06/01/2026
The History of Boulder County Rests Here: Albert Scogland
Claus Albert Scogland was born on November 23, 1869 in Ljunby, Halland, Sweden to Johannes and Johanna Salomonsson. (Until 1901, the surname was generally patronymic and changed in each generation, making it difficult to trace the family tree. The suffix “sson” was commonly added to the father’s last name, meaning that when Albert was born, his last name would have been Johannesson.) In 1901, the Names Adoption Act was passed in Sweden, requiring all citizens to adopt heritable surnames that would pass down intact instead of changing every generation.
The family, including Albert, came to the United States several times during his childhood — in 1873, 1876, 1880, 1886. By the time Albert permanently immigrated to the United States in 1890, he had adopted the surname of Scogland. He was involved in a number of mining operations, often serving as foreman. On December 23, 1893, he married Maude Oline Colvin. Together they had six children, five sons, and one daughter. As a result of his work in the mines, the family moved often during the early years, living at different times in Gold Hill, Sunshine, Sugar Loaf, Salina, and Niwot. Eventually, he bought a farm near Boulder where he enjoyed raising and showing Milking Shorthorn Cattle. While he continued to be involved in mining until the last few years of his life, his older sons operated the family farm.
Because of his success, he was eventually able to move from being a foreman to becoming a partner in a number of mining operations. As the price of tungsten skyrocketed with the onset of World War I, Albert moved his focus to tungsten mining. Tungsten was needed to harden the steel used in the construction of the war machinery. During this period, he was often noted by the Boulder and Denver papers for his ingenuity as a mine operator. One such headline from a 1916 issue of the Rocky Mountain News reads: “Boulder Man Invents Scheme to Carry Tungsten Down Mountains to the Vasco Mill.” He and Charles Lindsley operated a mine ten miles above Boulder and high on a mountain about a mile above the Vasco Mill. Albert built a chute several hundred feet long on a sharp incline. Its lower end was over an airshaft that connected with the No. 5 tunnel in the Vasco mine several hundred feet below. The ore was shoveled into the chute and then ran unaided into mine cars in the tunnel which then carried it by gravity to the mill. Using this method, he moved a dump of 6,000 tons at a cost of just $1 a ton, a considerable saving over having it moved by the team.
During this same time period, he served as the operator of Vasco No. 3 and as a partner in the operation of Vasco No. 7. In the summer of 1930, the family was called to his bedside as he became deathly ill. At the time, his sons, John and Glen, and their families were living in Texas. On October 6, 1930, Albert Scogland passed away at the age of 59. He was laid to rest in the lovely Green Mountain Cemetery beside his oldest son, Albert Dowite Scogland, who had passed away a year earlier in Ohio at the age of 34. (Albert and Maude’s only daughter, who died age six, is buried in a smaller cemetery in Boulder.) Maude lived to be 87 and was laid to rest beside her husband in 1964. The other sons and their companions are also buried closeby in Green Mountain Cemetery.
