A Brief History of Fairplay

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Chapter 1

IN THE BEGINNING

Nestled at the base of several mountain peaks, the town of Fairplay gives little evidence of the millions of years of its past that created the setting. But there are a few clues that tell us how the stark ruggedness of the terrain came to be. A large, rounded boulder in Cohen Park speaks of mountain building and erosion. Meandering rivers and creeks tell how valleys were cut through the mountains towering above them, their downward flow carrying minerals from higher places after having been forced upward out of niches and crevices deep underground.

Planet earth is generally aged at about 4.6 billion years old. Colorado has been around for about 2.5 billion of those years. Since our viewpoint as humans can cover but a tiny speck in the overall time span, we can only speculate on the grandiosity of the relatively slow changes in the tiny portion of ground that we call home. And the wonder of it all is—the earth is still changing.

Geologists use the term plate tectonics to describe how the earth’s surface has evolved from a near sea-level crust to the extreme heights and depths that we have today.

The earth’s inner core is made up of solid iron; the outer core that surrounds it is liquid iron and nickel. Around the core is a mantle that is partly molten and partly solid. The uppermost mantle and the crust above it are solid. The surface crust is composed of a dozen plates, each around sixty miles thick. These plates have periodically rearranged themselves—separating and crashing into one another—to form different landmasses and oceans.

Cohen Park. Photo by author.

The earliest period of the earth’s history has been labeled Precambrian. Most of the Precambrian rock in Colorado, known as basement rock, was formed as a result of several collisions of plates, followed by the earth’s crust pulling apart at weak zones, allowing sediment to build up in lower areas. There are few fossils from this era simply because the only known form of life was archaea—one-celled microorganisms. The landmass that we now know as Colorado originated south of the equator and thousands of miles to the east.

During the next era in earth’s history—the Paleozoic—a supercontinent that has been named Pangaea was formed. Pangaea contained what later became Eurasia, North America, South America, Africa, India, Antarctica and Australia. By this time, the landmass that would become Colorado had moved in a counterclockwise direction and was located just north of the equator and many miles to the west.

The sea advanced and retreated a number of times during the Paleozoic era, bringing with it ancient forms of life from early invertebrates evolving into fish and, later, amphibians. Evaporation of the sea left deposits of salt and limestone.

Late in this era, the Ancestral Rockies were formed. Another term that geologists use is orogeny, which is an event that results in mountain building. The uplift or orogeny that created the early mountains forced Precambrian rock upward through the layers of limestone left by the sea. Throughout the rest of the Paleozoic era, the ancestral mountains gradually eroded into gravel.

It was during the next era, the Mesozoic, that Colorado’s character began its formation. Dinosaurs ruled the land, which was lush with vegetation. Flourishing plant life became the basis for the formation of coal. Thick sand changed to shale in layers that trapped marine animals, whose fossils were entombed.

Then, late in the Mesozoic era, several things happened—not quickly but simultaneously. Volcanoes as near as the Thirtynine Mile Mountain and the San Juan Range began to erupt, sending ash through the air to cover the upper surfaces and magma through the faults and crevices of the underground crust. The sea had expanded and then receded as the land began to rise due to a new major mountain-building episode now labeled the Laramide Orogeny. The earth’s plates pushed against one another and forced the land upward in the same general pattern as the Ancestral Rockies. Although the newly formed Rocky Mountains were twenty thousand feet above sea level, they too have suffered the erosion that happened to the Ancestral Rockies. Fourteen-thousand-foot peaks still, however, seem grandiose to the humans who try to conquer them.

As hot magma was forced through underground fissures and openings, mineral deposits were carried upward by hot, gaseous waters and released when the gases disbursed and the water cooled. This created an area that came to be known as the Colorado Mineral Belt, as it is the source of the gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper and other minerals that brought prospectors and miners to the state of Colorado.

Another and more cataclysmic event that occurred late in the Mesozoic era was not discovered until recently. Scientists were puzzled about the relatively sudden disappearance of the dinosaur population until evidence of a meteorite hitting the earth was uncovered. A pattern of ash containing the substance iridium, rare on earth but abundant in meteorites, was found centering from a location in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The collision resulting in extreme heat radiating from the site would have killed everything above ground for many thousands of miles. The latter part of the Mesozoic era also marked the splitting away of continents from Pangaea and the rearrangement of oceans that surround them.

The final era, and the one that we are still in, is the Cenezoic. The seas retreated for the final time as this era began. Cyclical cooling of the climate, especially in the high altitudes of the Colorado Rockies, created two glacial periods. The town of Fairplay shows evidence of glacial deposits and is, in fact, on the edge of a terminal moraine left by the later glacial period. A terminal moraine is, simply put, a pile of rocks left by melting snow runoff alternating with re-advancement of glaciers and then more melting.

