I figured last weeks column was the last for George Bauer but he and his family touched many lives.
George wrote a letter to his brother Henry in 1888 convincing Henry to come to the Mancos Valley. Enclosed with the letter was a draft on the First National Bank for $100. George also told Henry that he had best hurry because the land George desired Henry to purchase might soon go to someone else or be considerably raised in price. George had earlier given five acres to the school and wanted Henry to hurry so he could be a part of the building of what George saw as a schoolhouse but actually ended up being a community building known as Union Hall for a few years.
George was not the first to donate land for the school. David Lemmon had donated an acre of land earlier and a schoolhouse was built there. The building later became known as the Sloyd Building.
When Henry arrived the land George had wanted Henry to purchase was still for sale. Henry was thus able to erect a home just to the west of the school property. Henry became a contractor and built a number of homes in the Mancos Valley. He constructed a store just across Main Street from the George Bauer Bank and Mercantile. He sold furniture in the front and had an undertaking business in the back. That undertaking business took him all over the county for a number of years.
Henry, like George, was born in Prussia and both had a German like dialect all of their lives. Henry settled in Illinois until he received the urging of his brother to come to Mancos. Henry had married Martha Jane Harvey in 1873 and they brought with them their two children, George and a daughter who became Mrs. George Exon.
In May of 1894, the Cedar Grove Cemetery was given the name officially and Henry was named one of the trustees.
The Oak View area was located about five miles northwest of Mancos and needed a school so Henry donated a part of the 160 acres he had homesteaded in that vicinity. The Pinewood settlement, close to the Oak View area, also needed a school and Henry donated land for that school also. Henry Bauer also originally owned the land that became the Bauer Lakes.
Henry purchased the old log schoolhouse when it was no longer in use. He had plans to tear it down when Andy Menefee was thrown against it in a buggy accident in 1902. Andy passed away from the injuries sustained in that accident.
Henry passed away in 1915 ten years after his brother George. His wife Martha lived until 1925.
