Jefferson County, Colorado: A Unique & Eventful History - Vol.1

Jefferson County, Colorado

An Unique & Eventful History!

Lookout Mountain Nature Center volunteer Irv Cohen watched a mule deer lay down on the native ground, and remain there for awhile. When she quietly stood up and began to leave the area, he was able to photograph her walking away followed by her newborn fawn.

Courtesy of JeffCo Planning and Zoning

Chapter 1

Jefferson County Geology

By JoAnn Colton and Carole Lomond

Archaeologists have found many prehistoric treasures above Morrison and at Dinosaur Ridge, Ken Caryl Ranch, Magic Mountain at the base of Lookout Mountain and Triceratops Trails at Fossil Trace Golf Course in Golden.

After the ancestral Rocky Mountains began to gradually uplift about 300 million years ago, dinosaurs thrived in the tropical seas at the base of today’s foothills. Imagine a migrating dinosaur freeway at the base of JeffCo’s foothills when the present landscape of peaks and prairies was a great inland sea that became a prehistoric subtropical jungle. Mountains ascended and eroded to valleys, salty seas flooded dried and rested, uplifted again and were shaped by ice that left fresh water lakes, streams, and ground water. Animals evolved from a single cell to frantic dinosaurs to sly mammals. Plants evolved from tropical jungles to semi-arid forests.

Plate tectonic interactions produced sediment and volcanic debris as deep as ten miles below the surface. Ancient eruptions of hot magma are visible today in the steep walls of JeffCo’s canyons. The melting of the Ice Age—from 1.8 million to 20,000 years ago—gradually formed mountain meadows, valleys and canyons.

The last episode in shaping JeffCo’s foothills was more faulting, uplifting and erosion from glaciers carving a landscape of mountains, canyons, valleys, basins, lakes and rivers about 14,000 years ago. Rock layers can be matched 11,000 feet apart on both sides of the Golden fault. JeffCo is blessed with four extraordinary scenic canyons cut by the South Platte River, Bear Creek, Mt. Vernon Creek, and Clear Creek.

Colorado’s geologic past can be explored at five outdoor sites with interpretive signs: Dinosaur Ridge, Red Rocks Park overlook, I-70 road cut at exit 259, Buffalo Bill Museum’s rooftop patio and Triceratops Trail in Golden. Staff and volunteers at Dinosaur Ridge and Morrison Natural History Museum support one another and also support Triceratops Trail in Golden.

Early Alameda Parkway to Dinosaur Ridge and Red Rocks Park

By JoAnn Colton and Carole Lomond

Photo: courtesy Denver Public Library, Western History Department

Geological road cut of I-70, exit 259

Red Rocks Park overlook

Dinosaur Ridge Trek Through Time panels

Discovery of the 150 million-year-old Morrison Formation

Not much was known about dinosaurs until modern science emerged from Darwin’s Origin of the Species, published in 1859. Ironically, the most famous Coloradoan to discover dinosaurs was an ordained deacon of the Episcopal Church, Arthur Lakes. He came to Golden from Oxford in 1869 to preach at mining camps and teach drawing and geology at Jarvis Hall Collegiate School which became the State School of Mines in 1874.

In 1877, Reverend Lakes was looking for plant fossils at the hogback above the town of Morrison when he found huge fossil bones. He sent sketches and letters to O.C. Marsh, a prominent paleontologist at Yale University’s Peabody Museum. When Marsh did not respond, Lakes packed up a ton of dinosaur bones and sent them to Yale by rail. He also sent some to Philadelphia Professor Edward Cope, a rival of Marsh. This caused a gold rush of competing scientists attempting to establish their credentials at a dozen quarries along Dinosaur Ridge in Jefferson County, Colorado.

Lakes was an excellent field geologist, creative artist and prolific writer of hundreds of articles on geology and mining. After he resigned from teaching in 1893, he was a successful geological consultant and assisted the U.S. Geological Survey. The Colorado School of Mines Library bears the name of this pioneer genius who is known as the Father of Colorado Geology. Lakes’ discovery of the world’s most famous collection of Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, Stegosaurus, and Allosaurus remain at Yale’s Peabody Museum.

Geology information at Buffalo Bill Museum

Trek Through Time information panels at Dinosaur Ridge

Photos: JoAnn Colton

Dinosaur Ridge

16831 W. Alameda Pkwy

When the federal Works Progress Administration was cutting through the Dakota Hogback extending Alameda Pkwy. to access Red Rocks Park from Lakewood to Hwy. 93 in 1937, dinosaur tracks were discovered. Nothing was done to preserve them until JeffCo Open Space acquired the land in 1976.

