Rod Turner, a longtime Durango real estate broker who helped found The Hundred Club of Durango and couldn’t wait to show people a quick magic trick, has died at 90.
Turner’s son, Jack Turner, said his father, died Feb. 28 of organ failure at his Crestview home where he lived with his wife, Robin Turner, for more than 50 years.
“Basically, he just wore out,” Jack said.
Turner was the great-grandson of John C. Turner, a member of the Baker Expedition in 1860. The Baker Expedition brought Anglo explorers to Southwest Colorado. When the area was opened to settlement in 1873, John C. Turner returned and homesteaded 160 acres in the Animas Valley.
After serving in the Coast Guard out of high school, Rod Turner returned to Durango to work with his family at their insurance, investment and banking enterprises in Durango and Ignacio. He worked for the family banking enterprise from the 1950s to the 1970s.
In the 1970s, Turner started his own real estate office at 1137 Main Ave. and actively practiced for decades.
Turner met his wife on a blind date at Mesa Verde National Park in 1952. The two were married for 69 years. Turner is survived by his wife, their four children, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild. He also leaves behind several nieces, nephews and other extended family.
Aside from his hard work and full life in Durango, Turner was known around town for his favorite magic trick, where he would pretend to pull his finger off.
“So many people know him for that magic trick, he did it up till the day he died,” Jack said. “Even if you’d seen him do it a thousand times it was still funny the next time he did it.”
Turner was a founding member of The Hundred Club of Durango, which was formed after the death of a firefighter and police officer during a fire on Main Avenue in 1974. The club gathers donations to support first responders.
Jerry Martinez, president of The Hundred Club and owner of CJ’s Diner, said in nearly 50 years Turner missed only one Hundred Club banquet.
“Every time he’d come into the restaurant he’d always ask me, ‘When’s our next banquet,’” Martinez said. “That was the first thing out of his mouth every time he saw me.”
Martinez said Turner was a foundational part of the Durango community.
“You call them legends,” Martinez said. “I’ve been fortunate to know a lot of people like Rod who have really left a legacy to our community, and you hope that people don’t forget.”
From childhood on, Turner would spend as much time as he could at Electra Lake where he loved to hunt, fish and pack horses into the Needle Mountains and the San Juan National Forest.
Turner’s pride and joy was his boat, a 1939 mahogany Century Seamaid named “Mary Jane” after his grandmother. Bill Carver, a friend of the family, said Turner’s boat has never been in a lake other than Electra Lake.
“Rod was so proud of that boat,” Carver said.
Jack Turner said one of his favorite memories of his father was on a camping trip in Needleton when he and his two brothers were young.
Rod and the Turner boys had let their horse and mules off to graze, and after a couple of days of exploring the wilderness in that area, the horses were nowhere to be found.
Jack’s two younger brothers stayed back at the campsite while he and his father hiked out to herd the horses back to camp. The two searched late into the night.
“We couldn’t find those dang animals, and it was getting dark,” Jack said. “We must have searched until 10 or 11 p.m. before we heard the bell of the lead horse.”
Jack said he watched his father run up hundreds of feet of trail switchbacks to get in front of the animals. Turner tied up the horses and cleared out a spot to camp for the night.
“I got so close to the fire my sleeve caught on fire,” Jack said. “We woke up at dawn and rode all the way back to camp bareback while herding a whole herd of mules and horses that were running wild. It was such a great memory in terms of an adventure with my father.”
Durango resident Sheri Rochford Figgs said her parents worked with Turner at his real estate business. After her father died in a hunting accident, Rochford Figgs would catch Turner sneaking into her mother’s home to drop off groceries.
“Times were really tough after my dad died,” she said. “Back then nobody ever locked their doors, and a couple of times I saw him sneaking out the back door, and then I’d see all this food in the refrigerator.”
Rochford Figgs said Turner never wanted credit or needed anyone to know about the good deeds he did.
“They don’t make them like that anymore,'' she said. “He had a big heart.”
njohnson@durangoherald.com
