customers. When Debbie Winlock came along she had lots �6 of energy, she loved libraries, and I still believe she’s the reason we had to build this building. She just got more people to use the library. Frauenhoff: ​ And from conversations with Dixie [Cook] it sounds like there was an interesting director that succeeded Debbie, kind of a businessman type? Walker:​ It was after Debbie. The gentleman’s name is on the plaque where you come into the building. His first name was Jerry [Gracy], I don’t remember the last name. But, yea, I didn’t help hire him. He was not a librarian, he wanted to redo the Dewey Decimal system. They spend lots of time re… [trails off]. It doesn’t matter now you know. But, yea, he was a business person. ​ And after him they hired a librarian from Colorado Springs, but [she] wanted to move to Durango and unfortunately she didn’t work out either cause she didn’t want to be in Ignacio. ​ And then they hired a lady [correct name unclear] and she was very good for several years till she retired. I don’t remember if we had anybody between her and Marcia [Vining - present library director]. [To Munns]: Do you know? Munns:​ We had a few part-time ones, Mr. Meunier for a little bit, but I don’t know if they were ever officially director. Walker:​ Yea I don’t think so. Marcia has been here a long time and has done a lot of good. But Debbie was the first real librarian that we had. I don’t know what her degree was in but she started working on a master’s degree online in Library Science immediately. As a matter of fact probably before we hired her. [15:58] - The McClanahan Connection Frauenhoff:​ Now, the original library was named for Mr. Butch McClanahan, and how did that come to be? Walker:​ [Laughs] I probably shouldn’t say this, but there was a town board member who had worked for years for the McClanahans at the grocery store. And he was wanting to buy the store after Butch had passed away. Butch was a generous man, you know, did lots for the community. But he wasn’t involved in the library and neither were any of his family members. It was sort of a PR thing. When we built a new building the board thought it shouldn’t be named for any one person. So they named one of the rooms for Mr. McClanahan [instead]. �7 [17:00] - Changes to the Library Over Time Frauenhoff:​ [To Munns]: anything I missed that you can think of? Munns:​ [To Walker]: Since you’ve seen the building from the get-go, what have been one of your favorite changes or things that you think are important that have grown so much in here? I mean, I remember being little and my mom Dixie working here and we were still writing due dates on bills and had the fun stamps to put on the books. Now its all just online. Walker:​ Obviously the biggest thing is technology. I don’t think we had a computer when we started. But, like it or not, most people read books online. We will always need books, I hope. Improvements in technology opened it up for more kids, I think. Cause kids are, well, they’re technologically driven. If they don’t have a computer they don’t know what to do. [laughter] When we opened I think we had some computers that were open for the patrons to use, but there were only two or three of them as I recall. And now you guys got quite a few. The board at that time, I don’t think none of us was really computer literate like you guys are now. I could use a computer - sort of. [laughter] [19:15] - Other Community Members to Speak To Frauenhoff:​ Well, is there anything coming to mind right now that we didn’t cover or you think would be important for us to know? Walker:​ Uh, I don’t know. I would hope that the original board members could somehow be recorded or something. Frauenhoff:​ This is more future steps, but as we would like to interview more community members, and you’ve been in the community for so long, is anyone coming to mind that you think might be good for us to try and talk with next? Anyone who’s really got a good story we should hear? Walker:​ You know a person that has a lot of knowledge of the history of Ignacio is Laura Witt at the Style Shop. She would be a good person to talk to. There's not many of us left that have much knowledge of how Ignacio has grown, what little it's grown, and the change in the community. [Its] different than it was in the 70’s, the makeup of the people, the type of jobs, you know. �8 [21:00] - Changes to Ignacio Over the Years and the Southern Ute Tribe Frauenhoff:​ What’s the nature of the change, as you’ve seen it since ‘74? What was it like then compared to now? Walker:​ Well, there were very few good paying jobs in Ignacio at the time. Probably the best thing that has happened to Ignacio was the Southern Utes and their growth. As they built, they created lots of jobs. I'm not a casino person, but the casino [has] actually been good for the community as far as creating jobs. There's still not a lot of really good jobs in town, you know there’s the grocery store, but at least there are lots of jobs