In 1989, representatives of the state, University of Colorado, cities of Lakewood and Morrison, Jefferson County and Denver Museum of Natural History formed a partnership to focus on preserving the natural resources in the Dakota Hogback. The purpose of Friends of Dinosaur Ridge was to develop dinosaur exhibits at the site and establish an education center along the road and inside the visitor center.

In June 2006, world famous producer of natural history films, Sir David Attenborough, brought his BBC crew to film sequences for a series that includes Red Rocks and Dinosaur Ridge. The National Park Service designated the Dakota Hogback as a National Natural Landmark in 1973 and designated Dinosaur Ridge as an NNL in 2004. Colorado stopped traffic on Alameda from Hwy. 93 to Rooney Road in 2008 to protect Dinosaur Ridge visitors and exhibits along the road. A new exit off C-470 opened to access the site.

Documentary film maker Sir David Attenborough at Dinosaur Ridge

Dinosaur Ridge Visitor Center

History Mural in Morrison begins with dinosaurs

Dinosaur Ridge Tour

Dr. Martin Lockley (left) with Sir David Attenborough

Volunteer citizens took up the challenge of recycling a log structure to establish a natural history museum in 1989. The city of Morrison began operating it in 1995. It has since become a hands-on teaching museum and field research station focused on Front Range Colorado paleontology. Highlights include the first Stegosaurus and Apatosaurus bones, T. Rex, Triceratops, and mammoth skulls, as well as recently unearthed hatchling dinosaur footprints featured in the media from Smithsonian magazine to television news.

Qualified guides introduce natural history with touchable exhibits and lively discussion with families in a relaxed environment for kids of all ages to explore rocks and fossils. The exhibits connect visitors with the ancient story of the Front Range. Visitors explore Living Where Dinosaurs Roamed exhibit in the Cretaceous Colorado and Jurassic Morrison displays. They explore Ice Age Survivors and meet extinct Ice Age animals. During a field dig in 2008, six or seven species of dinosaurs, some as small as sparrows and others larger than several elephants, were discovered while flipping over boulders looking for fossil bones, and tracks. The museum has become an ongoing exploration!

Morrison Natural History Museum

501 Colorado Hwy 8, Morrison 80465

Photos: JoAnn Colton

Photos courtesy of Morrison Natural History Museum

Museum Director Mathew Mossbrucker

Triceratops Trail at Fossil Trace Golf Course

This one-half mile trail is accessed off 19th St. in Golden within one block east of 6th Avenue.

The city of Golden purchased Parfet family historic clay mining land between 6th Ave. and Illinois St. to build a golf course in 2000. When geologists and scientists discovered Triceratops footprints and other prehistoric fossils within the quarry, they lobbied every party involved to preserve the footprints, traces and impressions left by dinosaurs, birds, mammals, beetles, and plants in this ancient swampy habitat. T. Caneer, Joe Tempel, Dr. Martin Lockley and others volunteered to guide the reclamation and educational half mile trail which became available to the public in 2004.

Fossil Trace Golf Course was then designed around these precious prehistoric remains and clay mining reclamation. Golden has benefited from Fossil Trace becoming one of the most award-winning courses in the United States. Imagine playing a round of golf where dinosaurs once walked along holes 11 through 15 and observing fossils adjacent to the 12th green!

Opening of Triceratops Trail at Fossil Trace Golf Course

Triceratops Trail at Fossil Trace Golf Course

Geology information at Buffalo Bill Museum

Colorado Geologic Time Line

4.5 billion years ago — Earth formed

1.7 billion — Colorado’s crust formed

570 to 245 million — Paleozoic Era

525 million — shallow tropical seas form

320 million — Plate-tectonic movements connect North and South "America

300 million — Ancestral Rocky Mountains uplifted; Continues for 70 million years; Mountains as high as present ranges erode to low hills and eventually swampy plains where dinosaurs flourished

250 to 65 million — Dinosaurs evolved and died

85 million — Seas spread across Colorado again from northeast to southwest

75 million — Seas withdrew from Colorado

65 million — Plate convergence increased, buckling Earth’s crust like an accordion; Causes great uplifts and down warps in major modern mountain ranges

64 million — A meteorite slams into Yucatan, Mexico causing global mass extinction

45 million — Late Laramide orogeny process shapes Colorado’s current landscape

2 million — Humans begin to evolve on Earth

1.8 million to 14,000 years ago — Colorado is changed by several major glaciations during the Ice Age; This modifies mountain valleys and creates mountain lakes.

