Curtis Planer

Curtis Planer. Harry Youmans' Lake City Planing Mill, 1889-1904. , Curtis Manufacturing of St. Louis, Missouri, created this weighty cast iron machine for planing wood which was shipped to Lake City on the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. As a key element of Harry Youmans' Lake City Planing Mill, this steam-powered planer was responsible for crafting much of the lumber used in many historic buildings within the Lake City Historic District. , Based on readily available water power, a sawmill had been located at the east end of 4th Street abutting the Lake Fork River since 1876 when J.A. Echlin, W.S. Routt, and Len Rising established Pioneer Planing Mill. , The mill was acquired by Lake Fork Valley pioneer Harry Youmans (1848-1932) in 1889. Youmans was a native of New York who first arrived in the Gunnison and Lake Fork Valleys in 1874. In intervening decades, Youmans was an eclectic businessman who operated ranches on the Lake Fork and Cebolla, owned several meat markets and livery stables in Lake City, and served as Hinsdale County Sheriff 1905-1909. , Harry Youmans was perhaps best known for his Lake City Planing Mill, a stout 50' x 50' two-story stone building with 16' x 50' addition which he built at 4th and Henson Streets in 1894. Walls in the mill were 2' thick, Lake City TIMES noting, “The boiler and engine are in position, and runs as smooth as a clock, without a jar of any kind. The calliope whistle is sounded at noon, which reminds us that business is not altogether dead down at the lumber mill and yard.” , Prior to retiring from the lumber business in 1904, Youmans provided planed, dimensional lumber for many local and regional building projects. Among his projects was lumber for First Baptist Church in 1890, and 200,000 feet of planed lumber for the mill at the Golden Fleece Mine in 1899. , Lumber from Youmans' Lake City Planing Mill built many extant houses within the Lake City Historic District in 1892-1893, including the Thompson-Whinnery-Ewart house, 513 Silver Street; Steinbeck-Nettleton, 509 Silver Street; Marsh-Trogel, 608 Gunnison Avenue; and Youmans' own home, the Youmans-Carey house, 600 Gunnison Avenue, an eight-room residence in “East Lake” architectural style which was described as “rather imposing and showy... an ornament to the City” when it was completed in 1893. , The calliope whistle at Youmans' mill, located at 400 Henson Street, is now silent: the mill was re-modeled as a private residence in the late 1960s.