The American dream of the Roumeli Evzone
HARRY KOURLIS
From Artotina, Phocis, 1892–1995
We thank attorney Bill Brady, Mr. Kourlis’s son-in-law, for the account and photographs.
Harry Kourlis was born on January 1, 1892 in Artotina, a small village in the mountainous central highlands of Greece. He came to America alone at 16 years of age in 1908, entering through Ellis Island during the peak of European immigration. He initially traveled to Seattle, Washington where he worked in logging and, later, laying track for the railroad. Subsequently, he settled in Chicago, attending Greer Technology Institute where he taught himself to read and write English. He worked as a chauffeur while studying automobile mechanics. He later moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to work in a military vehicle assembly plant during the first World War.
In the early 1920’s, Kourlis labored as a miner in Utah, working for a short time at the Castle Gate Mine outside of Price, Utah. At various times, Harry worked as a boarding house manager, cook, barber and sheep herder before coming to Craig. Harry exchanged labor for sheep in lieu of wages, saved his money by living frugally and then trailed a flock of sheep from Price to Craig during the fall and winter of 1926-27. In April, 1927, Harry settled in the Axial Basin south of Craig, tending a flock of approximately 750 sheep. In 1928, he established a homestead in Little Creek, near the Nine Mile Gap in the Danforth Hills. For years, he lived in canvas tents, enduring hardship and extreme cold during the Depression. He also battled the range wars, defending his land and his sheep against open range cattlemen who resented the immigrant sheepmen.
Frank Bieser, a banker at Moffat County State Bank, later helped Kourlis with land acquisition loans that enabled him to expand his operation. Over the ensuing years, Harry acquired surrounding, contiguous homesteads and built his herd. When he ran out of supplies, groceries and basic staples near the end of the Depression, he once again approached the bank for a small subsistence loan that was denied. Kourlis improvised by bartering lamb for potatoes, wheat and other provisions from neighboring ranchers, enabling him to survive.
In 1947, Harry Kourlis traveled to Athens where he met and married Efstathia (Effie) Pasili. Effie was 25 years old at the time, and Harry was 55. Effie was from the village of Lamia. Her father had been the mayor of the village prior to World War II. When the War ravaged the families and villages of Greece, Effie escaped to the hills, living in caves and surviving on grass. By 1947, Effie was ready for a new world, where she would have the opportunity to build a life and a family. Effie and Harry married, spent a month honeymooning in Athens at the Grande Bretagne Hotel, and then returned to the Axial Basin.
The first years were hard. Harry’s ranch house had no running water or electricity. Harry worked from dawn until dusk taking care of the sheep; Effie cooked, washed and cleaned for her own growing family, as well as all of the ranch employees. Harry and Effie had five children – Helen, Georgia, Tom, Rita and Harry Jr. In 1952, they built their home in Craig, paid for in cash. The family spent the school year at the house in town, and moved to the ranch house when shearing time came, staying through fall shipping of the lambs to market.
All five children finished high school in Craig and then attended colleges and universities throughout the United States. Helen Kourlis Brady is an educator and psychotherapist living in Denver, Georgia HK Loukas and her family own and develop real estate in Chicago, Tom Kourlis runs an expanded Kourlis Ranch on behalf of the family partnership and served as State Commissioner of Agriculture, Rita Kourlis Samuelson is Director of Marketing for the American Sheep Industry and Harry Kourlis, Jr. is a heart and vascular surgeon in Dallas, Texas. Harry and Effie have 11 grandchildren: Aristithis, Kostantino, and Alexandrea Loukas; Stephanie and Aristea Brady; Stacy, Kate, and Tom Kourlis; Jordyn and Kristina Samuelson; and Aristithis Kourlis.
Harry and Effie were also very involved in the building and ongoing support of St. John’s Greek Orthodox Church. There, they not only practiced their faith, but also congregated the Greek community in Craig and celebrated many of the traditions of their Greek culture. Harry and Effie Kourlis built a ranch, a life, a family and a heritage in Moffat County – beginning 100 years ago and continuing to the present.
