The Cline family figures in Paonia's earliest history, and prior to that in early day events in Lake City. One of the first weddings to take place in the two year old silver boom town was that of James Wesley Cline from Missouri to Rosalie Jane Wade on September 17, 1877. Rosalie was the eldest daughter of Samuel and Margaret Wade, born May 15, 1858, in Minnesota. She had come to Lake City with her parents the previous year. Jim Cline, born at Atcheson, Kansas, November 24, 1853, has worked as a railroad engineer until news of silver strkes in western colorado lured him to Lake City. The couple was blessed by the arrival of Lula Mae, first girl child born in Lake City.

In 1878 the Jim Cline family moved to Pitkin, CO, and engaged in sawmilling; then to Butler, MO, and a retail lumber business. In 1881, when news came that the Uncomphagre Indian reservation had been opened to settlement, James Cline closed out his interests in Missouri, and early in 1882 he and his two of his wife's brthers, B.F. and S.A. Wade, came to what is now Paonia. He preempted the quarter section of land laying between what later became the Malcolm Clay and A.S. Stratton ranches northwest of Paonia. Rosalie Cline with daughter Lula, and baby Frank came that autumn.

We find references to young Frank Cline in the 1904 Paonia newspapers, which are the earliest available. An autumn issue discloses, "Frank Cline played hookey from Sunday School this week and played baseball. He now nurses a busted fin, and is taking a lay-off from box making in consequence."

An item in a later issue of the Paonia