While having surveying done 41 years ago prior to building our home in the Crystal Valley, the surveyors showed us a map of the area from the 1880’s. It indicated a spot about 3/4 of a mile upriver from us labeled “Mobley’s Corral”. This was new to us because the local name for that spot was, and still is, Janeway.

Some thirty years later our daughter stumbled into a photo of a Mr. John Mobley in a textbook describing him as a resident of the Crystal river Valley. As you can see- that photo is worth a thousand words. Several of his descendants are still in the area including his 92 year old grandson Carl Mobley of Silt who we recently interviewed. Here are some highlights of John’s story.

Born in Ohio, John in 1861 lied about his age and joined the Union Army at 16 years. Afterwards he moved west and served two terms as sheriff of Julesburg, CO. probably between 1870 and 1880. The next thing we find is that in 1880 he is exploring the Schofield Pass area and awaits his wife, Julia and four children who arrived by mail stage via Gunnison and Crested Butte. They then proceeded over Schofield Pass. Some reports say he had to dismantle their wagon and pack it in pieces on burros to complete the trip to where Marble now sits. One child was riding in panniers on a burro that spooked and ran down the trail, but it was stopped by Wm. Woods, a miner who became known as one of Marble’s founders.

The family wintered that year at what would become the town of Marble. Mobley plotted some home sites and called it “Clarence”. Wood plotted some adjacent sites and called it “Marble”. Eventually they consolidated and the two remained as Marble. Marble was at the confluence of Carbonate Creek, which substantially flooded Marble in 1941, and Rock Creek, which was, apparently, unilaterally re-named Crystal river by the soon to be defunct Aspen and Western Railway in 1886. It wasn’t officially re-named Crystal River, however, until 11/ 22/1901.

Within a year Mobley had the itch to move again and by 1881 had moved his family to the confluence of the Crystal River and Avalanche Creek where he established a small settlement-“Mobley’s Corral”. Here he petitioned for a Post Office which was commissioned on 8/16/87. By 1888 about 50 people had settled there. This was too crowded for Mobley so he sold out and hauled the family downvalley to a quieter spot near Carbondale where he took to ranching. At this time Carbondale had only about twenty families.