Blue Mesa Summit
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Blue Mesa Summit
Blue Mesa Summit (elevation ) is a mountain pass in Gunnison County of west-central Colorado. The pass is traversed by U.S. Route 50 and divides the watersheds of Little Cimarron River to the west and Blue Creek to the east. History Blue Mesa Summit had long been used by Utes, trappers, and explorers who were traveling between the Gunnison Valley to the east and the Uncompahgre Valley to the west. By the mid-1870s, mining in the San Juan Mountains resulted in the construction of trails and wagon roads connecting the increasing number of new mining camps and growing towns. Road builder Otto Mears had constructed the Saguache and San Juan Toll Road connecting the towns of Saguache and Lake City in 1874. Needed was a road connecting this route to the mining town of Ouray to the west. Mears’ new Lake Fork and Uncompahgre Toll Road was opened in 1878, and it followed the established trail over Blue Mesa Summit. In the 1930s, the newly designated U.S. Route 50 U.S. Route ...
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Gunnison County, Colorado
Gunnison County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 16,918. The county seat is Gunnison. The county was named for John W. Gunnison, a United States Army officer and captain in the Army Topographical Engineers, who surveyed for the transcontinental railroad in 1853. History Archeological studies have dated the Ute people's appearance in the Uncompahgre region of Colorado as early as 1150 A.D. Possibilities exist that they are descendants of an earlier people living in the area as far back as 1500 B.C. They were a nomadic people moving about the Western Slope of Colorado in the various parts of the year. In the early to mid-1600s the Spaniards of New Mexico introduced the horse which changed their patterns of hunting taking them across the divide to the eastern slopes and into conflict with the Plains Indians which soon became their bitter enemies. The first recorded expedition of Western Colorado wilderness was led by ...
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Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains. Colorado is the eighth most extensive and 21st most populous U.S. state. The 2020 United States census enumerated the population of Colorado at 5,773,714, an increase of 14.80% since the 2010 United States census. The region has been inhabited by Native Americans and their ancestors for at least 13,500 years and possibly much longer. The eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains was a major migration route for early peoples who spread throughout the Americas. "''Colorado''" is the Spanish adjective meaning "ruddy", the color of the Fountain Formation outcroppings found up and down the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The Territory of Colorado was organized on February 28, 1861, and on August 1, 1876, U.S. President Ulyss ...
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United States Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. The organization's work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The USGS is a fact-finding research organization with no regulatory responsibility. The agency was founded on March 3, 1879. The USGS is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior; it is that department's sole scientific agency. The USGS employs approximately 8,670 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. The USGS also has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, and Menlo Park, California. The current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is "science for a changing world". The agency's previous slogan, adopted on the occasion of its hundredt ...
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Little Cimarron River
Little Cimarron River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed March 18, 2011 tributary that joins the Cimarron River in Montrose County, Colorado. The river's source is near Silver Peak in the Uncompahgre Wilderness of Hinsdale County. See also *List of rivers of Colorado *List of tributaries of the Colorado River The principal tributaries of the Colorado River of North America are the Gila River, the San Juan River, the Green River, and the Gunnison River. Tributary tree The following is a tree demonstrating the points at which the major and minor trib ... References Rivers of Colorado Rivers of Gunnison County, Colorado Rivers of Hinsdale County, Colorado Rivers of Montrose County, Colorado Tributaries of the Colorado River in Colorado {{Colorado-river-stub ...
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Blue Creek (Gunnison River Tributary)
Blue Creek is a tributary of the Gunnison River in Gunnison County, Colorado. It forms at the confluence of Little Blue Creek and Big Blue Creek adjacent to the intersection of U.S. Highway 50 and Alpine Plateau Road (Gunnison County Road 867) in Blue Creek Canyon. Course After it starts at the confluence of little Blue Creek and Big Blue Creek, Blue Creek flows under a bridge on Highway 50, it then flows north along the highway's west side, and then separates from the highway heading north until it eventually empties into Morrow Point Reservoir at the Curecanti Needle. The creek is long. Other Blue Creek is one of the two primary stream inflows to Morrow Point Reservoir (the other one is Curecanti Creek). Its mouth lies within the Curecanti National Recreation Area. The portion of the stream within the recreation area has good fly fishing and provides the best chance of catching fish, but access here is only by boat. See also *List of rivers of Colorado This is a list of st ...
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Ute People
Ute () are the Indigenous people of the Ute tribe and culture among the Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. They had lived in sovereignty in the regions of present-day Utah and Colorado in the Southwestern United States for many centuries until European settlers conquered their lands. The state of Utah is named after the Ute tribe. In addition to their ancestral lands within Colorado and Utah, their historic hunting grounds extended into current-day Wyoming, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico. The tribe also had sacred grounds outside their home domain that were visited seasonally. There were 12 historic bands of Utes. Although they generally operated in family groups for hunting and gathering, the communities came together for ceremonies and trading. Many Ute bands were culturally influenced by neighboring Native American tribes and Puebloans, whom they traded with regularly. After contact with early European colonists, such as the Spanish, the Ute formed trading relatio ...
