Tarryall is a

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * ''Ghost Town'' (1956 film), an American Western film by All ...

in northwest Park County,

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, 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 wes ...

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 territori ...

. It is on upper

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 ...

northwest of

Como, Colorado Como is an unincorporated community in Park County in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of zip code 80432 is 439, including surrounding subdivisions in a 15 mile radius. Me ...

. It was once the county seat of Park County, but is now completely deserted.

History

The town was founded in 1859 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 ...

after the discovery of placer gold in Tarryall Creek. The "Tarryall diggings", as well as other discoveries, prompted a flood of prospectors into South Park via

Ute Pass Ute Pass may refer to: * Ute Pass (Medicine Bow Mountains), a mountain pass in the Medicine Bow Mountains of Colorado, United States. * Ute Pass (Park Range), a mountain pass on the Continental Divide of the Americas in the Park Range of Colorad ...

and

Kenosha Pass Kenosha Pass, elevation , is a high mountain pass located in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado in the United States. The pass is located in the Rocky Mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, just northeast of the town of Fairplay, Colora ...

. Most newly arriving miners found that all available land for mining along the Tarryall Creek had been claimed by earlier arrivals, and much resentment ensued. It was thought that the earlier miners had claimed much more land than a man could reasonably work, and latecomers called Tarryall "Grab All". Another mining town, founded not far away on the Middle Fork of the South Platte River, was named

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 ...

as a dig at Tarryall. A US post office opened in Tarryall on 4 January 1860. The town briefly served as the county seat of Park County, from the organization of the county on 1 November 1861 until the county seat was moved to Buckskin Joe (now also a ghost town) on 7 January 1862. The town was near the junction of North and Middle Tarryall Creeks.Ben H. Parker Jr., "Gold Placers of Colorado", ''Quarterly of the Colorado School of Mines'', v.69, n.3, July 1974, p.186. At its height, Tarryall had a population of several thousand. A marker along U.S. Highway 285 near

Como Como (, ; lmo, Còmm, label= Comasco , or ; lat, Novum Comum; rm, Com; french: Côme) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como. Its proximity to Lake Como and to the Alps h ...

where it crosses Tarryall Creek commemorates the Tarryall diggings and the former town. Decades later a new town named Tarryall was founded 29 miles southeast of the original, and deserted, ghost town of Tarryall.

References

Colorado Mining Boom Former populated places in Park County, Colorado Ghost towns in Colorado Populated places established in 1859 1859 establishments in Kansas Territory Former county seats in Colorado {{US-ghost-town-stub

History

See also

References