Buckskin Joe, also called Laurette or Lauret, is a deserted
ghost town in
Park County,
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 ...
, United States. It was an early mining town, and the former county seat of Park County.
History
The area was first inhabited by Non-Native Americans in 1859 during the
Pikes Peak Gold Rush
The Pike's Peak Gold Rush (later known as the Colorado 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 a ...
, when
gold was discovered along Buckskin Creek, on the east side of the
Mosquito Range
The Mosquito Range (elevation approximately 14,000 ft) is a high mountain range in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado in the United States. The peaks of the range form a ridge running north–south for roughly 40 mi (64 km) fr ...
. 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. 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
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensla ...
; 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
vein
Veins are blood vessels in humans and most other animals that carry blood towards the heart. Most veins carry deoxygenated blood from the tissues back to the heart; exceptions are the pulmonary and umbilical veins, both of which carry oxygenated ...
s. By 1861, when the Laurette/Buckskin Joe Post Office opened, in the newly formed
Colorado Territory
The Territory of Colorado was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 28, 1861, until August 1, 1876, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Colorado.
The territory was organized in the ...
, 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. At its peak, the town was credited with a population of 5,000, but historian Robert L. Brown considers this number far too large.
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
Buckskin Joe was a Western-style theme park and railway in Buckskin Joe, Colorado, United States, about west of Cañon City.
Description
The park was located south of U.S. Route 50 along the road to the Royal Gorge Bridge. Features of t ...
, 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.
Notable residents
*
John Lewis Dyer
John Lewis Dyer (1812-1901), "The Snowshoe Itinerant," was a circuit rider, that is, a preacher who rode from one church to the next. He was a Methodist.
Biography
Dyer was born in Franklin County, Ohio, spending most his early years in Ill ...
,
Methodist circuit rider missionary, also arrived in Bucksin Joe in 1861, having migrated from
Minnesota.
*
Frank H. Mayer, former U.S. marshal in Buckskin Joe, former
buffalo hunter
*Silverheels (proper name unknown) was a popular
dance hall girl at Buckskin Joe and the subject of many apocryphal stories.
Mount Silverheels
Mount Silverheels is a high and prominent mountain summit in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The thirteener is located in Pike National Forest, northeast ( bearing 41°) of the Town of Alma in Park County, Colorado, ...
is named in her honor.
*
Horace Tabor
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...
, later a mining millionaire and
U.S. senator
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and power ...
, arrived in Buckskin Joe in 1861 and ran a store with his first wife.
Location
The site of Buckskin Joe is about west of
Alma, Colorado
Alma is a Statutory Town in Park County, Colorado, United States. The town population was 296 at the 2020 United States Census. Alma is located West and South of the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Front Ran ...
, at , at an altitude of
above mean sea level
Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''.
The comb ...
.
See also
*
List of ghost towns in Colorado
This is a list of some ghost towns in the U.S. State of 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 ...
References
External links
Legends of America: ''Buckskin Joe - Gone & Back Again''
{{authority control
Ghost towns in Colorado
Former populated places in Park County, Colorado
1859 establishments in Kansas Territory