Easter Sunday in Uravan looked quite a bit like anywhere else. Birds were out at the ballpark campground, which was once the center of the community. Under a pavilion, a brief service was held in the chilly mid-morning air. A potluck was laid out by midday, the tables loaded with deviled eggs and pudding pies, mayo salads and fried chicken. After that, plastic eggs were strewn across the scrubby lawn, and a hunt began.
Despite the familiarity of those traditions, shared by many across the country on Easter, Sunday’s service in Uravan had a special resonance for many in attendance. The Easter gathering had roots in the Uravan’s heyday more than half a century ago, before the community was forced to vacate by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which declared the area a Superfund site and oversaw the town’s demolition.
In an interview before the Apr. 20 holiday, president of the Rimrocker Historical Society Jane Thompson recalled the Uravan Easter tradition. Town residents would head about four miles south of the community to a site overlooking the confluence of the San Miguel and Dolores rivers. There, said Thompson, “was a place where the church people went to have their Easter sunrise services.”
It was a simple setup. Thompson said there were some tables, but no chairs, and someone had set up three crosses on a nearby ridge. At sunrise, residents would gather for a service, followed by a potluck brunch.
The tradition continued for years, Thompson said.
“The kids would run all over the place, and it was just a big event that always went along with Easter,” she recalled. Growing up, Thompson attended a different church with her family, which held its own services, but the site was familiar. Year-round, she frequented the spot below the crosses to picnic and play with other neighborhood kids.
The tradition ended as the town was vacated in the 1980s. But roughly a decade ago, the Reeves family, formerly of Uravan and now of Grand Junction, began visiting the rehabilitated ballpark and soon had the idea to rekindle the Easter tradition.
So, according to Thompson, nine years ago “the son [Gary Reeves], made three crosses and hung them [at the former site].”
Then, a group of former Uravan residents “trekked out there.”
“Some were getting older,” Thompson said, “but we all made it, and they were pretty happy to be there. Then we did that for about three years.”
Eventually, to accommodate growing interest in the event, the organizers decided to move the service to the ballpark. Multiple congregations from around the West End have now joined the tradition, gathering with the former Uravan residents to honor the holiday.
Gary Reeves was in attendance at the service this Sunday, as he has been for nearly every Easter in the past decade. Recalling the sunrise services of his childhood — the cold wind coming off the river and the treacherous hike out to the site in the morning darkness — Reeves joked, “we’d still do it out there, if we weren’t so old and crotchety.”
Roughly 90 people were in attendance at the ballpark this year. As usual, they gathered for song, food and prayer. Three crosses are put up each year for the occasion below the highway, and taken down after the service is complete. Each year, a different pastor from the local community comes forward to offer some words.
This year, Dan Williams of the New Hope Church in Naturita detailed his relationship with God, and his triumph over an illness, which brought him close to death roughly two years ago. Addressing the crowd during his casual remarks, Williams said, “Maybe you’ve lost hope, lost a loved one, lost a friend. Maybe the dream you’ve had hasn’t come to be … Then the story of Resurrection Sunday is for you.”
As is tradition, the lunch that followed featured an extravagant array of salads and baked beans, fried chicken, set out in aluminum pans, and nearly two tables filled with potluck desserts.
According to Thompson the tradition is, at heart, “another opportunity for people to visit.” The former Uravan residents, such as Reeves and herself, “just want to sit there and soak up those memories that we have from growing up there.”
Thompson added there are new families joining in as well, “and they’re making new memories.”
“That gives me great encouragement,” she said. In this way, the memories and the community “will carry through into the future.”