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Gunnison, Colorado
Gunnison is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Gunnison County, Colorado. The city population was 6,560 at the 2020 United States Census. Gunnison was named in honor of John W. Gunnison, a United States Army officer who surveyed for a transcontinental railroad in 1853. History The City of Gunnison got its name from the first known European-American explorer of the area, John W. Gunnison. He was searching for a route for the transcontinental railroad in 1853 and only stayed for three days before traveling west to Utah. Gunnison saw its first population increase in the 1870s, due to the mining surge throughout the state. The railroad arrived soon after in 1880 to appreciative miners, ranchers, and farmers. In the early 1800s, the groups moving into the Gunnison area were mainly fur trappers and mountain men, trying to make a living for themselves in the rocky mountain terrain. But a drop in fur prices in the 1840s essentially ...
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Uncompahgre Valley
The Uncompahgre Valley is an agricultural valley of the Uncompahgre River around the town of Montrose in the western part of the U.S. state of Colorado. The valley is bounded to the south and east by the San Juan Mountains and to the west by the Uncompahgre Plateau. The valley contains about 135000 acres of irrigable land, is 35 miles long, and approximately 12 miles wide. The Uncompahgre Valley was originally home to the Utes who were removed to Utah in 1881. Agriculture in the Uncompahgre Valley was made possible by the construction of the Gunnison Tunnel which diverted irrigation water from the Gunnison River in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison to augment irrigation waters from the Uncompahgre River which could run low in summer after the spring snowmelt In hydrology, snowmelt is surface runoff produced from melting snow. It can also be used to describe the period or season during which such runoff is produced. Water produced by snowmelt is an important part of the ...
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Otto Mears
Otto Mears (May 3, 1840 – June 24, 1931) was a famous Colorado railroad builder and entrepreneur who played a major role in the early development of southwestern Colorado. Mears was known as the "Pathfinder of the San Juans" because of his road and railroad building projects through Colorado's San Juan Mountains in the late 19th century. He built hundreds of miles of toll roads in the rough terrain of the young state of Colorado, notably the Million Dollar Highway over Red Mountain Pass, connecting Silverton to Ouray. Early life and education Born in Estonia formerly part of Russia of Jewish parentage to a Russian mother and a British father, Otto Mears was orphaned at age 3. He was sent as a boy to the United States to live with relatives who had emigrated there, and sailed to San Francisco at age 11 where he lived on his own as an orphan without relatives. Mears served in the California Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War. He was mustered out in late 1864 and s ...
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Saguache, Colorado
Saguache (suh-WATCH ) is a Statutory Town in and the county seat of Saguache County, Colorado, United States. The population was 493 at the U.S. Census 2010. History Saguache is a small historical village in an agricultural area in southern Colorado at the northern gateway to the San Luis Valley, a valley between the Sangre de Cristo Range on the east and the San Juan Mountains to the west. Saguache Creek flows through the town from its beginnings high in the San Juan mountains. The site has been known for centuries to Native Americans who moved down from their summer homes in the mountains to the valley during the winter months. The Spanish began to move into the area in the 1600s and Spanish sheepherders passed through each year as they drove their flocks into the hills for summer grazing. Later the early white settlers and miners passed through this area, many seeking passage west along the Old Spanish Trail. In the mid-1860s, the first permanent white settlements were es ...
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Lake City, Colorado
Lake City is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Statutory town, Statutory Town that is the county seat, the most populous community, and the only List of municipalities in Colorado, incorporated municipality in Hinsdale County, Colorado, Hinsdale County, Colorado, United States. It is located in the San Juan Mountains in a valley formed by the convergence of Henson Creek and the headwaters of the Lake Fork Gunnison River, Lake Fork of the Gunnison River about seven miles (11 km) east of Uncompahgre Peak, a Colorado fourteener. Lake City is named after nearby Lake San Cristobal. This area lies at the southern end of the Colorado Mineral Belt and when rich mineral deposits were discovered the native population was pushed from their tribal lands and the town of Lake City was incorporated in 1873. With the completion of the first road into the mountains in this region, Lake City served as a supply center for the many miners and prospectors flooding into the area. As a supply ce ...
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Ouray, Colorado
Ouray () is a home rule municipality that is the county seat of Ouray County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 1,000 as of the 2010 census. The Ouray Post Office has the ZIP Code 81427. Located at an elevation of , Ouray's climate, natural alpine environment, and scenery have earned it the nickname "Switzerland of America". History Originally established by miners seeking silver and gold in the surrounding mountains, the town at one time boasted more horses and mules than people. Prospectors arrived in the area in 1875. In 1877, William Weston and George Barber found the Gertrude and Una gold veins in Imogene Basin, six miles south southwest of Ouray. Thomas Walsh acquired the two veins and all the open ground nearby. In 1897, Walsh opened the Camp Bird Mine, adding a twenty-stamp mill in 1898, and a forty-stamp mill in 1899. The mine produced almost 200,000 ounces of gold by 1902, when Walsh sold out to Camp Bird, Ltd. By 1916, Camp Bird, Ltd., had produ ...
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