Some Red River families arrived for the gold rush and left when the ore ran thin. The Brandenburgs arrived in 1895, in the thick of the boom, and simply never left. Five generations later, the family name sits at the very center of town: Brandenburg Park, the green gathering place in the middle of Red River, is named for this family. That is a rare kind of landmark. Mines get named for hopeful prospectors all the time, but a town names its park for the people who stayed.
Click to see more photos of Justin Brandenburg and the volunteer crews clearing Red River trails
The family's first chapter here was written in hard rock. By 1897, developing a mine properly took real money, and Harry Brandenburg sold his share in the Black Copper mine that year for 4,000 dollars, a sizable sum for the time, from a mine that officially produced 200,000 dollars in pay ore. Many miners had already moved on to newer gold fields in Colorado and Alaska by then, and Red River's population would dwindle to about 150 by 1905. The Brandenburgs were among the hardy few who put down roots instead, trading the hope of a quick strike for a permanent home in the valley.
Later generations grew up knowing the valley in every season. The late Johnny Brandenburg, remembered by the Red River Historical Society as one of the town's old timers, got his first pair of skis at age sixteen: hickory Northland skis with bear trap bindings. He and his friends taught themselves at Italian Park, on the east side of the Old Pass, without poles, because nobody had told them they were supposed to use them. His own measure of success was wonderfully practical: eventually, he could turn, and he learned to stop just in time when a tree got in the way.
That stay-and-help spirit is still at work in the fifth generation. Justin Brandenburg has lived in Red River all his life, and when a December 15, 2021 snow squall toppled thousands of trees across the trails around town, he raised his hand. At a June 2022 meeting where volunteers worried over Goose Lake and Greenie Peak, he volunteered for the Middle Fork Lake Trail that nobody else wanted. Starting June 25, he worked fourteen days, clearing about 700 trees, with help from Shane Sanchez of Red River Stables, wildland firefighter Brian Stokes, and Upper Red River Valley residents working as swampers.
By October 17, 2022, Questa District Ranger Adam LaDell was honoring Justin at Red River Ski Area: he had individually cleared an estimated 950 trees in the Lost Lake area, including the trails to Middle Fork Lake and Lost Lake. Justin turned down offers of payment with a sentence that could stand as the family's motto across five generations: he was not doing it for money, he said, but for the enjoyment of the outdoors, so visitors could come and love what the locals love. From an 1895 mining claim to a namesake park to a chainsaw on a blocked trail, that is what a founding family looks like when it never stops tending its town.