Gould is a small
unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...
in northwestern
Jackson 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 t ...
, United States.
Description
The community is located on
State Highway 14, southeast of
Walden
''Walden'' (; first published in 1854 as ''Walden; or, Life in the Woods'') is a book by American transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part ...
in
North Park. The community is situated in the valley of the Middle Fork of the
Michigan River
The Michigan River is a tributary of the North Platte River, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed March 21, 2011 in north central Colorado in the United S ...
between Owl Mountain and Gould Mountain. The landscape is a patchwork of wetlands, pine forest,
aspen
Aspen is a common name for certain tree species; some, but not all, are classified by botanists in the section ''Populus'', of the ''Populus'' genus.
Species
These species are called aspens:
*'' Populus adenopoda'' – Chinese aspen (China ...
groves, and
sagebrush
Sagebrush is the common name of several woody and herbaceous species of plants in the genus ''Artemisia''. The best known sagebrush is the shrub ''Artemisia tridentata''. Sagebrushes are native to the North American west.
Following is an alph ...
. A tavern, campgrounds, community center, and several other businesses cater to local residents, campers and sportsmen. The largest public attraction is the
Colorado State Forest Headquarters and Moose Visitor Center. Located at 40.526°N, 106.026°W, the community lies at an elevation of 8913 feet (2717m).
A post office called Gould was established in 1937, and remained in operation until 1973. The community has the name of Edward Bradley Gould, a cattleman.
[https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/2018/5ja2571.pdf ]
History
The
North Park basin was inhabited by Native American for thousands of years. In the late 19th century white settlers moved into the area. The
Ute Indians were subsequently forced to distant reservations at the orders of Gov.
Frederick Walker Pitkin
Frederick Walker Pitkin (August 31, 1837 – December 18, 1886), a U.S. Republican Party politician, served as the second Governor of Colorado, United States from 1879 to 1883.
Life and career
Frederick Pitkin was born in Manchester, Connecti ...
.
[History of Colorado State Forest State Park] Some Indians remained in the region until the 1920s. In 1886, the LaFever saw-mill opened and in 1887, Edward Bradley Gould, for whom the town is named, homesteaded 640 acres.
[Bradley, Earlene (2005?). "Timber Times and Tales"] His only son, Eddy Gould, was the town's first mailcarrier.
Life at the turn of the 20th century was centered on the timber industry. In 1939 the town of Gould and the Bockman Lumber Camp built simple log cabin schools. A post office and gas station/hotel were also built as well as a general store, known as Belle and Earl's. The population peaked at ~300 in 1949.
[ A popular "sportin' house" was run by two older women by the name of Meryl and Maude. It was later known as M&M Lodge.
"During the early 1930s, two Civilian Conservation Corps Camps were built on the state land. The camp south of Gould was later converted into a Prisoner of War Camp during WWII for Germans as well as American conscientious objectors. The German Prisoners of War were used as timber laborers. In the Spring of 1945, a few prisoners escaped the camp and broke into E.B. Shawver's summer home. They had maps drawn of plans to escape to Mexico, but were discovered the next morning, having had too much to drink from the wine cabinet the night before and were walked back to camp barefoot."][
"After the German POW's departed, the cabins were used as a 4-H camp and by various other groups in the summer."][
In the 1950s the Colorado State Forest was created and the headquarters were built on the grounds of a former fish hatchery.
The restaurant in town was owned by Carl Berwald of Stillwater, Minnesota. It was known as Berwald's Cookhouse in the 1970s when Belle and Earl were running their general store and renamed Drifter's Cookhouse by a new owner in later years.
In the 1990s plans to convert the town of Gould and neighboring Colorado State Forest into a ski resort were defeated.
]
Common wildlife
* Birds: broad-tailed hummingbird
The broad-tailed hummingbird (''Selasphorus platycercus'') is a medium-sized hummingbird species found in highland regions from western United States and Western Canada to Mexico and Guatemala.
Description
Medium in size, the broad-tailed ...
, rufous hummingbird, Steller's jay, Clark's nutcracker
Clark's nutcracker (''Nucifraga columbiana''), sometimes referred to as Clark's crow or woodpecker crow, is a passerine bird in the family Corvidae, native to the mountains of western North America. The nutcracker is an omnivore, but subsists mai ...
* Fish: brook trout
The brook trout (''Salvelinus fontinalis'') is a species of freshwater fish in the char genus ''Salvelinus'' of the salmon family Salmonidae. It is native to Eastern North America in the United States and Canada, but has been introduced elsewhere ...
, brown trout
The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a European species of salmonid fish that has been widely introduced into suitable environments globally. It includes purely freshwater populations, referred to as the riverine ecotype, ''Salmo trutta'' morph ...
, cutthroat trout
The cutthroat trout is a fish species of the family Salmonidae native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean, Rocky Mountains, and Great Basin in North America. As a member of the genus '' Oncorhynchus'', it is one of the Pacific tro ...
* Insects: mosquito
Mosquitoes (or mosquitos) are members of a group of almost 3,600 species of small flies within the family Culicidae (from the Latin ''culex'' meaning " gnat"). The word "mosquito" (formed by ''mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish for "li ...
, longhorn beetle
The longhorn beetles (Cerambycidae), also known as long-horned or longicorns, are a large family of beetles, with over 35,000 species described. Most species are characterized by extremely long antennae, which are often as long as or longer than ...
* Mammals: beaver
Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers ar ...
, cougar
The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large Felidae, cat native to the Americas. Its Species distribution, range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mamm ...
(mountain lion), lynx
A lynx is a type of wild cat.
Lynx may also refer to:
Astronomy
* Lynx (constellation)
* Lynx (Chinese astronomy)
* Lynx X-ray Observatory, a NASA-funded mission concept for a next-generation X-ray space observatory
Places Canada
* Lynx, Ontar ...
, elk
The elk (''Cervus canadensis''), also known as the wapiti, is one of the largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. The common ...
, American marten, black bear
Black bear or Blackbear may refer to:
Animals
* American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), a North American bear species
* Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), an Asian bear species
Music
* Black Bear (band), a Canadian First Nations group ...
, mule deer
The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer.
Unlike the related whit ...
, pronghorn
The pronghorn (, ) (''Antilocapra americana'') is a species of artiodactyl (even-toed, hoofed) mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. Though not an antelope, it is known colloquially in North America as the American a ...
, moose
The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult mal ...
* Plants: blue spruce
The blue spruce (''Picea pungens''), also commonly known as green spruce, Colorado spruce, or Colorado blue spruce, is a species of spruce tree. It is native to North America, and is found in USDA growing zones 1 through 7. It is found naturall ...
, lodgepole pine
''Pinus contorta'', with the common names lodgepole pine and shore pine, and also known as twisted pine, and contorta pine, is a common tree in western North America. It is common near the ocean shore and in dry montane forests to the subalpine, ...
, quaking aspen
''Populus tremuloides'' is a deciduous tree native to cooler areas of North America, one of several species referred to by the common name aspen. It is commonly called quaking aspen, trembling aspen, American aspen, mountain or golden aspen, tr ...
, willow
Willows, also called sallows and osiers, from the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 400 speciesMabberley, D.J. 1997. The Plant Book, Cambridge University Press #2: Cambridge. of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist s ...
See also
References
External links
*http://parks.state.co.us/secure/intranet/Library/Admin/History%20of%20Colorado%20State%20Forest%20State%20Park.doc
{{authority control
Unincorporated communities in Jackson County, Colorado
Unincorporated communities in Colorado