To generations of TV watchers, the late Dennis Weaver was beloved for playing cowboys and lawmen. His most enduring characters include Chester, the endearing and forever-loyal sidekick in “Gunsmoke.” In “McCloud,” Weaver galloped through New York on horseback as a New Mexican deputy marshal fighting crime in the big bad city.
But in real life, Weaver was a meditating vegetarian who was passionate about the environment — lesser-known traits of the actor that live on in Ridgway, the tiny Colorado community he called home for decades.
Dennis Weaver Memorial Park is built on preserved high desert land on the banks of the Uncompahgre River framed by the jagged peaks of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains. Hiking trails cut through dusty sagebrush. The sound of windchimes tickles the air.
Weaver loved eagles, so the park's heart features a 2,000-pound metal eagle sculpture that soars into the sky.
Rick Weaver, Dennis’ oldest son, designed the park with his brother Rusty shortly after their dad died in 2006. It was dedicated the following year and gifted to the town
“This is what he would want,” said Rick, sitting in the shade near a river pullout where boaters stop and have picnics.
The park brings in his dad’s spirituality, featuring his poetry, as well as writing from Eastern and Native American religions. More than anything, it celebrates the land, rugged and serene.
The actor’s main focus was “what we were doing to the planet,” Rick explained. “That was it for him. That was his thing.”
Not far from the park, Weaver built a 10,000-square-foot sustainable earthship home — the largest of its kind at the time. Solar-powered, it was warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Weaver lived there with Gerri, his wife of more than 60 years.
In a documentary film produced by their middle son, Robert, the TV star shows off the home’s walls, constructed with old cans and tires, while urging viewers to try to conserve energy in their everyday lives.
“We simply can’t gamble with the future of our Earth,” Weaver tells the camera. “Even now, we don’t really know what kind of damage the greenhouse effect will have on our planet.”
That was 1990, long before global warming was a household term.
Weaver “was ahead of his time,” his son Rick said.
Rick believes his dad’s love of the land probably started as a kid, picking strawberries during the Depression on the family farm in Joplin, Mo. Weaver moved to the high-rise world of New York City to pursue acting, and later to sprawling L.A. But the people who knew him best say he never cared about glitz and fame.
Alice Billings was TV star Weaver’s secretary and photographer for decades. Weaver was a longtime resident of Ridgway, where Billings now runs a horse sanctuary.
Billings remembers him as “a quiet, spiritual, loving, compassionate, passionate individual.”
Billings, who now runs a horse sanctuary in Ridgway, was deeply connected to the TV star and his family. She would work with him on answering his fan mail — and he answered it all —and would cook the actor vegetarian meals as worked on TV sets, long before non-meat options were ubiquitous. She was married to his son Rick for a time.
Billings saw Weaver as a seeker. In the late 1950s, the actor joined a religious group called Self Realization Fellowship, which was started by a well-known yogi. He was part of the group for the rest of his life. Billings said Weaver had an inner peace she believes helped him smooth over disagreements on TV sets and create a sense of family with fellow cast members.
Activism was a big part of Weaver’s life and he would give talks about the environment on college campuses.
“He really wanted to raise people’s consciousness,” Billings said.
In the 1980s, Weaver was eager to leave L.A. and move somewhere where he could grow his own food. After looking around Colorado, he found a few pieces of land in Ridgway with striking views of the mountains he loved.
Some of that land became the site of Weaver’s earthship. And some of it became Dennis Weaver Memorial Park.
Even though his dad never saw the park but his son Rick said the TV star has inspired every aspect of it, including a sign inviting visitors to stop and take a moment of reflection as they look for small rocks to stack on top of one another into little cairns.
There are countless prayer stones, as Rick Weaver calls them, covering the base of that soaring eagle sculpture with tiny, silent tributes.
“Just look at this park. This is his legacy. As far as I'm concerned, the acting isn't his legacy,” Rick said. “This is his legacy.”
Weaver wanted to inspire people. In that documentary from decades ago, he urges us to take whatever steps we can to help conserve the wondrous world in which we live.
“And I hope you will consider our future and what you can do to help us to ensure that we have an earth that sustains happy, productive and creative life for generations and generations to come,” he says as the music swells.
Now people bike, hike and raft through Weaver’s park, under the mountain peaks that drew him here. Some come because they love his work. Others may have never heard of him, but just love the place.
