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Statehood
Statehood

Colorado was the 38th state admitted to the Union, and is known as the “Centennial State” because of its entrance into the union in 1876, one hundred years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The Colorado River was named earlier, and is Spanish for “red“, the color of the water that the Spanish explorers observed.

People have been living in Colorado at least 9,000 years. Spanish explorers were here in 1540, but the discovery of gold caused a major population explosion in 1859.

The state consists of 3 topographic zones: plains, mountains, and plateaus. The Continental Divide bisects the state, north to south and there are 54 peaks above 14,000 feet.

Denver is the State Capitol at 5,280 feet, one mile above sea level. Colorado is noted for its waterways and is the only state in the U.S. from which all water courses flow out of the state. Rivers that have their origins in Colorado include the North Platte, South Platte, Arkansas, Rio Grande, and the Colorado with its headwaters in Grand County.

Articles to Browse

Sir St. George Gore
Topic: Biographies

Sir St. George Gore

Sir St. George Gore was born in 1811 in County Donegal, Ireland, heir to an Irish baronetcy and was often referred to as Lord Gore.  He was educated as an aristocrat, never married, and never held public office.

He staged an expensive and expansive “American hunt,” leaving Westport, Missouri on June 6, 1854, with plans to hunt in the southern Rockies.  After spending some time at Fort Laramie, he arrived inMiddle Park. His guides were Joseph Chattillon and Jim Bridger. Gore had a entourage of 40 workers, 25 wagons, 24 mules, 112 horses , 3 milk cows and 14 dogs!

Loving his luxury, he slept in a brass bed, had nightly hot baths, and dines on superb food served on a lace tablecloth set with fine silver and crystal.  He often invited Bridger, who was illiterate, to dinner and awakened in the guide an interest in Shakespeare, which lead to the frontiersman hiring a boy to read the bard's plays to him.  

Described as "a good shot at rest but rather poor offhand" he nevertheless claimed to have killed 2,500 buffalos, 40 grizzly bears and countless deer, elk and antelope.   

Bridger led Gore to West Grand County, to the pass, range, and canyon that now bear his name.  The Indians were shocked at the expedition's wanton slaughter of every game animal in sight.

The expedition did not end until sometime in 1857, when Gore returned to Ireland and relative obscurity.  Not even a portrait remains of the infamous poacher.

Grand County Time Line
Topic: Grand County

Grand County Time Line

Prehistoric
7000 BCE to 900 BCE: Paleo Indians  (Yarmony, Rollins Pass, Windy Gap) use Middle Park as summer hunting area

1819 – 1860
1819:Adams-Onis Treaty – Middle Park partitioned – Sites of Granby, Fraser, Grand Lake and Hot Sulphur are in the U.S, Kremmling still part of Spain

Middle Park well known to “Mountain Men” by 1820

1828: Kremmling becomes part of Texas

1837: T.J. Farnham’s expedition crosses the Blue at Grand River

1839: Grand River named on a semi-official map

1842: Rufus B. Sage visit

1844: Captain John C. Fremont’s second expedition, accompanied by Kit Carson, enters Middle Park over Muddy Pass and exits up the Blue River

1854: Sir St. George Gore, an Englishmen, accompanied by Jim Bridger enters Middle Park for hunting expedition

1859: First appearance of prospectors; interest in Hot Sulphur Springs

1861 – 1874
1861: Berthoud crosses Berthoud Pass and traverses Middle Park

1861: Middle Park becomes part of Summit County

1863: Trouble begins between the Utes and white men

1864-1868: Wm. N. Byers acquires Hot Sulphur Springs

1866: Gov. Cummings signs Treaty of Middle Park

1868: John Wesley Powell visits Grand Lake, makes first recorded ascent of Longs Peak

1867: Joseph Westcott settles at Grand Lake

1871-1872: Clarence King surveys area

1873-1874:  F.V. Hayden surveys area

1874: Creation of Grand County (two years before Colorado became a state)

1874: Toll roads opens over Rollins and Berthoud Passes

1874: William H. Jackson, renowned photographer, takes first photographs of Middle Park

1875 – 1888
1875: First mail routes to Hot Sulphur Springs

1875: Silver ore indications in Never Summer Range

1875: First school opens in Hot Sulphur Springs with 12 students, (school “year” was 20 days)

