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Harvesting Historical Riches Jackson County Courthouse
”North Parkers” can boast of a unique history based on their county’s isolated geography. Located next to the Wyoming border in north-central Colorado, the park’s level 8,000-foot-high interior plain is surrounded by the Continental Divide, the Rabbit Ears Range, and the Medicine Bow Mountains. Celebrated pathfinder John Charles Fremont commented on the region’s topography while returning from an expedition in 1844. ”We found ourselves in New [North] Park,” he wrote, “a beautiful circular valley, walled in all around with snowy mountains.” Three decades later, travel writer Isabella Bird observed that, “not many miles from us is North Park, a great tract of land said to be rich in gold, but those who have gone to prospect have seldom returned.” By the 1870s, Fremont, Bird, and other commentators had established North Park’s reputation as a remote and mysterious place. This reputation persisted despite a small gold rush in Teller City and the establishment of large, successful cattle operations throughout the park. In fact, the confusion extended to the state’s courtrooms when Larimer and Grand counties both claimed jurisdiction over the promising region. In 1886 the Colorado Supreme Court noted that, “It must be remembered that North Park is geographically isolated, and for a long time after the passage of the act organizing the counties, was uninhabited…. Whether [North Park] was in this or that county was a neglected question, which no one was interested in raising.” Then the high court settled the dispute by attaching North Park to Larimer County. But once again, North Park’s geography steered local history in a different direction. A toll road built between Teller City and Fort Collins in the early 1880s reduced North Park’s isolation, but not by much. Travelers planning to conduct business at the county seat in Fort Collins were compelled to traverse a 10,276-foot-high mountain pass and negotiate a hundred miles of canyon switchbacks along the Cache la Poudre River. North Parkers could not endure trips like this forever. The town of Walden, a transportation hub and supply point for the stable cattle trade and a burgeoning coal mining industry, incorporated in 1890. Locals began to rely more on this growing commercial center and less on the outside world. Responding to calls for the establishment of a new county, the state created North Park County in 1909. The name was later changed to Jackson County to avoid confusion with Park County to the south. Four years later, Jackson County built a landmark courthouse in Walden. Designed by Denver architect William Bowman and constructed using local sandstone, the Classical Revival structure became the region’s most significant building, an instant source of community pride, and a symbol of North Park’s unique heritage. That sense of pride grew even as the building aged and deteriorated over the following decades. When failing windows and mortar joints forced the county to consider a costly rehabilitation project in the mid-1990s, officials turned to the State Historical Fund and the Colorado Department of Local Affairs for assistance. With financial and technical help from these organizations, the county nominated the building to the State Register of Historic Places, conducted a Historic Structure Assessment, and completed the needed preservation work. The State Historical Fund contributed almost $500,000 for stone conservation, window replacement, interior restoration, and the development of a maintenance manual. Letters written to the State Historical Fund from North Parkers suggest that the project has received universal support. Jim Dustin, owner of the Jackson County Star, spoke for many of them when he wrote, Those that settled here had a hard time of it; their main goals in life did not include the construction of memorable structures. Because of the remoteness of the area and the climate, few people live up here. So we don’t have a lot of buildings, and we have very few architecturally or historically significant buildings. The Jackson County Courthouse stands almost alone as a structure that serves more than a utilitarian function. It was one of those buildings that was constructed…to make a statement of solidity and strength. Thanks to sustained local commitment and a high level of support from the Fund, the court house will continue to make that statement for decades to come. BY BEN FOGELBERG, Editor
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Jackson County’s boundaries conform precisely to an imaginary
line that describes North Park’s perimeter. In a small
way, this seemingly trivial geographical fact explains why North
Park residents feel so strongly about preserving symbols of their
county’s heritage. This year, Jackson County completed
a multi-phase restoration project on the region’s most
significant historic building, the county courthouse.