Hot on the heels of the biggest weekend of the summer in North Park, we have so much more coming up! Due to the wildfires in Utah and the western slope of Colorado, the Front Range is dangerously hazy this year. North Park is significantly less smoky right now than much of the rest of the state, which makes it a great getaway for some cleaner air to breathe while you enjoy what we have going on this summer!

On July 18th, we will be celebrating North Park Days. With over 137 years of history, our locals are proud of their history and heritage. So consider this your open invitation to come celebrate the continuing saga of life in the mountains with the people of Jackson County!

Set Your Reminder for Summer Fun in the Mountains!

North Park Days!

Bring your family and friends for a memorable day of community connection, entertainment, and celebration. There’s still room for more to join in on the fun. Vendors are encouraged to contact the North Park Area Chamber of Commerce and reserve a booth space for the day! Click the link here to find out more information. 

When: July 18th from 9am to 3pm 

Where: The Jackson County Courthouse lawn, 396 Lafever St, Walden, CO

This year, North Park Days will be celebrated on the front lawn of one of our most prominent and recognizable buildings, the Jackson County Courthouse! It won’t be hard to miss when you pass by the Courthouse and see the inflatable bounce houses, mazes, and vendor tents on the lawn.

Here are some of the activities and events we have planned for North Park Days

• Face Painting and hair tinsel
• Karaoke with Kat  
• Foam Pit 
• Bounce House 
• Water Slide
• Homemade Lemonade Stand
• Sawdust Pile
• Petting Zoo
• Vendor booths
• Kids’ Games and Family Fun  

A Little Bit About the Jackson County Courthouse

The Jackson County courthouse was completed in 1913, just four years after Walden became the county seat. Designed by prominent architect at the time, William N. Bowman, who designed many buildings in Colorado as well as the rest of the West. It was the first step in the direction of regional identity and autonomy in Colorado. Once a part of Larimer County, Jackson County was originally called North Park County until the moniker of Jackson County was settled on to distinguish it from Park County. 

Quarried from local sandstone, the Courthouse and the Walden IOOF building on Main Street were both designed by Bowman. Truly a pair of iconic buildings, resonating with the Old West and the continuing pathway of the area well into the future.

A Brief History of North Park

If you want to know more about North Park, there’s no better place to land than the North Park Pioneer Museum. It’s a great stop (and right behind the Courthouse) to go back in time. Here’s the Spark Notes version of North Park History to get you primed for a tour of the museum on your visit!

For countless generations, indigenous people ventured into North Park during the summer months in search of game, primarily bison, which migrated into the area by the thousands. The Ute, Arapaho, and Cheyenne may have converged in these hunting grounds, sharing the land during hunts in spite of bitter rivalries. North Park was known to early trappers as the “bull pen” due to its abundance of North American bison.

Overlooking the North Platte River about 20 miles north of Walden, you can see evidence of a burial tree. On Independence Mountain, various tribes converged in large camps on a south facing ridge to hunt buffalo. The remnants of their camps still remain with stone tipi rings overlooking North Park.

After Europeans began to push further into the interior of North America, North Park became known to trappers and other frontiersmen for its ample supply of beaver and other fur-bearing animals, yet it was only in the 1870s that anyone attempted to brave the winters and live in the area year round. Not too far to the north were the Oregon Trail and Overland Trail. By 1869, with the completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad, the area would soon have greater access to settlers passing through Cheyenne and Laramie on their way to the West. 

Harsh winters and sparse wildlife made permanent habitation nearly impossible. The settlement of Pinkhampton in the north end of Jackson county, just a few miles away from the Wyoming border was the earliest permanent settlement in 1874 when a Canadian trapper by the name of Pinkham built a log house and began living and trapping during the winter. Not long after families settled the area in homesteads, raising sheep and cattle.

