History absorbed Jan Leslie, and her collection of artifacts from Hayden and Routt County is “absolutely phenomenal,” said Mary Pat Dunn of Craig, who worked at the Hayden Heritage Center.
The collection, which includes thousands of newspaper clippings — some dating to 1907 when the Hayden paper first published — fills more than about a room and a half at the center.
Leslie, who died of lung cancer on Oct. 6, was 72. Hayden residents went to her to find out the history of families, hospitals, schools, businesses or just about anything.
“And if Jan said it, you could count on it,” said Dunn.
Leslie, who taught school in the area for 32 years, “was consumed” with collecting personal accounts and newspaper clippings, some from the Hayden newspaper while it existed, and later from the Steamboat Pilot & Today, said Rebecca Wattles, president of the board of the Hayden Heritage Center.
And what she found, she remembered — “dates, quotes, times. It was an amazing amount of work.”
Working at home, Leslie gathered information about a specific subject such as ranches or schools and then put the information in indexed binders. Dunn said the obituaries run into the thousands.
She collected the history of Hayden and Routt County, both in northwest Colorado, but she concentrated on Hayden, said her sister, Nadine Les lie. Jan Leslie never married and lived with Nadine in Hayden.
The subjects ranged from high school graduates to all the owners of each business in the town or ranches in the area. Sometimes she got information from clippings of papers outside the county.
Friends said Jan Leslie shunned publicity, not even wanting to appear when she was to be honored.
“She didn’t enjoy the limelight. She was a no-nonsense kind of person who didn’t like small talk about the weather and had a low tolerance for silly stuff,” Wattles said.
“She was straightforward and opinionated,” said Laurel Watson, curator at the Heritage Center.
Most of Leslie’s work isn’t for display, but for researchers.
Leslie wrote a book on the history of Routt County rural schools and one on the history of post offices, called, “Anthracite, Barbee and Tosh, ” all post office locations. Her last book was simply titled “Hayden.”
Janet Rose Leslie was born Jan. 1, 1938, in Steamboat Springs, later moving to Hayden with her family.
She graduated from Hayden Union High School and the University of Northern Colorado, where she studied history.
In addition to her sister, she is survived by her brother, Richard Leslie of Hayden.
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Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
