James Espy

Centenarian, James Bruce Espy, who went by the name of J. Bruce Espy, of Fruita, Colorado, passed away August 31, 2018, from complications of pneumonia. A few days after celebrating his hundredth birthday, August 10, 2018, Mr. Espy entered St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction with Asphyxia Pneumonia, and while discharged from the hospital some days later, never fully recovered, finally succumbing to the condition.

Mr. Espy was born August 10, 1918, in Denver, the son of Pearl Moore Espy and J. Reimer Espy, a prominent businessman in Denver, owner of the Espy Ice Company. Bruce Espy spent his formative years working at his father’s ice company, splitting time between the family’s residence and business in Denver and its ice operation and property in Rollinsville, Colorado just east of the Moffat Tunnel.

A graduate of East High School in Denver in 1936, Mr. Espy spent the next five years at Dartmouth College and the Thayer School of Engineering, becoming a Civil Engineer in 1941. Roughly six months after earning his Civil Engineering degree Mr. Espy enlisted in the Navy following the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war against Japan and Germany.

Mr. Espy’s first posting in the Navy was as a student of aeronautics at Cal Tech in Pasadena to which the Navy sent him for training. He admitted in his later years that he felt he got the “best of that deal” over most of his fellow engineer enlistees, who were sent to M.I.T. in Massachusetts. “They actually had to work and study,” he said, “while I got to enjoy the sun and surf.”

After his training at Cal Tech, he was sent to the Atlantic where he was assigned as a flight officer aboard the USS Charger, patrolling the southern coast of the United States. Desiring to fly rather than watch others do it, he petitioned to become a fighter pilot and was sent to pilot training in Pensacola, Florida and Corpus Christi, Texas. Upon finishing his flight training, he once again was assigned to aircraft carriers in the Atlantic, and after Germany was defeated was scheduled to ship out to the Pacific theater of operations when the war there came to an end.

Following the war and his active duty service not long thereafter, Mr. Espy returned to Denver once again to work in his father’s ice business. Putting his civil engineering degree to use, Mr. Espy designed the company’s factory at 2101 31st St. as the company transitioned from harvesting and selling natural ice from its pond on South Boulder Creek in Rollinsville to manufactured ice in Denver. Bruce also continued his lifelong love of flying and finished his 20 years in the Navy. During his time in the Navy, he flew Stearmans, Corsairs, and ended his flying career in the new Cougar jets.

In 1955, upon the death of his father, Mr. Espy assumed control of the family firm and successfully shepherded it for the next 31 years as it transitioned from a company that sold ice principally to the railroads to one that sold ice principally to consumers, and he erected and started a food cold storage business on the same site on 31st St. in Denver.

During those 31 years, Mr. Espy was prominent in the Denver Lions Club, was a prominent advocate for bringing a professional football franchise, the Denver Broncos, to Denver, and led both the regional and national ice associations. At the company’s height, the Espy Ice Company, founded by J. Reimer Espy and expanded by J. Bruce Espy, was the single largest ice factory west of the Mississippi and east of the Sierras, serving a good part of the Rocky Mountain region with ice.

In 1986, Mr. Espy sold the ice and cold storage company and retired, and for the next 34 years spent his time devoted to his twin hobbies of woodworking, selling the aspen vases that he created all over the state, and skiing at which he was a self-taught expert, skiing the black diamond runs in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, California and helicopter skiing in Canada. He also found time to travel the world, venturing to Mexico and the Andes region of South America, touring the Australian coast, visiting Alaska and the arctic circle, and trekking in Nepal in his 80s.

He is survived by his wife, June Espy, and her daughters Diane Phillips of Fruita and Janis Dybdahl of Aspen, Colorado, and by his three children by his first wife, Marian H. Espy, Peg Bakker of Petaluma, California, James William Espy of Golden, Colorado, J. Richard Espy of Rollinsville, Colorado and by seven grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

His family has decided to hold a Celebration of Mr. Espy’s life on August 10, 2019, at the family home in Rollinsville. All who knew Bruce Espy or knew of him are invited and encouraged to come and join in the celebration. Further details will be forthcoming.