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    Around Nederland
    Around Nederland
    Around Nederland
    Ebook192 pages1 hour

    Around Nederland

    By Kay Turnbaugh

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    Nederland survived three boom-and-bust cycles involving three different minerals. During the silver boom, U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant visited Central City in 1873 and walked on silver bricks that had been mined in Caribou and milled in Nederland. The second boom followed the discovery of gold in Eldora in 1897 and lasted only a few years. The third boom was sparked by the discovery of tungsten by Sam Conger, the same man who made the original discovery of silver in Caribou. The Conger mine eventually became the greatest tungsten mine in the world. During World War I, Nederland s population swelled to 3,000 twice the size it is today and another 2,000 were estimated to live nearby. In each boom, men came to mine, open stores, and transport goods and ore. They brought families with them, and many towns sprang up, including Caribou, Eldora, Lakewood, Tungsten, and Rollinsville. Some of these communities have survived, while others remain only in memories and photographs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateApr 4, 2011
    ISBN9781439625293
    Around Nederland
    Author

    Kay Turnbaugh

    Long-time Nederland, Colorado, resident Kay Turnbaugh owned the local newspaper for 27 years. During that time she wrote several articles about Goldie Cameron, never guessing that when she sold the paper she would devote four years of her life to researching the fascinating life of one of our country’s first professional female athletes who worked as a cowgirl, bronco buster, and local entrepreneur. The Last of the Wild West Cowgirls: A True Story was a finalist for a Willa Literary Award in Creative Non-Fiction for 2010. The author also has written books about local history, a kids’ book about the mountain pine beetle, and co-authored several hiking guidebooks. Find her at www.kayturnbaugh.com. Other books by the author: Following in Their Footsteps: Historical Hikes of the Northern Front Range (with Lee Tillotson) Rocky Mountain National Park Dining Room Girl: The Summer of 1926 at the Horseshoe Inn (with Lee Tillotson) Images of America: Around Nederland The Mountain Pine Beetle—Tiny but Mighty Afoot & Afield: Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins and Rocky Mountain National Park (with Alan Apt) Ski Touring Routes: Colorado’s Front Range (with Alan Apt)

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      Book preview

      Around Nederland - Kay Turnbaugh

      you.

      INTRODUCTION

      Before the hay fields were buried by a reservoir, ancient people passed through the lush green valley dotted with the nodding white faces of mariposa lilies. They were migrating across what we know today as the Continental Divide, and they passed what became Nederland on their way to and from the passes that cut through the rugged mountains rising just to the west.

      By 1810, hunters and trappers passing through the same meadow found beaver in the creek that wandered down the middle of the valley and elk and deer in the nearby hills.

      One of those hunters decided to stay in the high-mountain meadow. It looked like good ranch land to him, and he was ready to settle down. Nathan W. Brown, or Bolly as his friends called him, bought 160 acres with scrip money from the Civil War and built a log cabin for his home on the rich meadow land. Before long, his two-story log home became Brown’s Mountain House and later Middle Boulder House, a welcoming inn for hunters and prospectors in the area. As more houses were built near his, the settlement was first called Brown’s Crossing or Brownsville, then Middle Boulder, after the creek that swooped and gurgled through the meadow.

      A tall, sinewy man with a slight stoop and a bald head, it was rumored (with probably a good bit of hyperbole) that even at age 50, Nathan Brown could walk the 20 miles from Boulder to Nederland in an hour and a half.

      One of the hunters who stopped at Brown’s inn in the summer of 1864 was Sam Conger. Conger was born in Monroe County, Ohio, on July 1, 1833. At age 17 he left home and crossed the plains in a wagon. He worked first around Central City, exploring, hunting, and prospecting. In later years, his friends claimed that Conger was a government scout during the Indian wars and was a close friend of Buffalo Bill Cody. Conger made his name in the Nederland area as a prospector. On his hunting trip, Conger found an unidentifiable ore a few miles west of Brown’s inn that he took with him to Central City. He left it in the barn on a friend’s ranch and did not get it assayed until 1869.

      When he learned the value of the ore, he returned to the area and staked several claims with a couple of friends in an area they named Cariboo (later changed to Caribou). As the news spread about the new discovery of silver, Caribou boomed, and roads were built to bring supplies, equipment, and miners to the camp. Nederland became the site of several mills and a stage stop and supply town. Not much remains of Caribou, the booming silver camp that was home to 3,000 hardy souls in spite of its extreme altitude of 10,000 feet and harsh winter weather. Today’s visitors will find the remnants of two stone buildings, some of the rock walls built by the Cornish miners, and a few of the many roads that crisscrossed the area. One of the mines is still being worked by a modern-day miner named Tom Hendricks.

      Nederland also benefited from Eldora’s brief gold boom, again serving as a transportation and trade center. And then Nederland experienced its own boom during World War I when tungsten was discovered in the local area. Tungsten’s ability to harden steel was in demand during the war as the production of weapons dramatically increased.

      Nederland became a center for the area’s telegraph system, and it continued to benefit from being located at a crossroad. At first it was just one stop on the wagon road between Ward and Central City, but after a toll road was built in Boulder Canyon linking Boulder and Caribou, Nederland benefited from both north-south and east-west traffic.

      In addition to mining, the area’s meadows are still home to a number of ranches, many of them with a rich history. The old Tucker Ranch eventually was combined with several others to form what today is Caribou Ranch. The ranch has been a boys’ camp, home to the famous Van Vleet Arabian horse ranch, the set for the remake of the movie Stagecoach, and the Caribou recording studio.

      After mining died out, the area’s spectacular scenery attracted tourists and recreationists. When the Colorado and Northwestern Railroad built tracks into the mountains from Boulder to haul ore from the area’s mines and mills, the line discovered a lucrative side business by calling itself the Switzerland Trail and attracting passenger traffic by hosting wildflower excursions. Local business people cashed in on the new business, leading hikers and horseback riders to Arapaho Glacier and to fishing and boating on high mountain lakes and streams. After Barker Dam was built and Hannah Barker’s hay ranch was flooded to make a lake, Nederland found it too had another attraction for visitors. Small cabins were built in auto camps to attract people traveling the newly improved roads by automobile. For years, Nederland’s rodeo, and later the Jamboree rodeo, attracted summertime visitors.

      Today Nederland and the former mining towns that surround it are still home to independent, hardy people. Tourists and recreationists still throng to the area to ski, snowboard, and snowshoe in the winter at Eldora Mountain Resort and in the backcountry, and to hike, bike, and fish in the summer. Congress established the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area and the James Peak Wilderness Area to protect the scenery that has been sought after for the last 100 years. Many of the popular hiking and ski trails were built on old logging and mining roads—and on the old railroad bed. Visitors come for the town’s Mining Days celebration in late July, music and arts festivals, the Carousel of Happiness, and the quirky Frozen Dead Guy Days.

      In these pages are just some of the photographs of life in the early years of the Nederland area. Many of the communities in these photographs have completely disappeared; others remain only in a few foundations or weather-beaten buildings. Others, like Eldora,

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