05/22/2026
Hello all. This is why I thoroughly enjoy being a part of the Evergreen Mountain Area Historical Society.
A few days ago, a lady called about donating an old lamp that she said was made in Evergreen? What, I thought, a lamp made in Evergreen? Impossible, right?
She sent a few photos.
And lo…the label says ‘Seven Hills’ near Evergreen.
So, I did a bit of old-fashioned research, coupled with an AI-assisted digital research.
Seven Hills:
Location and property identification
The Yetter property is well-documented geographically because it later became the site of a small mining operation: the Seven Hills-Yetter Ranch Pegmatite Quarry, at elevation 2,194 m (7,198 ft), recorded on the USGS Evergreen 7.5' topographic quadrangle alongside other named features like the Hiwan Ranch Pegmatite Quarry, Silver Glen Ranch Pegmatite Quarry, and Swede-Kerr Gulches Pegmatite Quarries. The quarry sits within Jefferson County on the Evergreen quad, the same quadrangle that covers Kerr Gulch, Kittredge, downtown Evergreen, Hiwan Country Club, Bergen Park, and El Rancho, so it's firmly in the Evergreen orbit rather than something out toward Kittredge specifically.
The fact that USGS used the dual name "Seven Hills-Yetter Ranch" tells you the property was known locally as both — "Yetter Ranch" as the family/ownership designation, and "Seven Hills" as the name the Yetters themselves gave it (which is exactly what the label uses, in quotation marks, the way you'd name a country estate). The elevation puts it on the high benchlands, broadly consistent with the El Rancho/Bergen Park/Kerr Gulch corridor rather than down in the Bear Creek/Kittredge bottomlands.
Geological and historical context
The quarry is part of the Clear Creek pegmatite province, a cluster of small feldspar/mica/beryl operations on private ranches that were investigated extensively during World War II for strategic minerals — beryllium, mica (muscovite), tantalum, and lithium. The defining USGS reference is John B. Hanley, E. Wm. Heinrich, and Lincoln R. Page, Pegmatite Investigations in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah, 1942–1944, Professional Paper 227 (1950), which is the standard source for ownership and production data on these little ranch quarries. A more comprehensive later treatment is Sheridan's 1967 USGS Professional Paper 520, also referenced in the MRDS database. If you want to nail down dates the Yetters were actively quarrying — and the names of any partners or lessees — those two reports plus the MRDS record will be the place to look. The Denver Public Library Western History/Genealogy collection holds both.
Connection
The decorative scrollwork border, green ink on green paper, and the quoted-name format ("SEVEN HILLS") all fit a 1920s–1940s small-workshop or named-estate aesthetic, which lines up with when the surrounding Hiwan/Greystone/Buchanan-era mountain estates were being established and named in the Evergreen area. The "Mountain Place" phrasing is also period — it was common usage in that era for a secondary or summer home distinct from a town residence.
What's still open is whether the Yetters were producing lamps and metalwork as a side artisan operation at Seven Hills (Arts & Crafts-era mountain estates often did this — think the small craft enterprises that ran alongside the Hiwan and Greystone households), or whether the label was simply property/inventory marking from the estate that ended up affixed inside a household lamp. The brass weight of Bernadette's piece is consistent with both interpretations.
—
Wow!
Now, I want to find out more. What a remarkable lamp with a fascinating history.