As the West began to fill up, the old growth pine forests were harvested for use in lumber mills as well as for railroad ties. Many of the historical buildings still standing in Colorado and Wyoming were made from North Park timber. Not to mention the ones still being built today!

Walden was not the first town in North Park. Teller City sprang up in the early 1880s as a mining town with a population estimated at around a few thousand miners. The remains of this boomtown are in the Routt National Forest near Rand, CO at the south end of Jackson County. When the gold standard was implemented, many silver mining towns emptied out, and Teller was no different. Teller City once supported several hotels, saloons, and hundreds of tents and cabins where the miners lived. Some stories say that plates and silverware were left on the tables along with furniture and other personal belongings. You can see some of these on display at the North Park Pioneer Museum in Walden, CO. 

When the demand for mining shifted from precious metals to other minerals such as coal, copper, and fluorspar during both world wars, Walden quickly grew from a whistle stop ranching hub to a town boasting several cafes, bars, a movie theatre, power plant, and homes for a few thousand people. This prosperity continued into the late 1960s or early 1970s. 

The railroad lasted through the late 80s for lumber company Louisiana Pacific and strip mining coal pits, which closed in the 1990s. The last train rolled through North Park in the mid-1990s with the end of an excursion train. The railroad was sold for scrap but the remains of the grade can still be seen throughout north park, all the way up to Fox Park in Wyoming with the Rail Trail. It’s a great place to hike or ride mountain bikes, with beautiful views and an easy grade to explore the mountains.

North Park Today

We’ve had our share of ups and downs, booms and busts. The community now is a much more humble version of itself, probably closer to how it was in the early days. North Parkers tend to enjoy a quiet, simple lifestyle. Things move at a little bit slower pace in the mountains. Most people tend to drive right through Jackson County without stopping too long. Those who do discover a place they fall in love with. A place that sits on the edge of the past, where nature is up close and personal.

We still have a strong ranching economy as well as forestry, but much of our economy has switched gears to ecological tourism. Mostly due to the diversity of wildlife and extensive habitats in the area. When it comes to fishing, North Park is on nearly every Colorado fisherman’s list of favorites. The North Platte River and Delaney Lakes are two gold medal waters that are coveted by anglers in the summer months. Lake John is one of the most easily recognized names in Colorado fishing destinations all year long! We have dozens of mountain lakes, streams, and reservoirs to entice even the most seasoned angler. (Stop by North Park Anglers on your way through Walden to find out where all the fish are biting!)

In the fall we have some of the best hunting in Colorado. But that’s for a whole other article!

A Haven for Wildlife

It’s not uncommon to see a moose grazing in our local parks, or hear songbirds in the trees. Many of the homestead farms are part of the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge and the forests that helped build the west are protected now by the Routt and Arapaho National Forest. The Colorado State Forest State Park is Colorado’s only state forest. At hundreds of thousands of acres, the State Forest State Park runs between nearly the Wyoming border and the Never Summer Mountains along the Medicine Bow Range—just to the north of Rocky Mountain National Park (without all the crowds and lines).

Visitors can almost be guaranteed to see deer, elk, moose, birds of prey, migratory songbirds and water fowl, and even some big horn sheep on occasion. We are home to mountain lions, bears, coyotes, wolves, and even river otters as well. The remote location and slowly developing expansion of human inhabitants still allows plenty of room for wildlife and natural habitats as they might have been seen a hundred years ago.

Welcome to North Park! Help Us Celebrate Our Continuing History

If any of this sounds good to add to your summer itinerary, we would love to see you! We aren’t some tourist trap you’ll find in Estes Park or Aspen. North Park is a community of people with strong ties to the days of the Frontier and the roots of a tightly knit community. We take pride in our history but also welcome newcomers and visitors. It’s a great place to visit all year long! Our celebration of our past is one of the things that help us to appreciate how lucky we are living in a place so beautiful. Life isn’t always easy in the mountains, but it is always interesting! We hope you feel the same way when you visit North Park!

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