Harrison-Hastedt House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Colorado County, there's a house that's been quietly outlasting everything around it, and its story starts smaller than you might expect. We're talking 1861.

Two rooms. That's it. Just a modest little 2-room house, nothing fancy, the kind of place that makes you wonder how long it figured on staying that way.

The answer, it turns out, was about sixteen years. Jesse Joyner Harrison took ownership of the property in 1877, and Jesse had bigger ideas. Somewhere in the 1880s, he brought in the people you brought in when you wanted the job done right.

Andrew Wirtz and Sons, prominent local builders, and they went to work. What they handed back to Harrison was something else entirely. A 2-story frame central hall residence, the kind that announces itself.

And the Wirtzes, they didn't just build it tall, they built it fine. Milled wood detailing all the way around those wraparound porches. The kind of craftsmanship that says we were here, and we weren't in a hurry.

Harrison held onto the property until 1901. Then the house waited, as old houses do, and in 1911 it found new hands. John and Emma Hastedt acquired it, and here's the part that'll get you: the Hastedt family kept that house until 1989.

That 2-room house from 1861, dressed up by the Wirtzes into something grand, held by one family for the better part of a century. Some things just endure.

What the marker says

This structure was initially a small 2-room house built in 1861. Jesse Joyner Harrison, owner of the property from 1877-1901, hired prominent local builders Andrew Wirtz & Sons in the 1880s to transform the structure into a larger 2-story frame central hall residence. The Wirtzes used fine milled wood detailing on the house's wraparound porches. The house was acquired by John and Emma Hastedt in 1911. It remained in the Hastedt family until 1989. RTHL - 1993