David L. Smith - Colorado Construction - MAMA BEAR COOKBOOK SERIES

COLORADO CONSTRUCTION

My father was instrumental in building several different major things over the course of his life. The following pictures are photographs my father took, while working on these various projects. I'm very proud of him, he was an excellent father, and always provided for my mother, sister and I. My father only had two secular jobs in his entire life. Back then, you didn't bounce around on employment (like people do today). His first job was building highways for the state of Colorado, and his second job was working for the Coors Brewery Company in Golden, Colorado. He retired at the age of 65 (with a pension), built a family cabin, paid off a thirty (30) year mortgage, and celebrated sixty (60) years of marriage with my mother. Not many men can say they've done that. My dad is my super hero.

These pictures & captions, I've put together for my children and my grand-children. So they can understand the kind of man their grandfather was.

HELPING TO BUILD
Colorado State Highways

My father, pushing large rocks away from the highway site.

My father operating a front loader, while building highways for the state of Colorado.

Dad working on his bike, his means of transportation (to & from) work.

Building the highway (I-25), between Castle Rock and Larkspur, for the State of Colorado.

My father operating a large piece of machinery.

In the years before meeting my mother, my father worked for a company, who was awarded the contract for building major highways, in the State of Colorado. It was while he was building the highway from Denver to Fairplay, Colorado - that he met my mom. She was a waitress in a local hotel-restaurant (The Fairplay Hotel). My father use to go in there and eat after work, before heading home for the night. My mother was his waitress.

My father on lunch break, building highway #82 in the state of Colorado.

Fairplay Hotel, in Fairplay, Colorado 1953

My mother was a waitress at the Fairplay Hotel. She's 18 years old in this picture.

My father's supervisor & his wife.

My father, with one of his buddies (who was the mechanic) for all the large machinery.

Dad sitting on one of the cranes he operated, while working road construction.

Building the highway through Larkspur, Colorado. Dad's hometown & birth place.

Large equipment used while building the highway (I-25) in the early 1950's.

Highway Construction for the State of Colorado (1948-1960)

HELPING TO BUILD
"The Coors Brewery Facility"
1960 to 1995

Then after I was born (in 1960), my father decided to pull off construction, so he could be home every night with his new little family. He quit his job working on highway construction, and he began a new job, at the Coors Brewery facility (in Golden, Colorado). Coors Beer was expanding their plant facilities (to becoming one of the largest single-site breweries in the world. Here my father operated various large pieces of machinery for this project, to include several large cranes, which built many of the cement buildings, you see in this picture.

My father was one of a group of men, who worked on building the Coors Brewery Facility.

Adolph Coors (1847–1929) immigrated to the United States in 1868 after serving as a brewery apprentice in western Germany and then in the Kingdom of Prussia. After working in Chicago breweries, he moved to Colorado in 1872 and purchased a bottling company. He transformed it into the Coors Brewing...