Stinking Desert Christmas tree, between Grand Junction and Delta, circa 1960s. UDATED On U.S. Highway 50, between Grand Junction and Delta, just north of the sharp curve known as Fool’s Hill, on the west side of the highway at an abandoned rest stop, a lone evergreen tree has stood for six decades. Nearly every year since a tree was first placed there, locals have driven out to tree to decorate it for Christmas. The tree was originally a native Colorado juniper, one of two that were repositioned by equipment operators Pat Springer and Bert Cross* when they and his co-workers with John Algers Construction were paving Highway 50 sometime between the late 1950s and early 1960s, rather than tearing though one of the few large signs of green life in the dun-colored desert. While the smaller of the two relocated trees died, the larger one took root and soon became the roadside Christmas tree of yore. Bert and other Cross family members continued watering it for years until the task was taken on by others*. According to a 1989 Associated Press article, the tradition started after a “young widow from the North Fork Valley decades ago hung a few Christmas decorations on its then lush branches to commemorate her dead husband.” The article cites no source for this story, and we've seen nor heard any other reference to it. The article had been written to commemorate the death of the original tree, declared a couple of weeks earlier. Three successive attempts to replace the tree failed with the deaths of the trees in the unyielding dryness of the desert, but a fourth tree survived, this time a blue spruce planted in 2002 in a basin of rich, non-desert soil and watered a few times a year by Delta County road crews. About the name: A possible inspiration for the nickname “The Stinking Desert National Monument” might have been a sketch by the Los Angeles-based comedy troupe The Firesign Theater. The first skit on their first album, *Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him*, released in 1968, is a satirical take on the mistreatment of American Indians over the centuries, and references a fictional “Stinking Desert National Monument and Cobalt Testing Range.” The roadside tree has also been called “The Stinking Desert National Forest,” a nickname we find more sarcastically appropriate. This photo was taken by Grand Junction *Daily Sentinel* photographer Bob Grant, most likely in the 1960s. The car in the photo is a 1960-1964 Chevrolet Corvair. (UPDATE: Vernon Davidson, who knew Bob Grant, confirmed it was a 1962 Corvair Monza.) Does anyone have a clearer photo of the original juniper tree to share? Our thanks to *Sentinel* reporter Erin McIntyre for much of the background research, and to KEKB D.J. Waylon Jordan for sharing his grandfather’s photo. *UPDATE: Several of the commenters below have provided some great new information. There's more, and you should scroll down to read them, but here are a couple of big ones: Helen Cross: The road construction crew was John Algers Construction. My brothers Bert Cross and Gene Cross worked this job. Bert was the worker who planted the tree that lived. We lived in North Delta and he would haul extra water to the tree every couple of days. Even after it started getting decorated, a family member would water it. A different organization took over the task as time went by. David Roberds: In 1971 I worked road construction with a blade operater from Delta named Pat Springer..He told me he dug up 3 trees on Douglas Pass while working on Dead man curve and Fools Hill and planted those trees by Fools hill.Where that tree is today..Took his road 16 blade grader and put a small boulder over roots so no one could dig the tree up.. Helen Cross David Roberds Pat Springer and my brothers worked for John Algers Construction. Pat did the digging and Bert Cross planted and watered the tree. But I heard it was a tree that was in the roadway that they moved. Lisa Springer David Roberds yes my grandfather was Pat Springer and we were always told he played a part in the original tree.
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