#43. The John Ewing Home and Carriage House

John Gredig was the first owner of the property, and sold lot 1, block 40 to Valentine Bloos in 1873.  However, this sale was apparently not completed and Gredig sold the property to Ezra T. Elliott and John Taylor on August 1, 1874.  Gredig also sold land to Fritz Braun.  Evidently, all of this was settled with a Sheriff’s sale, with the Tankersley children owning with their guardian, Bettie Tankersley handling their affairs.  Bettie Tankersley then sold this lot to John Ewing Jr. on February 15, 1877.  Ewing and Ida B. Van Liew were married on May 28, 1878.  At the present time, the date of the building of the Ewing house has not been established, as the drawing of Del Norte dated 1882 does not show the house.  The white home to the east is the carriage house that was built to house the carriages for the family.  It was renovated into a home in the 1930s.

Ewing was born in Xenia, Ohio in 1848, and served as a private at age 15 in Company B, 154^th Regiment of Ohio Volunteers in the Civil War.  He served until the end of the war, when he returned to his Ohio home.  He came to Del Norte in 1874, worked for Adams and Posey Hardware, and in 1878, he purchased this business; it became the Ewing Hardware Co.  He and his brother James incorporated the firm and sold it in 1907 to W. W. Wilson.

He served in Company G, 2^nd Battalion Infantry of the Colorado National Guard, and served as one of the commissioners of the Soldiers and Sailors Home, now the Veterans’ Center, near Monte Vista.  He was a Republican and served in the State of Colorado 5^th general assembly as a representative of Rio Grande County.  He later served two terms as a State Senator.  He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Masons, and the Knights of Pythias.  He was the mayor of Del Norte and served as a Town Trustee.

He purchased land in the Granger Lane area, with his farm being known as the Embargo Ranch, approximately 10 miles west of Del Norte.  He considered himself to be a “scientific” farmer

He died January 20, 1917.  Ida and John Ewing had one son, Charles R.