Wallace A.E. de Beque [1841 - 1930]

Individual, deBeque_Wallace

Lifetime

1841 – 1930

About

Born in New Brunswick, Canada, in 1841, Wallace de Beque studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania before coming to Colorado in 1875 because of persistent asthma and lung issues. By the early 1880s he was one of the only doctors in the newly established city of Grand Junction. His practice was not thriving—he was paid primarily in goods and services instead of cash—so he decided to start a ranch. In 1884 de Beque explored the Colorado River (then known as the Grand River) with a few friends and claimed a thirty-acre parcel of land along the river about thirty miles northeast of Grand Junction. He called his new ranch Ravensbeque and operated it with his brother, Robert. De Beque and others also started the Grand River Toll Road Company, which constructed a toll road linking Grand Junction and Glenwood Springs. Completed in December 1885, the road facilitated increased settlement in the Grand Valley. In January 1888, settlers near Ravensbeque organized a town and named it after Wallace de Beque. The new town of De Beque was platted that year on a town site just east of Ravensbeque. Wallace de Beque and his family soon moved to town, leaving his brother in charge of the ranch. De Beque’s wife, Marie, became the town’s postmaster, while de Beque constructed a log building to serve as his doctor’s office and drug store. (That building was torn down in 1936.) In 1889 de Beque designed and oversaw the construction of a one-and-a-half-story wood-frame house at the south end of town. It may have been the first house in De Beque with running water. When his wife died in 1890, he was left to care for their son, Wallace de Beque Jr. Despite this, he threw himself into civic activities in the early 1890s, serving as postmaster and briefly as a newspaper editor in addition to his other roles as doctor, drug store owner, and rancher. In 1899 de Beque started a new job as a medical inspector in Mexico for New York Life Insurance. He lived in Mexico City for much of the next decade. His brother moved into the De Beque House, and his nephew ran the drug store. De Beque continued to visit the town frequently and moved back permanently after he retired from New York Life in 1911. When he returned, he brought a new wife, Marie Louise de Lavillette, with whom he had two sons, Armand (1912) and Roland (1915). De Beque’s growing family led him to enlarge his house twice over the next decade. In 1918 he expanded the house by twelve feet to the rear, allowing him to add a new kitchen and dining room. Four years later, he added another ten feet to the rear of the house. During these years he saw patients at home and also made some house calls. Wallace de Beque died in 1930, and Marie Louise de Lavillette de Beque died in 1944. Their son Armand lived in the De Beque House until his death in 1998. At that point the house passed out of the de Beque family. It has remained largely unchanged since Wallace de Beque’s death and continues to serve as a private residence.

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