The Middle Fork South Platte River is a tributary of the

South Platte River The South Platte River is one of the two principal tributaries of the Platte River. Flowing through the U.S. states of Colorado and Nebraska, it is itself a major river of the American Midwestern United States, Midwest and the American Sout ...

, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
, accessed March 25, 2011 located in central

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 ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The river provides part of the drainage of

South Park ''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boys Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand th ...

, the intermontane grassland basin located between the

Front Range The Front Range is a mountain range of the Southern Rocky Mountains of North America located in the central portion of the U.S. State of Colorado, and southeastern portion of the U.S. State of Wyoming. It is the first mountain range encountere ...

and 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 ...

in the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

southwest of

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 ...

. The river rises in northwestern Park County, at the

continental divide A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...

along the north side of

Mount Lincoln Mount Lincoln may refer to one of several mountains located in the United States: {{Mountainindex, Lincoln ...

, just west of Hoosier Pass. It descends to the southeast in a narrow valley along State Highway 9 past

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, emerging into the northwest end of South Park at

Fairplay FairPlay is a digital rights management (DRM) technology developed by Apple Inc. It is built into the MP4 multimedia file format as an encrypted AAC audio layer, and was used until April 2009 by the company to protect copyrighted works sold ...

, which sits on a bluff on the east side of the river. It crosses South Park towards the southeast, between the watersheds of

Tarryall Creek Tarryall Creek is a tributary of the South Platte River, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed March 25, 2011 in Park County in central Colorado in the Uni ...

to the north and the

South Fork South Platte River The South Fork South Platte River is a tributary of the South Platte River, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed March 25, 2011 in central Colorado in the ...

to the south, running along the western side of Red Hill, receiving several smaller creeks. It joins the South Fork from the north to the South Platte main branch just east of Hartsel, approximately two miles (3.2 km) east of the junction of State Highway 9 and U.S. Highway 24. The river was a significant source of placer

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

during the

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 ...

of 1859, leading to the first large influx of white settlers into South Platte, previously inhabited principally by the

Ute Ute or UTE may refer to: * Ute (band), an Australian jazz group * Ute (given name) * ''Ute'' (sponge), a sponge genus * Ute (vehicle), an Australian and New Zealand term for certain utility vehicles * Ute, Iowa, a city in Monona County along ...

people. The river bed near Fairplay continued to be a productive gold source for many decades and was the location of mining and milling operations up through the middle 20th century.

References

{{authority control Rivers of Colorado Tributaries of the Platte River Rivers of Park County, Colorado

See also

References