Unknown, 1902; D.P.L.
HAHNS PEAK COMMEMORATES ITS FOUNDER
The store at the left is labeled C. E. Blackburn, General Merchandise. Blackburn was in business there during 1902 and ’03. In 1904 he was also postmaster. Previously the same building had held the bank. The large building in the center of the photograph (with two windows facing this way) was the Larson Hotel. The three-roofed building was the courthouse. It obscures the jail which stood behind it in 1898, in a direct line with Hahns Peak. On a night that was twenty-eight degrees below zero, Lant and Tracy, outlaws and escapees from the Utah penitentiary, beat and bound the sheriff and left him senseless in the jail. They crossed the street to the livery stable and stole the tired stage team. Courageously captured a second time by the same sheriff, the outlaws escaped again and left Colorado. Details of their story make a thriller. The upper photo was taken by a panoramic camera and makes the main street appear much wider than it really is. It also diminishes the height of Hahns Peak in the background. A number of buildings are identical but appear different because of the two types of cameras. Poverty Bar, the placer and flat which was worked with hydraulic hoses and yielded close to a half million dollars, is off to the left behind the Blackburn Store in the upper photo and the school house in the lower. Herman Mahler, Hahns Peak’s oldest resident, worked the placer around 1913. In 1960 he was still faithful to the town for five months of the year. Hahns Peak is completely deserted through the long harsh winter months.
D.K.P., 1960
From Glenwood Springs
Fulford was originally two towns, Camp Nolan and Polar City. They date from the spring of 1887 when prospecting began up East Brush Creek from Eagle. In June of that year William Nolan accidentally shot himself, but his friends continued to call the camp after him because he had been the original leader. It was located on a small slope beside White Quail Creek before it joins Nolan Creek. As rich mines were opened up on New York Mountain, some bearing free gold, Camp Nolan grew until there was no more room.
Newcomers settled farther down in a meadow through which Nolan Creek runs and called the new settlement, Polar City. This name commemorated one of the richest mines on New York Mountain, the Polar Star. Other good producers were the Iron Age, Richmond, and Cave.
Both towns grew side by side until New Year’s Eve of 1891. At that time it was the custom of all miners “to take to the hills” on the last day of the year, and 1891 was no exception. Any tenderfoot would immediately ask, “Why?”
The answer lay in the mining laws which stated that any claim, not proved up on by midnight of the fiscal year, was open for relocation. Anyone intrepid enough to get there and drive new stakes could own the property. Miners would eye a good claim enviously and keep tabs to see if the owner was doing the required amount of work. If he was not, woe to him! A new claimant would be driving stakes on his mine while he toasted in the New Year at some saloon.