North Park Pioneer Season Coming to a Close

There’s still time to see history in the making!

This year marked 136 years of North Park history, and there’s no better place to learn all about the area than the North Park Pioneer Museum. With nearly a century and a half of settlement and growth, there are plenty of stories to be told about North Park. Exhibits and artifacts from North Park's early years and pre-settlement history can all be found at the Pioneer Museum. Along with early photographs, family history, and a very hands-on approach to museum curation, you can step back into local history and get an understanding of what those who built the community endured to get here today.

Pre-history and Settlement

Europeans were among the first to permanently live in North Park all year long, and it came surprisingly late in the game. Native Americans who inhabited this area did so largely in the summer and fall months where they would have access to game such as buffalo, deer, elk, and other big game. Winters were harsh and wildlife was sparse. With gold fever and silver mining on everyone’s minds in the late 1800s, the seasonal hunting and trapping grounds made way for year-long mining and eventually ranching.

Several different indigenous groups did gather in North Park. 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. Some Indian cultures actually referred to North Park in their traditions as being the place where the buffalo emerged from the earth at the beginning of time. The archaeological record goes back several thousand years with Paleo-Indian artifacts evident in Folsom-age stone arrowheads and other tools.

Some of the last evidence of Native habitation came at the end of the 1870s when Ute Indians being tracked by the US Cavalry after the Meeker Massacre sought refuge around Independence Mountain in the winter. Eventually, they surrendered after enduring extreme cold and lack of food. In the aftermath of the Meeker Massacre, Chief Ouray signed treaties to move his people into Utah reservations. Not long after, the buffalo that once gave “the Bull Pen” its name were in the process of being eradicated and eventually none were left in the wild. 

Early European Settlers and the Pioneer Museum Building

Walden was not the first town in North Park, though it has been the county seat of Jackson County since 1909 when the county was established as its own entity separate from Larimer and Grand Counties. 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. 

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. Early accounts of the ruins of this town that once sported several hotels, saloons, and hundreds of miner tents and cabins say that plates and silverware were left on the tables along with furniture and other personal belongings. An eerie end to solidify the term “ghost town.”

The North Park Pioneer Museum was built from the remains of early log buildings built by Swedish immigrants. Many of North Park’s early European inhabitants were of Scandinavian descent and the old family names are still strong in the community. The buildings were recovered from west of Walden—and had been built at around the same time as Pinkhampton. They were moved to town and rebuilt in the stockade house style to emulate the Pinkhampton station. Over the years, the Museum has changed, getting additional wings and another section of the second floor for more exhibits.

Exhibits You’ll Find at the North Park Pioneer Museum

With just over 13 decades and innumerable prehistoric years, there’s plenty to discover at the Museum. From fossilized ammonites and mammoth teeth to items from our recent history, it would take days to go peruse the artifacts on display. Here’s some of what you can expect to find at the Pioneer Museum.

Early Settlement: Mining and Ranching

Furniture, photographs, and local history goes into detail about Teller City, Pearl, and other mining settlements in North Park. A wide range of ranching items from horsehair stuffed mattresses to barbed wire and antique saddles represents the agricultural roots of the area. Walden’s history as a stagecoach stop, railroad town, and enduring settlement are also chronicled at the museum. You can look through hundreds of photos of the area which all paint a picture of how life was here for the last century or more. An assortment of firearms offer a glimpse into North Park’s rough and ready history as part of the American Frontier.

War Years and Boomtown Days

A large range of items from both world wars, uniforms, and even captured souvenirs reflect the storied past of patriotism and just how many of North Park’s sons and daughters fought for their country during the last century. Not long after WW2, Jackson County underwent a boom era where the population jumped in size in part from a demand in lumber, mined minerals, and beef cattle production. You can see evidence of these years with the projectors from the Park Theatre which still stands on Main Street. 

The 1990 Capitol Christmas Tree

In 1990, Walden, CO got to celebrate its centennial by providing the nation’s Capitol with a spruce tree to decorate and light up for Christmas. For locals it was a big event, celebrated by parades and a contingency of visitors from North Park who accompanied the tree for the lighting ceremony. Throughout town, you can still see some benches that were made from the recovered wood from the tree as well as a 7-foot totem pole on display at the Museum, which was also sourced from the spruce that went to Washington D.C.

Living History

Unlike many small towns in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, North Park is a working community that stands on its own outside of tourism. It continues to grow and build its own history, while remaining proud of what has come before. When you visit North Park, keep in mind the diversity of immigrants, larger than life personas, and the harsh struggles those who came before endured while trying to make a go of life in this sometimes harsh landscape.

Haunted Museum Tours

The North Park Pioneer Museum will be closing for the season on Sept 30, 2025, but it will be opening again for one day on Oct. 25 for Haunted Museum Tours. Docents and volunteers will be dressed in period costume to take visitors through the museum, sometimes illustrating some of the spookier aspects of the area. 

Visitors can partake in a free chili dinner to warm their bones and chat about what they have seen in the Museum. Some years have also featured seasonal poetry readings from Edgar Allen Poe and local ghost stories. Check the North Park Pioneer Museum Facebook page for more information in the upcoming weeks!

There’s still time this year to visit the Museum. It is open daily from 10-4pm or by appointment (call 970-594-4190) This season it closes its doors at the end of September and other than Oct 25 it won’t reopen until Memorial Day weekend. Step back into the past with a visit to the best little museum in the Rockies!