Early history of Fremont County, Colorado

About 700 years ago, Ute people began to inhabit present-day Cañon City area during the winter months at the hot springs along the Arkansas River.

[1][2]: 30  Evidence of Paleo-Indians habitation includes fire pits, animal bones, and stone tools, generally projectile points used in hunting.

[7]: 58 The Tabeguache band of the Uncompahgre Utes, including Chief Ouray and Chipeta, spent the winters at Cañon City due to its hot springs and mild weather.

[5] Ute chief Colorow was a friend of Otto Morganstein, the first settler of Red Canyon Park, north of Cañon City.

They moved west and met up with the Cheyenne, who left the Great Lakes area later than the Arapaho, in the Black Hills.

About 30 years later, Kiowas and Comanches joined forces, after a period of fighting each other, and moved through Colorado across the Arkansas River and into the southern Great Plains.

The land extended from present-day Mexico north into the upper Rio Grande valley, was colonized by missionaries intending to convert indigenous people and men in search of gold.

[12] The Spanish explored into the center of North America, and extended their territory beyond present-day New Mexico and into Colorado, Oklahoma, and the southern Plains of Texas.

[13] The farmers left the Rio Peñasco Amarillo valley, escaping the threat of hostile Native Americans, until a military garrison was established by the United States.

Two men stayed behind with the tired horses, while Pike and his party walked south along Grape Creek, across the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and into the San Luis Valley of Colorado.

The treaty put the land south of the Arkansas River of present-day Fremont County in Spanish territory.

The four came to the eastern mouth of the Royal Gorge canyon, but did not find the blockhouse built by the Pike's expedition 14 years earlier.

[14]: 4 John Gannt, an area mountain man and trading post operataor, served as a guide for Col. Henry Dodge during the First Dragoon Expedition of 1835.

In late July of that year, they came to the Rio Peñasco Amarillo (now Hardscrabble Creek) at the Arkansas River where there was an encampment of Arapaho people with 50 to 60 lodges.

[18]: 106 William Bent is reported to have built the first trading post, a picket outpost, in Fremont County along the Arkansas River about the winter of 1829.

Bent is said to have hid and saved two Cheyennes being chased by Comanches at his outpost, which may have been on the north bank of the Arkansas River, west of present-day Portland, near the mouth of Hardscrabble Creek.

[14]: 7–8  Trading posts were established at Fort Le Duc in the 1830s and Hardscrabble, an early farming settlement and cattle ranch to support 70 people who lived in placitas enclosed within an adobe wall, from 1844 to 1845.

[4][18]: 118  After traveling east to El Pueblo, Fremont County traders took the Trapper's Trail to Don Fernando de Taos and Santa Fe for trading.

Map of Fremont County, Colorado. The Arkansas River , one of the longest rivers in the United States, crosses through the center of the county. In southwestern Fremont county, the river is just north of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains . The altitude of the river descends as it moves east to the plains in eastern Fremont County. North of the river are the Front Range mountains.
Charles Craig, Uncompahgre Ute Indian Camp , 1893, Denver Art Museum
Chief Ouray
Santa Fe Trail and native tribal lands in 1845. The Santa Fe Trail paralleled the Arkansas River for much of its route through southern Colorado. It became the dividing line between the Comanche and Kiowa, south of the river, and the Cheyenne and Arapaho north of the river. [ 9 ] : 47–56 The Cheyenne had a winter camp on along the Arkansas River on Mountain Route of the Santa Fe called Big Timbers
Map of Mexico in 1824 showing the Province of Nuevo México
Arkansas River through Royal Gorge near Cañon City that would have been seen by the explorers
Map of First Dragoon Expedition of 1835, led by Col. Henry Dodge . This portion of the map reflects the route along the Arkansas River. Cañon City and the Hardscrabble Creek are roughly south of Pikes Peak .
Gold Belt Tour Scenic and Historic Byway