Proceed north from Dillon, Colo on the highway to Kremmling. Turn west on road to Heeney and go 1/2 mile. Cemetery is on the right side, next to Cemetery Campground. The following sign appears at entrance to the cemetery:

The year was 1896. Westward of the Railroad was the talk of Junction City, Kansas. Henry and Josephine Shane heard from her brother, Grant McKinley of the railroad planned for the Blue River Valley in Colorado where he was now homesteading. Henry decided to take his 3 children and seek his fortune in land development along this railroad planned between the existing rail terminals of Breckenridge and Kremmling. This land fever affected his daughter Sadie and her schoolteacher husband, George Washington Waters on Humboldt Creek, Kansas. Following the birth of their 2nd son Arthur, theyjoined the wagon train west in June.

Following 6 weeks on the trail, including double team portaging of wagons over Berthoud Pass, they arrived in Dillon on July 4 and promptly filed for homestead land. The open range became blocked with Buck and Rail fences in Kansas Gulch (opposite side of river) to the violent objections of cattleowners. The homesteaders became known as the Kansas Bastards.

May Shane married Dan McDonald. They built a house on their ranch on the banks of the Blue, halfway between Dillon and Kremmling. The railroad never came, but the horse stage continued. Dan provided horses, May cooked for the passengers.

Their daughter Margaret married Hugh Smith. Hugh was killed when a log slipped at a barn raising, before his son Earl was born. More Kansans came in following years. Schools and churchs were started. George preached and taught as well as improved his homestead. Tragedy struck. Grant’s children were drowned in the Blue in a buggy runaway. Raymond Waters died of pneumonia and then George in the winter of 1908. All were buried in the local cemetery near Grandview School.

Arthur, Orlo, Grace and Robert Waters grew up in Breckenridge and on the homestead. Art went off to high school, the Army in France in WWI, and then back to college at Fort Collins, where he met and married Viola Johnson. Sadie was remarried 1st to Charlie Rouse, the father of Virginia, and then to Harry Hanks.