South Fork is a statutory town in Rio Grande County,

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

, United States. It lies at the confluence of the South Fork and

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...

rivers. The population was 510 at the 2020 census.

Geography

According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, the town has a total area of , all land.

History

South Fork was once the site of timber milling operations. South Fork was founded in 1882, by which date its location was already marked by the presence of a coaching post, dating from the construction of the railroad connection of the Rio Grande Western Railroad line to Creede, which had been built to support the Creede silver mine. It was only in 1992 that South Fork achieved independent statutory town status, making it the youngest statutory town in

the state A state is a political entity that regulates society and the population within a definite territory. Government is considered to form the fundamental apparatus of contemporary states. A country often has a single state, with various administrat ...

. Originally the principal economic activities involved forestry and mining, but in recent decades these have been overtaken in the employment statistics by tourism. South Fork made Colorado headlines during the Summer of 2020 when its town board announced that solicitations for donations was unlawful within town limits. This was in response to a local farmer's market in which one of its vendors was asking people for donations to the

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movement and the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...

Popular Culture

South Fork's Riverbend Resort was the filming location of fictional 'Kamp Komfort' in the 1983 hit movie '' National Lampoon's Vacation''.

Demographics

South Fork has about 600 permanent residents, but a substantially larger summer population due to seasonal residents and visitors.

References

External links

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CDOT map of the Town of South Fork
{{authority control Towns in Rio Grande County, Colorado Towns in Colorado Colorado populated places on the Rio Grande