1877: Routt County detached from Grand County

1877: Stokes-Dean political crisis

1878: Tabernash and Abraham Elliott killed

1879: Ute Indian War produces excitement, anxiety

1879: Lulu City & Teller City formed

1880: Gaskill City formed

1881: Four railroad projects frustrated

1881: County Seat moves to Grand Lake, height of mining boom,   Grand Lake Prospector is launched

1883: Commissioner shootings at Grand Lake

1884: Shooting of Texas Charlie in Hot Sulphur Springs

1884: Kremmling formed

1885: Kremmling Post Office opens

1885-1886: Collapse of mining, North Park separates from Grand County

1888: County Seat moves back to Hot Sulphur Springs

1889 – 1904
Expansion of ranching

Development of public education

1890: Grand Ditch construction begins... carries water from Grand Lake mountains to the front range

1891: First platting of Kremmling

1891: Berthoud Pass route becomes state road

1893: Construction begins on Byers Canyon road

1896 et seq.: Organized religious congregations develop

1892: First diversion of water to eastern slope

1898: First high school opens in Kremmling

1902-1904:  Moffat – Harriman struggle

1903: Hot Sulphur Springs incorporates

1904: Kremmling incorporates

1904: Moffat Road crosses Rollins Pass

1904: First motor car arrives Grand County

1904: First telephones installed

1905 – 1914
1905: First Forest Reserves

1905: Fraser develops, Granby is founded

1905: Moffat Road reaches Hot Sulphur Springs

1905: Parshall is founded

1906: Moffat Road reaches Kremmling

Proliferation of competitive newspapers

1905-1908: Heyday of Monarch

1908: Arapaho National Forest established

1911: First Hot Sulphur Springs Winter Carnival

1912: First Middle Park Fair

1913: Eleven motor vehicles are registered in Grand County

1913: Tabernash established as railroad division point

1915 – 1930
1915: Rocky Mountain National Park founded

1917-1918: Participation in World War I by 151 Grand County residents

1918-1919: Influenza epidemic

1919: Grand County Pioneer Society founded

1919: Fall River Road completed

1921: Grand River name changed to Colorado River by U.S. Congress

1922: First radio receiver

1923: Gore Pass opens to motor vehicles

1923: Improved Berthoud Pass road opens

1923-1928: Moffat Tunnel built

1926: Fred Selak murder

1929-1941: The Great Depression

1930-1932: Berthoud kept open all winter

1932: Trail Ridge Road completed

Since 1930
1938: Colorado-Big Thompson irrigation and power project begins

1940: Winter Park Ski Area opens

1941-1945: Participation in WWII

Late 1940s – early 1950s: Construction of Colorado– Big Thompson Project

1947: Adams Tunnel in operation

Growth, then boom, of winter sports

 

Joseph Wescott
Topic: Biographies

Joseph Wescott

Joseph Wescott was born in 1838 in Nova Scotia and reared in Iowa.  By 1865, he was in Middle Park, squatting, half-blind and semi-alcoholic, in Hot Sulphur Springs with his friend Charlie Utter.  

Having come to Colorado to get relief from rheumatism, he passed his time in creative writing, fishing, drinking, and shooting his revolver.  In 1868, after being induced to sell all of his claims of 160 acres around the hot springs, he left Hot Sulphur Springs to go to Grand Lake.

In 1870, a group of Arapahoe Indians arrived in the area and there is an unverified report that Wescott, Jack Sumner, and three fishermen killed “not less than five” of the Indians.  Soon after this incident, Wescott settled into developing a rustic resort with cabins, rafts, canoes, and skiffs on Grand Lake.

By 1879, he had three buildings on the West Shore. In July 1880, disaster struck when Edward Phillips Weber, an attorney, took over Wescott’s original filing as his own.  Weber claimed that there were “flaws in the filing” and forced Wescott out.

Nevertheless, on June 26, 1888, Wescott filed a plat for “Grand Lake City,” on the lake shore south from the inlet.  He designed the area for summer visitors rather than as a residential community. 

Wescott later wrote a famous poem about the legend of Grand Lake, and how the spirits of the lost Ute women and children can still be heard wailing on foggy mornings at the lake shore.
 

The Ish Family
Topic: Early Families

The Ish Family

The prosperous John Lapsley (Laps) Ish family are an example of very successful settlers and entrepreneurs in early Grand County. The Ish family, with eleven children, came by covered wagon to Colorado from Missouri 1863 and settled on a farm outside of Denver.

