My brother Chris was doing the driving. Jim was riding shotgun although I was the one doing all the shooting from the back seat. This was the Wild West, after all.
I was packing my trusty Nikon; have camera – will travel!
In fact, I can travel at speeds approaching 65 mph and still shoot landscapes. My cowboys are no longer willing to feed my obsessive compulsive behavior when it comes to stopping every other mile for another Kodak moment. That’s okay; I’m the modern day equivalent of Annie Oakley. I’ve gone from cautious to countless thanks to the digital world of photography.
Delete, delete, delete! WINNER!
I was packing my trusty Nikon; have camera – will travel!
In fact, I can travel at speeds approaching 65 mph and still shoot landscapes. My cowboys are no longer willing to feed my obsessive compulsive behavior when it comes to stopping every other mile for another Kodak moment. That’s okay; I’m the modern day equivalent of Annie Oakley. I’ve gone from cautious to countless thanks to the digital world of photography.
Delete, delete, delete! WINNER!
When it comes to looking down the barrel of my viewfinder, nothing is safe.
We’d left Denver about an hour earlier headed for South Park (yep, there is a real South Park and a real connection to Comedy Central's infamous animated cartoon, South Park; but that’s for later) via Kenosha Pass, the gateway to good fortune. It was through this portal, at 10,000 feet above sea level, the early Ute Indians gained access to giant herds of buffalo during the summer months. Years later, during the gold rush of the 1860’s, miners poured through this pass in search of a better life.
The view from the summit at Kenosha Pass certainly made good on that promise the day we went through in search of a Wild West ghost town!
The view from the summit at Kenosha Pass certainly made good on that promise the day we went through in search of a Wild West ghost town!
The view alone from Kenosha Pass is worth more than the gold found in South Park over a century ago.
We were headed for the town of Fairplay, population roughly 675, where a portion of Colorado’s unique heritage and history had been preserved via an 1880’s mining/ghost town called South Park City.
We’d essentially gotten as far as Kenosha Pass via the same route the narrow gauge railroad, the Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad had followed in the late 19th century, ascending the Platte Canyon through North Platte before heading through Como and on to South Park via
Kenosha Pass.
We’d essentially gotten as far as Kenosha Pass via the same route the narrow gauge railroad, the Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad had followed in the late 19th century, ascending the Platte Canyon through North Platte before heading through Como and on to South Park via
Kenosha Pass.
Decisions, decisions.
If anything, Colorado was opening my eyes to the significant role railroads played in U.S. history, particularly our most recent foray into that history at Georgetown's Loop Railroad. Why do I not remember railroads being part of my U.S. History courses?
I can still recite the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, for whatever that’s worth, and I relearned most of the state capitals when my son went through junior high school about 12 years ago. Everything else is a blur. I guess I had to accumulate a little of my own history to appreciate all the rest of history; which is why I’ve fallen in love with all the history just
beneath the surface of all our travel. Who doesn’t love a field trip anyway!?
Today’s field trip was turning out to be everything my brother Chris had promised – a beautiful fall day, a scenic drive and a real Colorado ghost town.
I can still recite the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, for whatever that’s worth, and I relearned most of the state capitals when my son went through junior high school about 12 years ago. Everything else is a blur. I guess I had to accumulate a little of my own history to appreciate all the rest of history; which is why I’ve fallen in love with all the history just
beneath the surface of all our travel. Who doesn’t love a field trip anyway!?
Today’s field trip was turning out to be everything my brother Chris had promised – a beautiful fall day, a scenic drive and a real Colorado ghost town.
No way I could take a bad picture on this particular field trip.
We began descending the summit at Kenosha Pass to an altitude of 8,500 feet into the South Park valley basin below via Highway 285.
A sun roof would have made snapping pictures on the move a tad easier.
The pictures tell only half the story behind the bucolic beauty of this valley basin. There was gold in them thar hills, along with much of Colorado’s history.
Breckenridge is just over the next hill; the one with all the snow of course.
The year was 1859 when nearby Tarryall Creek revealed that first nugget of gold and put the entire area, including South Park basin, on the map.
Mining camps were set up in every gulch and gulley with names as colorful as the prospectors – Tarryall, Leavick, Buckskin Joe, Eureka, Horseshoe, and Mudsill. With latecomers locked out to the Tarryall gold, they referred to the early miners as “Graballs”and determined to set up camp further out at the junction of Beaver Creek and the South Platte. Thus Fairplay was born, originally named “Fairplay Diggings,” where opinion has it every man felt they had an equal chance there to stake a claim.
Fairplay eventually became the county seat for all of Park County in 1867; homes and businesses grew along the South Park basin for the thirty years following that first gold strike as the westward migration of men, women and children followed the trail of dreams that followed the gold.
When the gold dried up by the turn of the century, it wasn’t long until the people moved on too, abandoning their homes and businesses. Ghost towns sprang up all across the Wild West as the harsh elements took their cut from the proceeds of those gold rush days.
Mining camps were set up in every gulch and gulley with names as colorful as the prospectors – Tarryall, Leavick, Buckskin Joe, Eureka, Horseshoe, and Mudsill. With latecomers locked out to the Tarryall gold, they referred to the early miners as “Graballs”and determined to set up camp further out at the junction of Beaver Creek and the South Platte. Thus Fairplay was born, originally named “Fairplay Diggings,” where opinion has it every man felt they had an equal chance there to stake a claim.
Fairplay eventually became the county seat for all of Park County in 1867; homes and businesses grew along the South Park basin for the thirty years following that first gold strike as the westward migration of men, women and children followed the trail of dreams that followed the gold.
When the gold dried up by the turn of the century, it wasn’t long until the people moved on too, abandoning their homes and businesses. Ghost towns sprang up all across the Wild West as the harsh elements took their cut from the proceeds of those gold rush days.
It can be a lonely, lovely life on the plains of South Park.
We arrived in Fairplay, now known as the "Fly-Capital of Colorado," just in time for lunch. The Brown Burro Café looked as good as any, particularly given it was off the main thoroughfare through Fairplay, Colorado Highway 9; it was less than a mile past the junction where we’d exited Highway 285.
Yeah, those are real logs on this authentic western abode.
It was true authentic western, like everything in Fairplay. It was a place where you could lay your hat and sit for a spell, where good food and friends were plentiful,
as was support for President Barack Obama based on these bills by the register.
Some must believe Barack Obama is the million dollar man.
Tucked into the far northwest corner of Fairplay is the spot where history meets the high country in a ghost town called South Park City. We had arrived!
I bet Kenny died here years and years ago.
Tomorrow, I’ll show you around the real-life city of South Park and reveal the connection with the madmen of comedy who struck gold with this historical moniker.
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