Dayton is a former town in

Lake County, Colorado ''Lake County'' is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 7,436. The county seat and the only municipality in the county is Leadville. The highest natural point in Colorado and the entire Rock ...

, located on the site of what is now Twin Lakes. Like the larger nearby towns of

Granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

and Oro City, Dayton formed rapidly during the

Pike's 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 ...

and failed quickly when the local mining industry collapsed. At its peak from 1866 to 1868, it had hotels, a general store, a courthouse, and a post office and served as the county seat. Dayton's courthouse was taken down and moved to Granite by early 1869. In the decade after Dayton's demise, the area became a vacation destination appreciated for its scenery, hunting, and fishing. Prior to European exploration and colonization, the land was inhabited by the

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 unt ...

References

{{Authority control Census-designated places in Lake County, Colorado Geography of Lake County, Colorado

See also

References