University of Colorado - Coloradan Yearbook (Boulder, CO)

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Bear Head, ordered them off within' three days, they felled trees, which were then more abundant, and built a strongly fortified house and protected themselves so well that the intended attack was abandoned. ' The first winter was warm and sunny. January fifteenth, 1859, the first gold dust in Boulder County was discovered about twelve miles back in the foothills at Gold Bun, this occasionally netted as high as eighty dollars a day to the man. .In the spring, A. A. Brookfield discovered the first gold lode on Horsfal Hill, which overlooks Gold Bun and Gold Hill. Colorado gold in combina.- tion' with tellurium was found first at Gold Hill in 1872. From Horsfal Hill is a magnificent view 3 to the east, ten miles of foothills, the plains, and the University of Colo- rado in plain sight 5 to the west, Gold Run, Gold Hill, Arapahoe, Audubon and Long's Peak. Every student should visit the spot once a year while in col- lege. A ' The fame of gold brought men. Within a month after the discovery at Gold Run the Boulder City town organ- ization was effected. This was Febru- ary tenth, 1859. There were fifty-six shareholders, and they platted twelve 'hundred and forty acres, extending two miles along the creek. Lots were held at 351,009 In 1859 there were two thousand men in and about Boulder- and seventeen women. G Glass, nails and sawed boards did not appear till late in. the year. The first city consisted of tents along the creek and log cabins built on Pearl Street and about the public square where the court house now stands. The roofs and doors were of pine splints, the iioors were of earth. 14 D

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,,. -. . I ,V 'if :':,w,Ajj fi, f f 'wwf , r ' ' J . ' -fi V' 5' r 5 GOLD RUN : GOLD HILL IN TI-IE BEGINNING The first white settlers came in 1858, encamping at the mouth of Boulder Canon Sunday evening, October seventeenth. From the solemn spires of sandstone that guarded their canvas home on the north they called the place Red Rock. It was a beautiful spot in which to rest. To the east lay the fertile valley they had just traversed, so agreeable to the eye after the long journey over the thirsty plains. The stream, with its cottonwoods and sparse box-elders, marked with an intermittent silver thread the luxuriant meadowlands 5 herds of antelope, buffalo and elk were grazing peacefully as on the first Sabbath in Eden. The 'tips of the great southern foothills, then without a name, caught the last rays and turned them into the emerald and rich reds that were after- wards known as Green Mountain and Sunset Rock. But the dark shadows of the canons impressed the Easterners with some- thing more than mountain gloom. Their apprehensions were realized when, before their first sleep, Ni Wot, an Arapahoe chief, came into camp and warned them off. ' U This band of men had not loft the Pikeps Peak Trail at St. Vrain with 11 View of enjoying the scenery and then departing, they, too, were after gold. By wheedling they got the better of Ni W ot, and when a more sturdy chief, 13 -.........-,, V. -4.-Wh .--4 - 4 'ff

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zffx A A FIFTY-NINER ' During the first winter of the new city, 1859-60, many of the cabins walked' off into the country, where the former gulchers turned ranchers. In the fall of 1860 the first school house in Colorado was erected on the present site of the Central School, Fifteenth and Walnut. It was a frame structure costing twelve hundred dollars 5 this sum was raised by subscription. The payments were made in labor, lumber and other materials. When any- thing had to be purchased, a few chipped in, furnishing the cash. I have been told that a particularly 11116 tree up the Canon had been selected for lumber and men were going after it on a Monday. A smart fellow, thinking to ap- propriate it to his own purposes, started after the tree on the preceding Sun- day , but Captain David H. Nichols, hearing of his plan, got out his team, and, hurrying into the mountains, inet the load coming down the Canon, a sharp argument with sled stakes resulted in a victory for education and the doughty captain rolled the tree trunk onto his own rig. A. R. Brown, who taught the Hrst term of school, supervised the construe- tion and worked on the building, giving his labor. So far as I know, the pioneer educator of our County, now resident in Boulder, is Mrs. Barker, who taught in the first school house as Miss Hannah Cornell. Men came from far to get a pattern of the first and only school house -and, incidentally, to see the schoolmapam. 15