Buckskin Joe, Park County, Colorado

Last updated
Buckskin Joe, Colorado
ghost town
ParkCountyCourthouse.jpg
The Park County courthouse, originally built in Buckskin Joe, was later moved to Fairplay, and is now in the South Park City Museum in Fairplay.
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Buckskin Joe
Location of Buckskin Joe, Colorado.
USA Colorado location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Buckskin Joe
Buckskin Joe (Colorado)
Coordinates: 39°17′35″N106°05′17″W / 39.2931°N 106.0881°W / 39.2931; -106.0881 (Buckskin Joe, Colorado)
Country United States
State Colorado
County Park County [1]
Elevation
10,761 ft (3,280 m)

Buckskin Joe is an extinct gold mining town located in Park County, Colorado, United States. The town was founded in 1860 as Laurette in what was then the Kansas Territory. The Territory of Colorado was created on February 28, 1861, and the Laurette post office opened on November 14, 1861. Laurette was elected the Park County seat on January 7, 1862. The post office name was changed to Buckskin on December 21, 1865, although the town was popularly known as Buckskin Joe. The county seat was moved to Fairplay in 1867, and the Buckskin post office closed on January 24, 1873. [2]

Contents

History

Laurette in 1864 View of log cabins and a dirt road at Buckskin Joe in 1864 - DPLA - eed1db6bbe4640bc54353f8b916590bf.jpg
Laurette in 1864

The area was first inhabited by Non-Native Americans in 1859 during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush, when gold was discovered along Buckskin Creek, on the east side of the Mosquito Range. At the time of its first settlement, the town was in the western part of Kansas Territory.

The town was formally organized in September 1860 and named Laurette, a contraction of the first names of the only two women in the camp, the sisters Laura and Jeanette Dodge. [3] [4] But it was always more popularly known as Buckskin Joe, after Joseph Higginbottom, an early trapper and prospector. Little is known for certain about Higginbottom. Some accounts refer to him as an African-American; some accounts say that he was the one who first discovered gold in the vicinity of the town.

Mining shifted to rich hardrock deposits in the Phillips lode and other veins. By 1861, when the Laurette/Buckskin Joe Post Office opened, in the newly formed Colorado Territory, the town boasted two hotels, fourteen stores, and a bank. On January 7, 1862 the county seat of Park County moved to Buckskin Joe from Tarryall, now also a ghost town. [5] At its peak, the town was credited with a population of 5,000, but historian Robert L. Brown considers this number far too large. [6]

Tabor's store, previously located in the Buckskin Joe movie set and theme park near Canon City, Colorado and later sold to a private collector TaborStore-BuckskinJoeCO.jpg
Tabor's store, previously located in the Buckskin Joe movie set and theme park near Cañon City, Colorado and later sold to a private collector

The placer and vein gold deposits were rich, but were quickly exhausted. By 1866, the town was reported to be deserted, and the courthouse building was moved down the valley to the new county seat of Fairplay. In the late 1950s, Horace Tabor's general store was dismantled, hauled away, and reassembled at the tourist attraction and movie set also called Buckskin Joe, 70 miles (110 km) away from the original site. It remained there until 2011 when it, along with the entire tourist attraction and movie set, was sold to a private collector and moved to a private ranch in western Colorado. [7]

Geography

Buckskin Joe is located about 2 miles (3 km) west of Alma, Colorado at coordinates 39°17′35″N106°05′17″W / 39.2931°N 106.0881°W / 39.2931; -106.0881 (Buckskin Joe, Colorado) at an elevation of 10,761 feet (3,280 m). [8]

Notable residents

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leadville, Colorado</span> City in Colorado, United States

Leadville is a statutory city that is the county seat, the most populous community, and the only incorporated municipality in Lake County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 2,633 at the 2020 census. It is situated at an elevation of 10,119 feet (3,084 m). Leadville is the highest incorporated city in the United States and is surrounded by two of the tallest peaks in the state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pike's Peak gold rush</span> Nineteenth-century gold-prospecting frenzy in Colorado, US

The Pike's Peak gold rush was the boom in gold prospecting and mining in the Pike's Peak Country of western Kansas Territory and southwestern Nebraska Territory of the United States that began in July 1858 and lasted until roughly the creation of the Colorado Territory on February 28, 1861. An estimated 100,000 gold seekers took part in one of the greatest gold rushes in North American history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jefferson Territory</span> Extralegal U.S. Territory of Jefferson that existed from 1859 to 1861