18-year-old Laps Ish came to Grand County in 1881 to attempt his luck at the short lived mining boom outside of Teller, north of Grand Lake.  He tried his luck at mining for 4 years and also carried the mail between Teller and Grand Lake, on skis or snowshoes in the winter and by foot in the summer. 

Laps Ish married Alice Shearer and homesteaded near Rand (in present day Jackson County). They had two sons, Lesley John Ish and Guy Lapsley Ish. Laps and Alice built the Rand Hotel and operated it until 1910.  The family then moved to Granby and built the Middle Park Auto Company garage and ran a stage line to Grand Lake. They built the Rapids Lodge by operating a sawmill on the Tonahutu River in Grand Lake and opened for business in 1915  They also built the Pine Cone Inn in Grand Lake and Leslie managed it for many years. Laps Ish died in 1943.

Grand County
Topic: Grand County

Grand County

Grand County was established in 1874 by the Territory of Colorado, thus becoming a county two years before Colorado became a state. It was named for the Grand River, the name by which the Colorado River was known at that time. The headwaters of the today’s Colorado River are in Grand County. The county was formed from a portion of Summit County but acquired its current boundaries in 1877, when part of the Grand County was used to create Routt County. The county seat is Hot Sulphur Springs. The area of 1,854 square miles consists of meadows, river valleys and mountains.

Smiths of the Blue River
Topic: Early Families

Smiths of the Blue River

Frank John Smith was born October 5, 1852 in Granby, New York.  He married Elizabeth Olive Sanders, who was born in 1860 in Hannibal, New York.  They were married in 1878 in Hannibal and had two children Albert and Lelah.  Albert died as an infant in 1881.  In 1880 Frank homesteaded his ranch close to the Blue River and sent for his wife and baby daughter who came West by train to Dillon in the spring of 1883.

They had 10 more children, all born at the Smith Ranch, between 1884 and 1907.  As the boys grew into young men, they homesteaded additional acreage around the ranch.  The youngest son, Earl, operated the Smith Ranch until 1958, when it was sold to Ted Orr Sr. His son, Ted Orr Jr. and his wife, Virginia Smith (granddaughter of Frank and Elizabeth) operated the ranch until 1967, when it was sold to the Berger brothers.    

Christmas at the Crawfords
Topic: Tales of Yesteryear

Christmas at the Crawfords

Jimmy and Maggie Crawford settled in Hot Sulphur Springs in June of 1874.  They left their farm in Missouri with their three children, John not yet two, Logan 4 and Lulie 7 years old to begin a new life in Colorado. The one room cabin was built of round logs and had a sod roof.  In several places outside light could be seen between the logs. The floor was packed earth covered with elk skins which had a tendency to smell while drying out after a rain or melting snow.  The sod roof was far from water proof.  When the children came down with scarlet fever Jimmy promised to cover the roof with wood shingles and had gone to Billy Cozens' sawmill to make them.  Mr. Cozens was very helpful and even gave Jimmy a rusty iron stove to take back home.  Rusty or not, to Maggie it was like new.  She was most appreciative.  The shingles were carefully stacked by the cabin but never made it to the roof.

Jimmy carefully explored the area for suitable pasture land for his small cattle herd.  His explorations took him further and further to the west of Hot Sulphur Springs and as fall approached he became desperate to locate suitable grazing pasture before the snows.  Although Jimmy would return home every few weeks, the time in between his visits became longer and longer as he moved his cows to the west.  Maggie was faced with many hardships in his absence.  Ute Indians would quietly appear, seemingly from nowhere, and ask for food or as in one instance, ask to trade a pony for the little boy John which she of course adamantly refused.  Maggie was able to keep friendly relations with the Utes but never comfortable when they appeared.  The conversations were limited to jesters, hand language and a variety of facial expressions.

But this is a Christmas Story. To begin with, mountain men, prospectors and just plain loafers from Georgetown would stop by the Crawford's for a meal when they were in the area.  Maggie would never refuse them.  A few weeks before Christmas four prospectors enjoyed a well prepared venison stew with Maggie and the three children.  Lulie, the seven year old told the visitors how she was going to hang a stocking at the foot of the bed for Santa Claus to fill with toys and candy.  Her two brothers shook their heads in agreement.  Maggie said, "Lulie, I really don't think Santa Claus could find us way out here in Colorado!"  She knew there was nothing she had to fill the stockings except maybe some sugar candy which would likely be a disappointment for each of them.  Their Christmases in Missouri were memorable with presents, candies and fruit.   One of the four prospectors listened intently to Lulie as she described the Crawford's last Christmas in Missouri.  He had introduced himself as Charley Royer.  Charley was a 22 year old, recently from Kentucky now working in the silver mines near Georgetown. After a very satisfying lunch the men left and a heavy snow began to fall.

