Fireworks are in this family’s blood

Picture of Sandra Estes Collins in white shirt sitting down, Dave Beck in sleeveless shirt and hat, and Lori Beck Brown in blue tank top. MFA has provided a place for Mile High Fireworks for many years.

For 50 years Mile High Fireworks has lit up the sky for a lot of area families’ July 4 celebrations.
Dave Beck has been running the fireworks stand outside of Gallatin since 2011. While the colorful tent and lawn chairs may be a familiar sight, you may not know that Dave is connected to shooting rockets in a whole different way.
Dave’s great-uncle Vernon Estes started Estes Industries in Denver, CO, in 1958. Vernon developed a machine that mass-produced solid propellant model rocket engines. The company moved to Penrose, CO, which became known as the “Model Rocket Capital of the World.” The company was the leading manufacturer of model rocket kits, engines, and accessories.
Dave says he doesn’t remember the rocket industry so much from his childhood.
He does recall that his mother Sandra and sister-in-law Patty Estes opened a fireworks booth in Gallatin when he was six or seven years old. They taught him how to count change for customers.
That first stand was made from two-by-fours and barn metal and was affectionately known as ‘the old tin shack.” Two shelves displayed the fireworks. The booth was eight feet long and six feet wide.
Back in Colorado, the Estes family had several Mile High stands. They made their own fireworks and occasionally, Sandra would go out to help her family make the mini explosives from scratch.
Sandra Estes Collins had the stand for 35 years in Gallatin. She passed away in 2009.

Dave’s sister Lori Beck Brown helped with the Mile High stand in Gallatin until 2010. She then moved and now sets up a stand each year in Weston.
“It was just too hard to be there in Gallatin without our mother,” says Lori. “I couldn’t do it anymore. I turned the stand over to my brothers.”
Independence Day was a big part of their mother’s life and every year the week before July 4, Lori decorates her mother’s grave with red, white, and blue flowers.
In a way, her mother is always still with her. Sandra left a simple message for her daughter that has never been lost.
When the sale of fireworks at the stand was over for the year, a wooden cash box was put away until the next fourth of July.
In 2010, the year after her mother died, Lori opened the cash box to find a very special note left for her.
The note reads: “Lori – I love you. Have fun this year! I’ll always be there with you. Mom.”
“I’ve kept that note in my wallet since the day I opened the cash box,” says Lori. “It goes everywhere with me.”
Dave and his brother Kelly took over the fireworks stand at Gallatin in 2011. Then Dave started running the stand himself.
“I couldn’t have done it without the help of a dear friend, Stacy Gatton and her daughter Lexi,” Dave says. “Debbie has helped out when we needed help.”
In April 2018 Estes Industries in Colorado sold, but remains a family-owned business.
While the smell of smoke and gunpowder have long faded from this year’s fireworks display, Mile High expects to be back again next year.
Dave says he doesn’t have a favorite firework … “mostly because I spend more time selling them than watching them.”