The Provisional Government of the Territory of Jefferson was an extralegal and unrecognized United States territory that existed in the Pike's Peak mining region from October 24, 1859, until it yielded to the new Territory of Colorado on June 6, 1861. The Jefferson Territory, named for Founding Father and third United States president Thomas Jefferson, included land officially part of the Kansas Territory, the Nebraska Territory, the New Mexico Territory, the Utah Territory, and the Washington Territory, but the region was remote from the governments of those five territories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Horace Tabor</span> American prospector, businessman, and politician (1830–1899)

Horace Austin Warner "Haw" Tabor, also known as The Bonanza King of Leadville and The Silver King, was an American prospector, businessman, and Republican politician. His success in Leadville, Colorado's silver mines made him one of the wealthiest men in Colorado. He purchased more mining enterprises throughout Colorado and the Southwestern United States, and he was a philanthropist. After the collapse in the silver market during the Panic of 1893, Tabor was financially devastated. He lost most of his holdings, and he labored in the mines. In his last year, he was the postmaster of Denver.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buckskin Joe</span>

Buckskin Joe was a Western-style theme park and railway in Fremont County, Colorado, United States, about 8 miles (13 km) west of Cañon City.

Jefferson County was a county of the extralegal United States Territory of Jefferson that existed from November 28, 1859, until February 28, 1861. Its territory covered a broad swath surrounding the region of the Pike's Peak Gold Rush, and was a functioning democratically elected government until the organization of the Territory of Colorado in 1861. At that time, the successor Jefferson County was permanently created, taking its name from its predecessor and incorporating the heart of its territory.

Arapahoe was one of the first settlements in what is now the U.S. state of Colorado. Nothing remains of the now deserted ghost town in Jefferson County, except a historical marker on the south side of 44th Avenue, between the cities of Golden and Wheat Ridge.

Gold mining in Colorado, a state of the United States, has been an industry since 1858. It also played a key role in the establishment of the state of Colorado.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oro City, Colorado</span> Ghost town in Lake County, Colorado, United States

Oro City is a ghost town in Lake County, Colorado, United States

Park County was a county of the extralegal United States Territory of Jefferson that existed from November 28, 1859, until February 28, 1861.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nevadaville, Colorado</span> American gold-mining town

Nevadaville is an extinct gold-mining town in Gilpin County, Colorado, United States. The community is now largely a ghost town, although not completely deserted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Index of Colorado-related articles</span>

This is an alphabetical list of articles related to the U.S. State of Colorado.

Tarryall is a ghost town in northwest Park County, Colorado, United States. It is on upper Tarryall Creek northwest of Como, Colorado. It was once the county seat of Park County, but is now completely deserted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of Colorado</span> Overview of and topical guide to Colorado

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the U.S. state of Colorado:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parkville, Summit County, Colorado</span> Ghost town in Summit County, Colorado

Parkville is a ghost town located in, and the original county seat of, Summit County, Colorado, United States. Parkville was a gold mining camp that flourished from 1860 to 1866 near the confluence of the middle and south forks of the Swan River.

References

  1. ↑ "Colorado Counties". Colorado Department of Local Affairs . Retrieved February 3, 2025.
  2. ↑ Bauer, William H.; Ozment, James L.; Willard, John H. (1990). Colorado Post Offices 1859–1989. Golden, Colorado: Colorado Railroad Historical Foundation. ISBN   0-918654-42-4.
  3. ↑ "From the silver mines," Daily Rocky Mountain News, 18 Sept. 1860, p. 2.
  4. ↑ Muiriel Sibell Wolle, "From 'Sailors' Diggings' to 'Miners' Delight," Western Folklore, 1954, v.18, p.44.
  5. ↑ Park County Local History Archives: Hiking through history Archived July 24, 2008, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved November 29, 2008.
  6. ↑ Robert L. Brown (1968). Ghost Towns of the Colorado Rockies . Caxton Press. p.  69 . Retrieved November 30, 2008. ghost towns of the colorado rockies.
  7. ↑ Wineke, Andrew (2011-08-29). "Mystery buyer for Buckskin Joe revealed to be billionaire Koch brother". The Gazette. Colorado Springs, Colorado. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
  8. ↑ "Geographic Names Information System". United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior . Retrieved September 12, 2023.
  9. ↑ "Biography of Famous Preacher Father Dyer Part 1". trivia-library.com. Retrieved January 19, 2014.
  10. ↑ Laura King Van Dusen, "Colonel Frank Mayer: Buffalo Hunter, Civil War Drummer Boy, Author, Met Dancehall Entertainer Silverheels When U.S. Marshal of Buckskin", Historic Tales from Park County: Parked in the Past (Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press, 2013), ISBN   978-1-62619-161-7, pp. 53-58.
  11. ↑ Robert L. Brown (1968). Ghost Towns of the Colorado Rockies . Caxton Press. pp.  71–73. Retrieved November 29, 2008. ghost towns of the colorado rockies.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.