Fountain - Main Street

 

The Sears House: 11190 Old Pueblo Road

As you drive south on Old Pueblo Road, the newish Ventana subdivision is on the east side of the road, and a very unique "kit house" is on the west side. Built by Joe Wilson in about 1919, he ordered the "Westly" model for about $1000, and the pieces and parts were delivered in a railroad car (s). Joe was in the concrete business, so he is probably responsible for the sturdy foundation. The Wilsons only lived here for about 2 years. His father, SA Wilson, was a early resident of Security/ Widefield.

The Fountain Valley Preservation Association, defunct circa 2020, did background research on the home and presented documentation to the state to have it placed on the State Register of Historic Places in 2010.

When a terrible hail storm hit Fountain in the summer of 2018, the owners used some of the insurance damage settlement to restore the house closer to its original form. The vinyl siding was removed, and a greenish paint scheme adopted, based on old photos.

 

 

The home was owned by Toby Wells in 2010. He passed along information that the Wilson family lived in the tiny single room "bunkhouse" behind the main house while it was being built. The Wells family had owned the Sears house wince 1958. 

Juan Flores told the Fountain Valley News that this was the first house in the Fountain Valley to have modern indoor plumbing. There is a bathroom upstairs, and since this was built before the area was electrified, the water would have been transported to the house, and upstairs, by gravity.  A windmill once stood across Old Pueblo Road from the house.

 1916

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of the many older houses along Main Street, a number were built by LA Toothman.  The county assessor [ land.elpasoco.com ] dates these between about 1910 and the mid-1920s.  The owners of each house over time are not known.  Other houses in town attributed to him, based on interviews, include 214 S Fountain, 316 N Main and 316 W Illinois.





Nettie Toothman's Home Cafe, Fountain
ca. 1920-30s



Pioneer Essay July 1976, Security Advertiser & Fountain Valley News

by Clarissa W “Toots” Toothman Wilson

This essay is not, by any means, all in chronological order.  The events have come to my mind and, since I am not sure of all the dates, I have just written about them. 

My father, Louis A Toothman, came to Fountain from Mount Hope, Kansas, in 1895.  Since he was a carpenter, he built a few houses and then returned to get my mother, Nettie P (Haskins) Toothman, and my sister.  They came back to Fountain in the Spring of 1896.  My eldest sister, Mrs. Coral Miller of Colorado Springs, was six months old at the time.  In 1900, another sister, was born in Fountain, Mrs. Daisy Torbit.  My brother RB was born in 1902.  I was born August 3, 1910 at 310 W Illinois.  The cottonwood tree at the east corner of the yard was planted by the parents the day before I was born.

           


RB and Toots Toothman, 1914