Flying W Ranch provides details about 2016 reopening

It’ll be a new, better and different Flying W Ranch when it reopens on Memorial Day weekend next year.

Spokesman Aaron Winter announced earlier this week that the beloved entertainment attraction, built in 1953 by Russ Wolfe, will reopen. He said the ranch will hold a groundbreaking ceremony in two months.

The ranch, which featured hearty chuck-wagon dinners, country and western entertainment and historical exhibits, was virtually destroyed in the June 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire.

After the fire, the ranch staff considered whether to reopen, and recruited volunteers to work on flood mitigation projects around the ranch.

“We’ll have to move the parking lot to another location, that’s for sure,” Winter said. “And we’re waiting on word for more funding for mitigation.”

Winter said the rebuilding will come in phases, with the first phase to include indoor and outdoor seating areas and restrooms.

“It’s hard to find older buildings from the late 1800s that are available in this region,” he said. “The fire destroyed what took 60 years to build, so people shouldn’t expect the ranch to immediately look the way it did.”

Before the fire, the ranch had five full-time staffers and about 100 part-time employees, most of whom have since moved on to other jobs.

One of the part-timers was Heather Vozzola, a graduate student who recently was hired as the ranch’s full-time volunteer coordinator.

“I worked there for seven summers, so I worked up to the day of the fire,” she said. “I was here evacuating all of the antiques. The ranch means a lot to me. I see some people coming back.”

Only two small buildings and 15 of the ranch’s original picnic tables withstood the fire.

A couple drove up to the locked gates Friday.

“We’ve never been here,” they said. “We were invited several times to come before the fire, but we never did.”

Winter said Wolfe, who recently turned 90, is excited about the rebuilding plans.