THE COUNTY BOUNDARIES OF COLORADO 



By Frederic L. Paxson 



The early history of the state of Colorado is of necessity closely con- 

 nected with that of the territories from which lands were taken to endow 

 the new commonwealth. Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, and New Mexico 

 were all levied upon, and out of the lands thus provided was erected, 

 under the stimulus of the discovery of gold near Pike's Peak in 1858, 

 the new territory bearing the name of Colorado, by the act of February 

 28, 1861.' 



The territorial history of the Colorado lands in connection with Ne- 

 braska, Utah, and New Mexico has not yet been made accessible. Kan- 

 sas three times passed laws which are of interest in the history of the new 

 terrritory.^ In the year 1855 she created the county of Arapahoe, em- 

 bracing all of her territory west of the one hundred and third meridian, 

 while the county of Washington, south of thirty-eight degrees and thirty 

 minutes, included the southeast corner of Colorado. Neither of these 

 counties was ever organized, Arapahoe being attached to Marshall, as was 

 Washington to Allen, for purposes of government, and both of them being 

 reshaped before their local settlement justified any formal organization. 

 The discovery of gold in Arapahoe county in 1858 brought about the 

 repeal of the act of 1855, and the substitution for the two counties of 

 Arapahoe and Washington, within Colorado limits, of the counties of Oro, 

 Broderick, Montana, Arapahoe, El Paso, and Fremont, all lying west of 

 the one hundred and third meridian. The southern end of the single 

 degree east of this meridian, losing even its nominal Washington county 

 in 1859, became in the following year a part of the county of Peketon. 

 And in this condition all of Kansas west of the twenty-fifth meridian from 

 Washington (approximately the one hundred and second from Green- 

 wich) was cast adrift when Kansas was admitted into the union on Janu- 

 ary 29, 1861. 



' F. L. Paxson, "The Boundaries of Colorado," in University of Colorado Studies, Vol. II, pp. 87-94 

 » H. G. Gill, "The Establishment of Counties in Kansas," in Kansas Historical Society Collections 

 Vol. VIII, pp. 1-23, with sixteen outline maps. 



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