The Seventeen Mile House is a historic site and open space located at 8181 S. Parker Rd. in

Centennial, Colorado Centennial is a home rule municipality located in Arapahoe County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,418 at the 2020 United States Census, making Centennial the 11th most populous municipality in Colorado. Centennial is a part ...

. It is a 33-acre former stagecoach stop with a square log structure covered with clapboard. It was a stopping place during the 1800s along the

Smoky Hill Trail The Smoky Hill Trail was an American trail across the central Great Plains of North America in use from 1855 to 1870. Established in what was then Kansas Territory, it extended west from Atchison, Kansas on the Missouri River to Denver, spanning ...

. It is one of the last two remaining trail houses left on the trail. Mary Hightower was the original owner of the house, having moved there in 1866. It was almost torn down in 1977 until negative publicity stopped it from happening. The site was zoned for commercial development until the County of Arapahoe acquired the land in 2001.

History

The first

Colorado 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 ...

in 1858-1859 began an influx of horse and wagon traffic to Denver, and two of the routes were the historic

from Kansas and

Cherokee Trail The Cherokee Trail was a historic overland trail through the present-day U.S. states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming that was used from the late 1840s up through the early 1890s. The route was established in 1849 by a wagon train he ...

from Oklahoma. Six way stations sprang up along Cherry Creek, serving travelers in the final stretch into

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

after the two trails merged. Railroad service reached Denver in 1870, and the wagon trails gradually fell into disuse. Seventeen Mile House closed and became a working farm alongside the Cherry Creek River by the 1880s. It is one of two surviving Way Stations. The stations were named according to how many miles each site is from downtown Denver's intersection of Colfax and Broadway.

Four Mile House The City of Glendale is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality located in an exclave of Arapahoe County, Colorado, Arapahoe County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 4,613 at the 2020 U ...

is the other way station still standing.

Current Site and Future Plans

In 2001, local historic and preservation groups worked together to acquire the property for Arapahoe County. Arapahoe County has a 2007 Master Plan for Seventeen Mile House serving as vision and roadmap. Today the site is an Open Space park administered by Arapahoe County, Colorado, with the Cherry Creek Valley Historical Society giving monthly open house tours, and involved in preservation and development. An annual Fall Festival has been held in recent years. This Open Space borders two other Open Spaces, thus contributing to a regional corridor for wildlife areas and biking/hiking trails along the Cherry Creek Valley, which includes Denver's extensive Cherry Creek Reservoir State Park.

References

External links

History of Arapahoe County

{{National Register of Historic Places Houses in Arapahoe County, Colorado Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Colorado National Register of Historic Places in Arapahoe County, Colorado

History

Current Site and Future Plans

See also

References

External links