After the dinosaurs became extinct, mammals flourished. Remains have been found of woolly mammoths, camels and an early type of horse about the size of a dog. Later came the bison, coyotes, bear, beaver and other mammals that attracted the initial migration of humans. But it was the mineral deposits—the gold in them thar hills—that brought them in droves.

Chapter 2

MAMMALS AND PEOPLE

The narrow strip of land known as the Bering Strait, located between Alaska and the Siberian Steppes, was a scene of eastward migration as the Ice Age began to recede in North America. People of Asian origin and mammals like the wooly mammoth made the trek more than fifteen thousand years ago.

Archaeologists digging in Colorado have found spear points among sets of bones belonging to woolly mammoths, dating about eleven thousand years ago. Although the woolly mammoth became extinct some seven thousand years ago, it is evident that the large mammal was hunted by some of the first humans to inhabit the mountain ranges.

The American bison also migrated across the strait some ten thousand years ago and became the major source of subsistence for the prehistoric humans after the woolly mammoth disappeared. Signs of these early humans have been found in various archaeological sites throughout Colorado.

Evidence of prehistoric Indians has been found in southwestern Colorado in the Mesa Verde area, and their cliff-dwelling homes have been explored for clues of their existence. About the time the Christian era began on the other side of the globe, the Anasazi (Ancient Ones) grew crops and hunted small animals. The first ones have been labeled basket-makers. Later, they developed pit-houses and pottery making. Still later, these human occupants, who didn’t have a written language, began building and living in community-oriented structures. Then, for a reason not yet discovered, they moved to the south, abandoning the shelter of their caves recessed on mountain ledges. No sign of the ancient ones has been found in Colorado after 1300 AD.

The Ute Indians began to appear in about 1000–1200 AD. Studies of their language and lifestyles indicate that they originated in Mexico and moved northward to populate the plains and mountains, including Colorado. Other Indian tribes, like the Arapahoe, Apache and Comanche, were at home on the Eastern plains; the Navaho built their pueblos on land located to the south. But the Utes mastered life in the Rocky Mountains, adapting to a nomadic existence in which they followed and hunted the bison, depending on that shaggy beast for food and shelter and most of their needs.

The legend that Utes have passed forward as the story of their origin tells of the Creator, who collected sticks representing various peoples of the time and put them all in a bag. The coyote, who is portrayed as a trickster and troublemaker, came upon the bag and opened it up, releasing most of the people, who spread in many directions, all speaking different languages. The few sticks left in the bag represented the Utes, who would thereafter be very brave and able to defeat the rest.

Many of the sites that have been discovered in South Park are indicative of Utes campsites. These were set up primarily for signal stations or lookouts. Remains of tepee rings and food preparation devices (metates and manos for grinding grain, berries and dried meat) have been found on such sites. Many arrowheads have also been found.

The early Utes lived in wickiups—domed willow huts fifteen feet in diameter and eight feet high and covered with willows, bark and grass or any available material that would keep out the weather. Leather-covered tepees were not used until the horse was obtained. The opening of the wickiup always faced east so that the occupants would see and rise with the sun at dawn.

When the season changed, belongings were packed onto a travois and dragged by harnessed dogs to the next location. The Utes came to South Park during the summer season to take advantage of the warm mineral springs, salt marshes and the bison that ranged there. But winter found them at lower elevations and warmer locations.

Bison were hunted by driving them off the edge of a cliff or into deep snowdrifts. The hide was removed and the meat carefully cut up and prepared for storage. The brain of the animal was used for tanning the hide, which was used for clothing and shelter.

The Utes used roots and berries for food, as well as insects and smaller animals that were hunted. Rabbit furs sewn together made a warm blanket.

When members of the tribe died, the body was wrapped in buckskin and buried in a cave entrance or a rock crevice. The Utes did not normally burn their dead or elevate them into trees or on scaffolds as other Indian tribes did.

While there were, no doubt, Ute Indians in the area that we now know as Fairplay, they were not permanent residents but frequent migrant visitors.

Chapter 3

THE SPANISH

The future of the United States and, in particular, Colorado, was largely influenced by three European countries that were alternately allies and enemies of one another. England, France and Spain all vied for power during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the New World became something of a pawn among them as they each tried to own and occupy parts of the North American continent.

Spain was one of the first countries to become interested in exploring the New World to look for the riches that were thought to be there and was dominant through the sixteenth century. Spanish adventurers were encouraged by