Arapahoe City: Jefferson County’s First City

Press release from the Golden History Museum & Park:

September 18, 2020

Arapahoe City was located north of Clear Creek, west of present-day McIntyre Street
approximately two miles east of Golden. Initially, a mining district, and the earliest city in
Jefferson County, it was founded on November 28, 1858. Members of the Arapahoe Town
Company included Marshal Cook, President, George B. Allen, Secretary, and Thomas Golden,
Treasurer.

Since these early mining settlements appeared virtually overnight, conflicts sometimes ensued
between the “new” white settlers and native bands of Arapahoe Indians already inhabiting the
land. Thomas Golden recounted the naming of the town in his 1859 account published in a
Missouri newspaper: “We have laid out a town by the name of Arapahoe City after the
aborigines.”

The town grew quickly. An advertisement in the April 1859 Rocky Mountain News publicized
the Arapahoe Express which offered transportation to and from Denver every Monday and
Saturday. Fox Diefendorf was the Assistant Marshal and there was even a post office. The first
official census of the Colorado Territory from 1860 recorded 80 citizens living in Arapahoe City
scattered throughout 21 “residences.”

The Wannemakers were one prominent and influential family to settle here from Wisconsin.
Informally, referred to as the Mayor of Arapahoe, Jonas filed the first irrigation claim on Clear
Creek in 1859 after hand digging an irrigation ditch still known as the Wannemaker Ditch.
By 1863 the town and most of its inhabitants were gone. In the 1890s mining resumed
periodically in the form of dredging and hydraulic mining. However, the area quickly evolved
into an agricultural community known as Fairmount. In 1901, historian Jerome Smiley noted,
“The rise and prosperity of Golden caused the decline and fall of Arapahoe.” Nothing remains
today of Arapahoe City except for a small stone monument and a dedication plaque installed in
1946.

Interested in learning more on the topic?

Arapahoe City to Fairmount: From a Ghost Town to a Community by Joyce A. Manley
Ghost City-Arapahoe City by Edna Witt Manuscript, Marshall Cook, Early Colorado Pioneer Historically Jeffco, 2008, “The Sesquicentennial of Arapahoe City,” by Richard Gardner –Mark Dodge, Curator

This press release was produced by the Golden History Museum & Park. The views expressed are the author's own.