Thriving Settlements

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Citizens standing in the town's dirt road at Alma, 1800s

While gold drew migration to the west, early settlers discovered that opening businesses generated more success than mining and panning for gold. More settlements began to develop, each town differently from the other. Como developed with the arrival of the railroad, becoming a prosperous community for many decades.

Fairplay was established to give miners a sense of "fair-play" against other communities which they deemed corrupt.[1] Other communities followed suit in finding what made them enticing to visitors and new settlers.

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Postcard of the town of Fairplay in the late 1800s

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View of rural town in Guffey, Colorado

 

The communities stayed strong for many years following the mining boom, and Park County became a bustling western community. Overtime, the communities of Guffey, Como, Horseshoe, Alma, Fairplay, and Jefferson would become incorporated towns.[2]

[1] Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1905), 123.
[2] Park County Local History Archives, Park County, Images of America (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2015), 69.