Colorado State Patrol Cpl. Richard Edstrom paid the ultimate sacrifice on Oct. 28, 1959, when he died from wounds received in a gunfight with escaped convict J.L. West outside the Strater Hotel on Sept. 19, 1959.
On Saturday morning – 58 years to the day – Edstrom was honored with a roadside memorial along Seventh Street between Main and Narrow Gauge avenues.
“We are here to honor a very special man,” said State Patrol Cpt. Adrian Driscoll. “This area is the heart of Durango, and Richard drew a line in the sand here to say he wouldn’t allow this in his town.”
West fled from a jail in Aztec on the evening of Sept. 19. The gun battle erupted after a 70-mile-an-hour chase through Durango streets.
The chase came to a bloody climax at about 9:15 p.m. outside the Strater Hotel, where Edstrom was shot twice in the chest and abdomen, and West was killed.
Edstrom recounted the gunfight in an interview with The Durango Herald in the weeks following.
He called his memory of the event “hazy.”
Edstrom said that he was at the State Patrol office when he got word of the car chase in Aztec.
When he confronted West outside the Strater Hotel, West pointed a pistol at him. He said that he was shot when he grabbed the pistol by the barrel and attempted to push it aside.
Edstrom was rushed to Mercy Hospital, where he died more than a month later from a blood clot in his lung.
The Colorado State Patrol Women’s Resource Network, which was created to enrich the personal and professional lives of its female members, proposed memorial signs be erected along state highways for each state trooper killed in the line of duty.
Twenty-seven troopers have been killed since State Patrol’s inception in 1935.
On April 21, 2016, Gov. John Hickenlooper signed House Bill 16-1060, a bill allowing roadside memorials for fallen State Patrol officers to be erected along state highways.
State Patrol has been working with troopers’ families to install signs honoring their memory across the state since August.
Cpt. Afsoon Ansari said the signs are paid for by the nonprofit Colorado State Patrol Family Foundation.
“The biggest honor is having the families out here when we dedicate them,” she said.
Col. Scott Hernandez, chief of State Patrol, and members of the Edstrom family were in attendance at the dedication on Saturday.
“It’s an honor for me to be here and represent State Patrol as we place these signs across the state,” Hernandez said. “I know in my heart that every trooper is represented in Edstrom’s actions. We will keep his memory alive forever, and this sign will help represent that.”
Edstrom’s son, Gene, was choked up as he addressed the crowd.
“I want to thank everyone for being here,” he said. “I can’t begin to tell you how much my dad loved this town. I still get people who come up to me today and say they knew my dad, and that he was a fair man. That’s some kind of legacy.”
Gene Edstrom was 17 years old when his father died after the gunfight.
He said that it takes a special kind of person to work as a law enforcement officer.
“My dad was that special kind of person,” he said. “He loved patrol and he loved his job. These officers, they certainly don’t do this job for the money. My father loved helping people, and this is unfortunately what that job entailed.”
mrupani@durangoherald.com
