Conclusion
Out of the four towns of Hamilton, Fairplay, Como, and King, only Fairplay and Como are still standing. The Chinese community at Hamilton remained until the early twentieth century, but the town was eventually demolished to erect a new dredge along the Tarryall.[1] All that remains of the Chinese settlement there are the traces of stone walls marking where their terrace gardens had been. The town of King went from a thriving neighborhood to a ghost town within the space of a year. In 1896 King had 400 inhabitants; by 1897 it had been marked as an "abandoned community."[2] With the closure of Mine No. 5 at the end of 1896, the rail line from King to Como no longer served a justifiable purpose and in 1899 the last of the rails were pulled up.[3] King was completely deserted by 1900. Houses that weren't left to crumble were relocated to other nearby towns.[4]
After 1910 railroad activity to Como began to decline and, with the closing of most of the major rail lines, the city's population began to drop.[5] In 1910 there were 411 residents and in 1920 there were 132.[6] The railroad line to Como was finally closed in 1937 but, unlike its neighbor King, the town of Como did not absolve.[7] Como remains a small unincorporated community in Park County, sandwiched between Jefferson and Fairplay, its current population just barely exceeding that of 1910. Fairplay remains the largest town in Park County, but its Chinese residents either moved, passed away, or were driven out by 1914. There is still a small grassy area across the river from the South Park City Museum where the Chinese settlement used to stand but, as in Hamilton, the only traces of evidence are the rocks left behind by their gardens, a last testament to the Chinese community that eked out a living in this remote part of Colorado that they called home.
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[1] Virginia McConnell Simmons, Bayou Salado: the Story of South Park (Colorado Springs, CO: Century One Press, 1982), 162; Gerald E. Rudolph, “The Chinese in Colorado, 1869-1911” (dissertation, 1964), 68.
[2] Allison Chandler, “The Story of Como & King Park, Colorado,” Denver Westerners Roundup, February 1963, 10.
[3] Simmons, 171; Chandler, 10.
[4] R. Laurie Simmons and Thomas H. Simmons, “Historic Cemetery Development in Park County, Colorado, 1859-1965,” in National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form (2016), E23, https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/media/document/2021/co_park_county_parkcountycoloradohistoriccemeteriesmpdf.pdf; Mary Dyer, Echoes of Como, Colorado, 1879-1988, (George Meyer, 1988), 99.
[5] Dyer, 120
[6] Chandler, 15.
[7] Simmons & Simmons, E8.