By Christmas Eve the snow was deep and drifts were high. The temperature dropped  below zero.  Although Jimmy had promised to be back for Christmas, Maggie thought the snow too deep for him to travel.  He had located what he called the perfect pasture far to the west and had made a land claim close to a bubbling sulphur spring.  He told Maggie it reminded him of the sounds steamboats made on the Missouri River and named his land claim, "Steamboat Springs."   Alone with the children, Maggie read the bible story of Christmas.  Before dropping off to sleep, Lulie said, "I know Santa Claus will find us, I just know he will!"  Maggie sadly shook her head.  Hours later, close to midnight, there was a gentle knock on the door.  Maggie cautiously opened the door hoping it would not invite trouble.  To her surprise it was the young Charley Royer.  He held out a gunny sack and said, "Mam, I've brought some oranges, hope they haven't froze, some candy and a few toys for the children.  Please tell them Santa Claus did know where they lived.  I remember how important Christmas was for me and I wish you and your family a Happy Christmas."  He turned and walked back into the darkness.  Charley Royer had come 60 miles from Georgetown in the bitter cold and heavy snow to make three little children happy on Christmas morning with oranges no less, in the middle of winter, toys and candy, a Christmas they would never forget. Jimmy made it home on Christmas day to add to the joy.  The following year and many years after the Crawfords had Christmas in a comfortable ranch house in a place called "Steamboat Springs."  As for what the future held for Charley Royer, well that's a story for another time.

Grand Lake
Topic: Towns

Grand Lake

Grand Lake was established in 1879 and incorporated in 1944. It is named for the largest natural body of water in Colorado.

In 1867, when only a few people resided near the lake, Major John Wesley Powell (the man whose group first rafted the Grand Canyon) came to explore the possibility of floating down the Grand (now Colorado) River. That summer, Powell, local resident Jack Sumner, and William Byers, founder of the Rocky Mountain News, made the first recorded ascent of Longs Peak from Grand Lake.

In the early 1900’s a Yacht Club was formed by enthusiasts who were attracted by the demands of attentive seamanship the lake demanded. In 1912, Sir Thomas Lipton contributed an impressive cup to be presented annually to the winner of the annual August Regatta. This event still draws skilled sailors to the challenging competition. 

The town was founded during a very brief mining boom, but because of it's natural beauty, tourism has long been the sustaining feature of it's economy.

John Charles Fremont
Topic: Biographies

John Charles Fremont

Captain John Charles Fremont was born in 1813 and at the age of 31, in June 1844, was exploring the northern reaches of the Republic of Texas when he passed through Grand County.  This marked the first appearance of official government enterprise in Grand County.

His expedition included some 40 explorers, including people of Creole, French, and Black descent. The guides were Thomas Fitzpatrick and Kit Carson. This expedition entered Grand County via Muddy Pass and exited via the Blue River, never traveling into the eastern part of the County. 

They met with some 200 Arapahoe Indians, who were traditionally suspicious of the intruders, but through the giving of trade gifts, overt conflicts were avoided. The cartographer for that expedition was Charles Preuss, who provided the first map on which all of the central Rocky Mountain Parks were named and mapped accurately.

Leisure Time
Topic:

Leisure Time

Article contributed by Scott Rethi

Of all the leisure time activities available to the pioneers, dancing
was the favorite.  Dances were held in grand hotels that remained from the mining boom, such as the Fairview House and The Garrison House in Grand Lake.  

Quadrilles, a type of square dance, were popular at the time.  A
fiddler would provide the music and serve as the caller.  These parties would start in the evening and last all night.  The formidable temperatures and great traveling distances were incentive for getting the most out of every gathering.  

Winter Sports have also always been a popular pastime.  Skiing was introduced to the region during the winter of 1883. Snowshoeing and sleigh rides were also enjoyed.  

1882 officially brought the arts to the Grand Lake area when the Dramatic Society was organized.  A production of the
well-known comedy "Our Boys" was the premiere performance.

Sources:
Mary Lyons Cairns, Grand Lake: The Pioneers & The Olden Days, Renaissance House Publishers, 1971

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