close by with the tribe. In my opinion the tribe never gets enough credit for what they have done for the community. Frauenhoff:​ Oh yea, certainly, the growth fund has been able to do some pretty impressive stuff. Walker:​ They have, they have. Frauenhoff:​ I mean, there was certainly oil and gas before the tribe, but it was generally on the decline? Walker:​ Yeah, it was. I don't know how much the tribe had to do with the boom in the gas industry here, but at least they managed it and you know created lots of local jobs with it. [23:00] - History of the Ignacio Hardware Store Walker:​ I don't know if Marcia or somebody asked me if I could do a brief history of the hardware industry here. I owned the hardware store for 31 years, after I left the town that’s what I did. And if you want to be bored by it, I would tell you what I know about the hardware store in Ignacio. In 1912 a gentleman by the name of H.C. Biggs from Pueblo opened a store here. He owned a hardware store and lumberyard in Pueblo and he opened one here. It was at 1776 Browning Avenue, 1,200 square foot store. In the 50’s, a gentleman by the name of Lawrence Wiseman, who was working for Mr. Biggs, bought the store. And he doubled the size of the store to 2,500 square feet. Then in 1970, his son Tom Wiseman bought the store from Lawrence and became affiliated with True Value. �9 In 1992, I bought the store from Tom Wiseman. That was about the time things were starting to happen with the tribe with the gas industry and lots of building. At least for a while the store was just too small for the demand. So we built a new store at 1,100 Goddard Avenue, the very south end of town in ‘99. I retired when I was 80 years old and we sold. The Lee family owns it now, it's a hardware store and irrigation supply company. That’s a brief history, the only history I know about Ignacio is what happened with the hardware store. [laughter] [25:45] - Lawrence Wiseman Frauenhoff:​ Well we appreciate you keeping it going for as long as you did. Now, do you remember much about Mr. Wiseman. Walker:​ Yea, I know some. Frauenhoff:​ If you could, tell us one story about him. Walker:​ Lawrence Wiseman, if I remember correctly, moved to Durango from South Carolina. Then he moved to Ignacio when he started working at the hardware store and Tom grew up here, grew up in the store. He really loved Ignacio, but he didn't want it to ever change, you know. When I bought the store they still used an old-fashioned cash register, wrote bills out on a receipt, and stuff. He told me, ‘I never would have computerized, but I'm glad you did, brought us into the modern era.’ He was a good business man I think, but a little stubborn and hard-headed. Frauenhoff:​ Set in his ways it sounds like. Walker:​ Yea, set in his ways. There's nothing wrong with that. Frauenhoff:​ [To Munns]: Well, unless you have anything Cheyenne? Munns:​ Nope. Frauenhoff:​ [To Walker]: We really appreciate you coming in and chatting with us. Glad you were able to clear some things up, at least with my understanding of the library. Thank you very much. [27:39] - Final Thoughts �10 Walker:​ Okay, thank you. I'm glad you let me talk because lots of people, even Marcia, didn't really know anything about how the library got started. It was actually sort of accidental, me running into Wayne Whiteman, and there was no one else to talk to, so sort of had to talk to him. [laughter] But basically from that was how the library came about. Lots of people think it started when this building was built, but it was way before then. It was a struggle, way bigger struggle than this, (referring to present library). The big increase in funding from the taxes and other things made it much easier to do. I mean, I know it's much more complicated to run. Frauenhoff:​ Just to get it going compared to the original? Walker:​ Yeah [28:52] - End of Recording � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Voices of Ignacio Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 28 minutes, 50 seconds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Glen Walker Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2025-04-02 Subject The topic of the resource Ignacio Community Library; Library History; Walker, Glen; Whiteman, Wayne; Winlock, Debbie; Wiseman, Tom; Ignacio hardware store; Oral History; Interview Description An account of the resource Mr. Walker shares his role in establishing Ignacio's first library, time operating the Ignacio hardware store, and other local history topics. Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Ignacio, Colorado Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Walker, Glen Language A language of the resource English Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Voices of Ignacio Digital Collection Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource MP3 Extent The size or duration of the resource. 28 min., 50 sec. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Frauenhoff, Daniel; Munns, Cheyenne