Our Headquarters – the Shack and Shed
Early meeting places for the team were in the old Evergreen Library, and the Elk’s lodge. While in the Elk’s lodge it was called The Shack. The first Alpine owned building was located on Independence Mountain above the town of Evergreen. It was built in 1973-4 by Team members and community supporters. The property was donated by lifetime Board Member Byron Angevine. Though the new building was hardly a shack, the name stuck. The new Shack was divided between the Team’s meeting/storage facility and a two-bedroom apartment that was rented to pay for the mortgage. The first renters were team members Brian Gunnerson and John Peleaux. The single meeting room had a corner designated as the dispatch area. Downstairs, the two-door garage housed the Team’s rescue and search trailers, and a locked equipment room.
When Alpine purchased their first vehicle (originally called 602 and then changed to Rescue 2 in 1997) in 1985, it was too large to fit into the garage bay at the Independence Mountain location. An agreement was made with Evergreen Ambulance to use one of their garage bays temporarily at their new “barn” on Hwy. 74 just South of Evergreen. Response time to the I-70 corridor was slow due to the location of the Shack. Another factor for considering a new Shack location was that the membership was shifting from a local Evergreen to a Denver membership base. The main factor was to improve our response time to our primary area, the I-70 corridor.
In 1988, the Team’s Board of Directors approved the construction of a new building located just south of I-70 at the Evergreen Parkway exit. For the next two years, team members undertook a major fund raising effort to pay for the new headquarters. Ground breaking was on November 30, 1989. For simplicity, the new building was called the New Shack. With a very generous donation by the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Posse, the new building was completely paid for when it was officially opened on November 10th, 1990. The new building and land are currently leased from the Foothills Fire Protection District, formally the Lookout Mountain Fire Protection District, for the sum of $1.00 per year. The first order of business each year at the Teams first Board meeting each January is to pay the $1.00 rent.
Since the early 90’s the team has increased their number of emergency vehicles, snowmobiles and ATV’s that are used in search and rescue operations. In 2004 the Alpine Board of Directors appointed a committee to look into the long range plans of the team in terms of the current lease and the housing of possible future vehicles, trailers, ATV’s and snowmobiles.
In 2007 the committee reported to the Board of Directors that an individual had come forth and was willing to donate the costs of a new building to the team. Construction began in December of 2007 and the team was able to move trailers, ATV’s and snowmobiles into the new 2000 square foot building on July 1, 2008. The new building has appropriately been named the “Shed”.
On December 15, 2009 the committee was proud to announce that the Foothills Fire Protection District Board of Directors had granted Alpine an additional 20 year extension on the current lease allowing the team to operate at the Rainbow Hills location until 2048.
Building and vehicle maintenance require much more time and energy than in any other time in the Team’s history. The responsibility for cleaning and maintaining the Shack and Shed belongs to every team member.
