![]() ![]() She turned into Fairplay’s town angel when a smallpox epidemic devastated the area. The best known, if legendary, resident of Fairplay was a dancehall girl, Silver Heels, so named for her silvery shoes. By 1860 miners formed their own government with miners’ courts and issued the Fairplay Diggings Book of Revised Laws. A few other travelers passed through, but swarms of miners did not arrive until 1859, as prospectors fanned out in search of fresh diggings. Frémont headed the first official US survey of the South Park region in 1853. The broad, mountain-rimmed valley around Fairplay they called a “parc,” French for a park or wildlife reserve, and also “Bayou Salade” (or the Spanish “Bayou Salado”) for the “salt marsh” that brought salt-seekers into the area. In 1739 French traders Paul and Pierre Mallet became the first Europeans to explore and name the Platte River (French for flat). In autumn, bison and bison hunters left the park floor, which averages about 9,000 feet, heading to Front Range flatlands averaging around 5,000 feet for winter camp. The Nuche who spent their summers in South Park mostly belonged to the Tabeguache band, the “people of Sun Mountain.” They followed bison herds there for hunting. They lived in groups of families, called bands, that moved with the seasons. OriginsĪs early as the 1300s, the Nuche occupied most of what is now Colorado. The high-elevation town (9,953 feet) has never recorded a census population of more than 739. The grassy, well-watered South Park floor of about 700 square miles has long made the Fairplay region one of Colorado’s most prolific hay and cattle areas. After extracting gold via hydraulic mining and then dredging boats, Fairplay shifted to ranching and tourism in the twentieth century. Established miners in Tarryall chased off the newcomers, who condemned Tarryall as “Grab-all,” and founded the nearby town of Fairplay, a place where all were welcome and all “played fair,” so the legend goes. Gold seekers initially headed for Tarryall, the first diggings on the headwaters of the South Platte River. Situated in South Park in the mountains of central Colorado, it was part of the homelands of the Nuche or Ute people when US settlement began in 1859 during the Colorado Gold Rush. Fairplay is one of Colorado’s oldest mining and ranching towns. ![]()
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