#37. Asa Middaugh House

This house was thought to be built by Asa Middaugh in the 1876 period of time.  This is taken from records done by Ruth Marie Colville in a walking tour research paper that she had done.  The house has been remodeled and does not have an original front.  Joel Goodman and his daughter, Velma Goodman Alspaugh, also owned it and her family lived in this house.

Middaugh was born in Pennsylvania of Dutch heritage.  He and his brother were drawn west with the lure of gold, and walked from St. Joseph, Missouri to Colorado in 1860.  His father, who was a wagon maker by trade, became the first sheriff of what is now Arapaho County, and was the first United States Deputy Marshall under Kansas Law.

Middaugh didn’t go to the mountains in search of gold, but started to build his fortune in Denver.  He discovered coal, and built a market hauling and selling coal in Denver.  In August of 1861, he bought 160 acres of land that became the shops for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Company by 1890.  Middaugh and his brother, James, were involved in coal mining, ranching, and freighting.  In 1866 Middaugh moved to Elizabethtown, New Mexico, where he and H. M. Porter went into the mercantile business and banking together.  By 1875 they were in Del Norte with a mercantile business.  Porter left after two years, but Middaugh stayed, and by 1882 had the Bank of Del Norte in business.

He remained in the banking business until about 1910, and sold the mercantile business in 1919.  He had a home in Denver where he retired, and died there in September of 1924.