Many people “never forgot Stanley Dodson for his generosity,” said daughter-in-law Beth Dodson of Glenwood Springs.
That generosity went beyond giving money — he also opened his home to jobless people who needed a place to stay, said his son, David Dodson.
Stanley Dodson, a long-time Glenwood Springs businessman, died Jan. 10 in a care center. He was 90.
A hitchhiker Dodson had picked up years ago recently called David Dodson to find out how his father was.
Over the years, Stanley Dodson picked up several men, and a few women, who were down on their luck. He’d give them a bedroom in the basement until they “got things going in their lives,” said Beth Dodson.
“He always thought that was better than to just hand someone $20,” said his son.
Dodson made friends everywhere and “was inquisitive” about people’s lives, said Pierre DuBois, a longtime friend and owner of the Sunlight Mountain Inn, a bed and breakfast near Glenwood.
“He could remember everything — what we did 10 years ago at 5 o’clock,” said DuBois. For decades, Dodson kept a journal of his daily activities.
An engineer who owned a pipe-products company, Dodson was involved with several civic groups in Glenwood. “He was dedicated to everything he did,” said DuBois.
Dodson served as chairman of the state highway commission when the Glenwood Canyon extension of Interstate 70 was built and when the first bore of the Eisenhower Tunnel was completed in the 1960s.
He was chairman of the Colorado Highway Users Conference, which promotes state highways, and served on former Gov. Roy Romer’s “blue ribbon” transportation panel.
Dodson was an incorporator of the Bank of Glenwood in 1963 and an original member of groups that developed the Glenwood Springs Golf Course and the Rifle Creek Golf Course.
A third-generation Garfield County resident, Stanley L. Dodson was born in Silt on May 28, 1918, and graduated from Silt High School.
While serving in the Naval Reserve during World War II he was in Miami. There he met Nell Martina Wilson at a USO dance and they married March 20, 1944. She died in 1995.
“Women always said Stanley Dodson was a great dancer,” said David Dodson.
Stanley Dodson earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering at the University of Colorado.
He worked at Denver-based Thompson Pipe and Steel Co., and later formed Dodson Engineered Products, which his son now heads.
In addition to his son, he is survived by his daughter, Donell Deane of Durango.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