13,000 years ago — Nomadic Clovis people roamed the foothills

3,000 to 7,000 years ago — Paleo-Indians lived near Magic Mountain (Heritage Square) and near Ken Caryl Ranch; Hunters and gatherers were attracted to the foothills during the warmer and drier Archaic stage; Large rock overhangs were favored

JeffCo’s faultline

The U.S. Geological Survey has recorded dozens of micro earthquakes below the magnitude of 3 in Colorado from 1983 to 1993 along the foothills. Geologists believe there was a Front Range earthquake of 6.6 magnitude near Fort Collins in 1882. Some mild shaking at the Golden fault has occurred in the past. Exploration of this is available at the USGS National Earthquake Center, 1711 Illinois St. in Golden. http://neic.usgs.gov

Exhibit Sources:

Interpretive signs on north side of I-70 road cut at exit 259

Red Rocks Park Visitor’s Overlook and Visitor Center exhibits

Buffalo Bill Museum terrace & north parking area

Dinosaur Ridge and the Visitor Center

Triceratops Trail

Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum

American Mountaineering Center

Book Sources:

Field Guide to Dinosaur Ridge by Martin Lockley, 2001.

Guide to the Colorado Mountains by Colorado Mountain Club, 1992.

Roadside Geology of Colorado by Halka Chronic, 1980.

The Legacy of Arthur Lakes by Katherine Honda and Beth Simmons, 2009.

A Guide to Triceratops Trail by Erin Fair, Tom Moklestad and Joe Tempel, 2008.

Sources:

www.dinoRidge.org www.MNHM.org

Prehistoric Anthropology and Archaeology

Colorado Historical Society archaeologist Kevin Black says Ute, Shoshone, Apache, Kiowa, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Pawnee and other tribes all left remains in the Foothills. They all camped near the hogback, which is a transitional zone. They were partial to Apex Creek that ran from springs on Lookout Mountain where soil erosion is significant enough to expose remaining artifacts. People camped there for thousands of years.

The first Americans gathered wild carrot, mustard, turnip, onion, milkweed, goosefoot, purslane, groundsel, serviceberry, chokecherry, gooseberry, elderberry, buffalo-berry, hackberry, rose hips, pinon nuts, currant, plums and prickly pear cactus. They also harvested rice, buckwheat, and amaranth grass. They ate inner bark when necessary and collected pine sap in the spring. They covered bent branches with rawhide for snowshoes that allowed them to follow herds into snowdrifts where the animals could be more easily trapped. Bison provided food, hides for clothing, shelter and shields, rawhide bindings, sinew thread, tools from horn and bone, glue from hooves, and fire fuel from droppings. They camped in earth lodges that opened to the southwest to gain solar heat.

Some historians believe the Utes are the primary Colorado descendants who prevailed in the high country 4500 to 7000 years ago when the plains suffered long periods of drought. Other nomadic tribes followed animals herds to and through Colorado 500 to 250 years ago. Anglo trappers and traders mingled relatively well with the Indians. They usually lived with Indian women who taught them how to survive in the wilderness. They harvested mostly beaver skins until 1840 when Paris fashion shifted to finely woven cloth.

The 1859 Gold Rush, 1861 transcontinental telegraph line and 1862 Homestead Act attracted 50,000 emigrants to Colorado. After the Civil War ended in 1865, the railroads crossed the country to bring more intrusion on Indian territory. But, the Colorado mountains still belonged primarily to the Utes who were shrewd traders, rugged survivors and quick to borrow beneficial customs. Horse breeding was the primary source of wealth and pride for Ute men who learned veterinarian skills from the Spanish. The high mineral content of grasses in the high country are said to have nurtured healthy and strong horses. When a shortage of men threatened hunger, women hunted and took part in battle.

Knowing they could always retreat into the high country, the Ute people signed the first Native American/U.S. settlement treaty in 1855. But when the Colorado gold rush began in 1859, the Ute people were invaded from all sides by the strange and dangerous Anglo civilization. The peaceful intentions of the Utes, who simply wanted to be left alone, were ignored.

Utes camped in the vicinity of Deer Creek Mesa, Kittredge, and Indian Hills, and traveled the path up Strain Gulch between Morrison and Parmalee Gulch, locally called the Ute Trail. Evergreen was inhabited by six loosely affiliated bands of Utes who hunted at Bergen Park under Chief Colorow. A Ute village under Chief Washington camped near Hayward Junction on Soda Creek and inhabited Ken Caryl Valley and the Bradford Toll Road, which followed a Ute Trail 1860-1867. Chief Colorow frequented the area, camped near the Rooney Ranch and lived in a cave near Willow Springs.

Treaty agreements in 1864, 1868, and 1873 took more and more land from whom the press labeled ignorant savage Utes. The number of fatal incidents between Utes and the invaders was amazingly small because of one great Ute leader, Chief Ouray (Arrow) who spoke Ute, Apache, Spanish, and English. His exceptional wisdom, intelligence and dignity, and his charming wife Chipeta, influenced U.S. politicians in Washington D.C. in 1868. One news reporter quoted Ouray, Agreements the Indian makes with the government are like the agreement a buffalo makes with the hunter after it has been pierced by many arrows. All it can do is lie down and give in.

