198 



UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



The first legislative assembly of the territory of Colorado met in Den- 

 ver in the autumn of 1861 to pass, among others, a law ditiding the 

 whole territory into seventeen counties.' Of these original counties, six 

 embraced large areas of plains lands of the eastern slope — Weld, Arapa- 

 hoe, Douglas, El Paso, Pueblo, and Huerfano. Three covered the whole 



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Nebraska Territory 



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Mew Mexico 

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Map I. — 1861 — Before Admission of Kansas. 



unoccupied western slope — Summit, Lake, and Conejos.^ Two, Fre- 

 mont and Costilla, divided the eastern and western slopes at the south 

 while six mountain counties in the center of the state — Larimer, Boulder, 

 Gilpin, Clear Creek, Jefferson, and Park — have until this day remained 

 in their original limits as witnesses to the wisdom of the legislature which 

 brought them into existence. ^ 



In defining the boundaries for these first counties the legislature made 

 large use of the lines of the United States survey, which had begun in the 



' Act of November i, 1861 (First Legislative Assembly, Session Laws, pp. 52-57). 



' The act of November i, 1861, created a county of Guadaloupe, whose name was changed by the act 

 of November 7, 1861, to Conejos {Sess. Laws, 1861, p. 143). 



3 These central counties contained most of the population of the territory, for here were the great mining 

 camps. 



