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 One
of Cheyenne County's earliest pioneers, a stockman
whose memory remains alive in the JOD brand still
in use today, was Joseph Ottmar Dostal. Dostal's
story is typically American, a story of an immigrant
boy who forged a life for his family out of the
raw material of the plains, while earning wealth
and some renown in the process.
Dostal's
story is of added interest because historians have
been able to trace his pioneer Slavic-American family
through four generations.
Dostal's
grandfather, George Dostal, was born in the late
1700s in Ricany, Bohemia, on the outskirts of Prague
in what is now Czechoslovakia. George Dostal was
a millwright and builder, but his son, George Jr.
(born in 1811) became a manufacturer of woolen cloth.
George Jr. married Jennie Blazek, the daughter of
a fellow Ricany cloth maker, and they had eight
children, including Joseph O. Dostal, born November
16, 1842 in Bohemia.
In
the mid-19th century, the industrial revolution
conquered Europe. Unable to compete with mass production,
the Dostal family set out in 1856 for America. As
did many others like them, they traveled first to
Hamburg, Germany, then to Liverpool, England, where
they booked passage on a sailing vessel.
The
trip across the Atlantic Ocean required nearly five
weeks, a time chronicled in the Dostal diary, according
to former JOD resident Evelyn Hockett.
The
Dostals disembarked in New York City, and moved
immediately to a homestead near Iowa City, Iowa.
Cloth finisher George Dostal went to work felling
trees for 75 cents a cord, and young Joseph found
a job in a brickyard. He later obtained work on
a ranch for $6 per month and board.
At
the age of 15, young Dostal learned the butcher's
trade, cutting meat for $15 per month and board.
But before long, his career was interrupted by the
outbreak of the Civil War.
Still
a teenager, Dostal joined Company K, 22nd Iowa infantry
attached to the 19th Army Corps. His regiment participated
in the siege of Vicksburg and Jackson and was in
the Shenandoah Valley campaign under General Phil
Sheridan. Dostal tramped as far south as Alexandria,
Louisiana, and in the winter of 1864, he was attached
to the Commissary Department at De Croist Point,
Matagorda Bay, Texas. As one of the butchers there,
he helped slaughter 16,000 sheep and thousands of
cattle to help supply the needs of the Union Army.
Eight
months after his August, 1865 discharge, Dostal
moved to Central City in Colorado's mountains, where
he was employed by William Nicholson as a butcher.
He worked for 18 months, saving his money, then
he returned to Iowa City in 1868 to marry Mary Hamllik.
Also
a Czech, Mary had moved with her parents to America
from Prague. An ethnic tradition, their marriage
served to preserve their Czech culture and heritage,
considered important in ensuring domestic tranquility.
The
newlyweds returned to Central City, and Dostal opened
his own butcher shop. A fire nearly destroyed the
entire town in 1874, but Dostal pooled his capital
with that of two other businessmen to build a new
50x69 foot building, two stories high. Identified
in stone as "1874 Dostal Block", the building
still stands on the east side of Main Street near
its intersection with Gregory Street.
Successful
in business in Central City, Dostal served a term
on the town council. He finally sold his meat market
in 1876.
During
this same period, Dostal became increasingly involved
in livestock operations in the plains area, particularly
at Godfrey (later know as "Beuck" and
as "Buick") and at Aroya, communities
created following the arrival of the Kansas-Pacific
Railroad.
("Buick"
still is seen on maps southeast of Agate in Elbert
County. In Cheyenne County the JOD was based about
three miles from the present site of Aroya, which
is between Wild Horse and Hugo near Highway 40/287.)
In
1873, Dostal went into partnership with Conrad Schafer,
a German who had come to America in 1870. Dostal
and Schafer became acquainted in Central City, where
Schafer lived three years before moving to eastern
Colorado.
At
Aroya, Dostal and Schafer were in the sheep business
for a decade. Then, in 1883, Schafer started his
own ranch in the Boyero vicinity, where he raised
sheep and cattle until his death at age 49, in 1888.
Still owned by the Schafer family, that ranch now
is known for its cattle and quarter horses.
For
years thereafter, Dostal and his JOD Ranch raised
Hereford cattle which, when exhibited, won many
prizes. In 1899 (before the present National Western
Stock Show), Dostal was awarded first prize on a
carload of 10-month old calves, bred and raised
on the JOD range. The calves averaged 530 pounds,
and were exhibited at the Stocker and Feeder Cattle
Show held in Denver.
In
1889, Cheyenne County was created by the state legislature,
and J.O.Dostal was the new county's oldest resident
and largest individual taxpayer. In the following
year, Dostal was elected county commissioner.
Also,
on September 17, 1889, a post office was established
at Aroya, and Dostal was named postmaster. The office
served a wide area, for post offices were not established
at Boyero or Wild Horse, and mail sacks were carried
by horseback to the Sanford Ranch 13 miles from
Aroya, for distribution in that area.
When
the Wild Horse post office re-opened in 1904 (it
was first established in 1877, but was closed the
same year). Dostal sorted the Wild Horse mail, then
put in on the train to Wild Horse, where the train
crew threw it off onto the front porch of the section
house as the train went by.
Dostal
was also instrumental in organizing the stockmen's
association in the state, for protection against
rustlers. It later was reorganized as the Cattle
and Horse Growers Association. He was for years
a delegate to the meetings of the National Livestock
Association, and in 1904, was appointed by the governor
to represent Colorado at the national meeting.
Dostal's
wife, Mary, died in 1909. Afterward, he sold the
JOD to a Mr. Schilling. The ranch has changed hands
several times since, but the JOD brand is still
there, even though parts of the ranch recently were
"busted up", plowed out for farm ground.
The
Dostals had maintained a comfortable home in Denver
since the 1890s, in addition to their large ranch,
and one of their sons even graduated from a high
school there, but Joseph Dostal retired to San Diego,
California, where he died November 9, 1925, a week
short of his 83rd birthday.
Most
of the people who knew Joseph Dostal are gone now,
and it's difficult to draw a picture of JOD, the
man. He has been quoted as saying, "My only
ambition in life has been to make a success. I did
not count so much on dollars that this success would
bring as on the satisfaction that would come to
me should I be successful in what I undertook."
One
of Dostal's sons is reported to have been afraid
of his father, and one of Dostal's granddaughters
has described him as "stern, but full of the
devil." She recalled her grandfather urging
her to always drink Scotch whiskey, so that she
would never become an alcoholic. That advice dismayed
her mother, she reported.
In
his photographs, Dostal always appeared in a necktie,
and without a smile, and yet he was photographed
often in family recreational pursuits, relaxing
with a grandson on a riverbank, or enjoying a picnic
lunch on the prairie.
Perhaps
the real key to Joseph O. Dostal was in the poetry
he wrote in the Czech language. His granddaughter
showed a sample to a friend who could read Czech.
"It was very romantic," she was told.
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