For the better part of the 1960s, ’70s and early ’80s, Ron Ralston, who died Saturday at age 67, ran Sam’s, a 3.2 beer roadhouse on Lookout Mountain crowded with patrons flocking to hear live rock music seven days a week.
Ralston established an unflappable presence, pulling beer at the bar and working the crowd, keeping a vigilant eye out for potential troublemakers. Sam’s attracted leather-jacketed bikers along with Colorado School of Mines students, an occasionally volatile combination.
He dealt with a particularly belligerent biker by abruptly shoving him outside and joining him, pulling the door closed behind them. “How’d you like to work here?” Ralston asked.
Later, he said, “He was too big for me to take down, so I figured I’d better hire him.” The man became one of Ralston’s most loyal employees and an unparalleled bouncer.
The son of ranchers whose property is now home to the buffalo herd at Genesee Park, Ralston spent most of his life in the foothills near Golden. He attended the historic Rockland Church, whose stone walls were built by his father, a stonemason.
Ralston was a descendant of Lewis Ralston, who inspired Colorado’s first gold rush with his 1850 discovery of gold in what is now Arvada.
Gangly but strong, Ron Ralston reminded his family of John Wayne in the John Ford movie “The Quiet Man.” He was good at observing people. His children learned, occasionally to their regret, that he rarely asked a question if he didn’t already know the answer.
His career took him from military service to a job as a dispatcher, and then as a deputy for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, and finally as an investigator for the federal government. Being an investigator suited his innate curiosity and his appetite for research.
Even in his leisure time, Ralston liked to exercise his mind. He read mystery novels mainly to confirm that he had correctly deconstructed the killer and motive. Halfway through watching a movie, he could usually predict the outcome.
His affinity for the land he called “my mountains” never diminished. Nearly every day, he drove to the buffalo overlook at Genesee Park and hiked or read a book on his boyhood stomping ground.
A memorial service will be held at 10:30 a.m. today at Aspen Memorial Chapel, 1350 Simms St., in Lakewood. He will be buried in the Ralston family cemetery near the old Rockland Church.
Survivors include his daughters, Leslie Turfree of Morrinsville, New Zealand, Valorie Abelman of Baltimore and Niffie Philips of Bailey; sons Scott Ralston of Lakewood and Craig Ralston of Limon; sister Jean Ann Ralston Standlee of Kerrville, Texas; 12 grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