Arapaho Indians camped in sheltered canyons in the foothills and higher into the mountains during the summer. They were known as outgoing and gregarious people with excellent trading abilities. Their beliefs revolved around the life-giving power of the sun. The peace-loving Cheyenne migrated to Colorado in the mid 1700s. Their pipe smoking ceremony first honored their gods and spirits in the sky and earth, then the east, south, west, and north. In 1849, Anglo-transported cholera killed nearly half of them.

Mother Earth becomes real estate

Native Americans believed all forms of life are sacred and that everything is connected. Owning land is not possible and selling land is like selling the air, the sea, a river, rain and clouds. They believed they are earth’s subject, not her conqueror. They apologized to the plants they harvested and animals they killed. They believed that death only appears to be final.

Children were full members of the village community and were disciplined only to protect them from danger. Orphans were automatically cared for by family clans within the community. Boys and girls learned everything together until they reached puberty. All social ethics, spiritual beliefs, hunting, cooking and mechanical skills were taught by direct experience and oral stories retold generation after generation.

Indians generously shared all wealth with their clan or tribe. They believed that illness resulted from disharmony with nature. With participation of the family and tribe, medicine men worked to bring the patient back into harmony. Formal religious dogma and ritual practiced by their European conquerors was a mystery to the Indian who experienced religion everywhere, integrated with everything. Each individual enjoyed a personal relationship with the Creator.

By 1870, there were 50,000 emigrants in Colorado and Indians were forced into reservations with boundaries that kept changing as more homesteaders demanded the most fertile land. Forcing them to reservations meant starvation, humiliation, and destruction of their culture. The U.S. government helped slaughter the buffalo to cause the Indian to starve. Anglo whiskey traders arrived to finish the job. When William Buffalo Bill Cody began his Wild West Show, Native Americans were starving to death.

Contrary to early Hollywood film and television images of savage Indian warriors ready to kill at all times, war and combat was considered a nuisance. Violence was necessary only when they were forced to defend their livelihood, their hunting grounds. Indian warfare between tribes was mild compared to the European tradition brought to the Americas. In retrospect, American Indians were not nearly as brutal as their Christian conquerors.

Strangely, Congress adopted a law that automatically accepted Americans Indians as U. S. Citizens in 1924.

Literary Sources:

Archaeology of the Dinosaur Ridge Area by Kevin Black, 1994.

Archaeology of Colorado by E. Steve Cassells, 1997.

People of the Red Earth by Sally Crum, 1996.

Report of 1994/1996 Grid Block Archaeological Excavations at Magic Mountain Site in Jefferson County, Colorado by Stephen Kalasz & William Shields, 1997.

People of the Shining Mountains by Charles Marsh, 1982.

The Indian Way by Gary McLain, 1990.

Utes - The Mountain People by Jan Pettit, 1990.

A Colorado Book of the Dead: The Prehistoric Era by Bruce Rippeteau, Colorado Historical Society, 1979.

The Soul Would Have No Rainbow If the Eyes Had No Tears by Guy Zona, 1994.

Prehistoric Anthropology and Archaeology by Carole Lomond, City and Mountain Views, Oct-Nov, 1999.

Ancient Human Evolution in the Foothills by Carole Lomond, City and Mountain Views, Dec, 1999.

Until 200 years ago, what is now Colorado was inhabited by nomadic, indigenous peoples who subsisted on hunting and gathering. In the early nineteenth century, explorers and fur trappers crossed the plains and entered the mountains.

Anthropologists assume the first Americans were hunters following herds of mammoths and other large game across the Bering Straits from Siberia to Alaska 12,000 years ago. Artifacts of nomadic hunters using stone spearheads and scrapers from 11,000 years ago to butcher bison, elk, and other large game have been documented. Prehistoric hunting tool-making factories have been discovered at elevations between 6,000 and 11,000 feet. In 2009, stone implements of nomadic Clovis people, who lived 13,000 years ago, were found in Boulder.

Migration and settlement patterns are critically linked to Colorado’s water drainage systems. Early hunters and gatherers would take bison, mule deer, elk, mountain sheep, rabbit, pronghorn, birds and fish when the opportunity arrived. They escaped the heat and dry periods on the plains by climbing up a few thousand feet where nuts, seeds, berries, and a variety of grasses provided additional nutrition.

Firepits for campsites were used and reused a few feet apart over 4,000 years in Jefferson County. Archaic and Woodland period people utilized the camps, which are close to water, sheltered by rock outcroppings, and have good views available to watch for approaching danger or spot animals for hunting. Artifacts of nomadic tribes have also been found at the base of the foothills on the hogback near Morrison and Golden and higher altitudes on