Ghost Town Legends: What’s In A Name?

By: Ethan Knightchilde

In the July 28 edition of the Estes Park News, I relayed one of the legends that compelled me to visit hundreds of ghost towns over the years and eventually led to the creation of the Best Documentary Award-winning film, Ghosts of the West: The End of the Bonanza Trail. A small element of that story indicated how the town came to be called what it is today: the first postmaster renamed the settlement after himself as part of his machinations to achieve total control over it.

Names can be powerful things. Those given to camps like Bonanza and Eureka signified their founders’ hopes for the settlement. Others, like Silver Cliff,

Goldfield, and Leadville, credited the source of their actual, rather than hoped-for, wealth. Sometimes, as in the cases of Como, Richmond, and Auraria, the name reflected the origin of the prospectors, who often yearned for home. And in a few cases, the chosen name represented strong sympathies regarding the troubles between the States in the midnineteenth century.

Long before the outbreak of hostilities, the growing rift between North and South manifested itself in the West. For example, the town of Rough and Ready, California Territory, was founded in 1849 and named after the recentlyelected President of the United States, General Zachary Taylor, who had borne the nickname “Old Rough and Ready” during the MexicanAmerican War. Legend states that most of the townspeople were Southern sympathizers who objected to California’s entry into the Union but more so to a government-imposed mining tax “on all claims.” In a hotheaded moment, the residents voted to secede from the United States on April 7, 1850, and establish The Great Republic of Rough and Ready. Alas, when those same miners were denied the purchase of alcohol at a nearby town on the grounds that they were foreigners, the camp voted to rejoin the Union in time to celebrate Independence Day.

In July 1866, more than a year after the last battle of the Civil War, a group primarily composed of Southerners founded Leesburg, Idaho Territory—a camp named in honor of their Confederate hero, General Robert E. Lee. Those arriving later bristled at the name and called their settlement at the upper end of town “Grantsville” in support of the Union. The community survived into the 1940s before it was finally abandoned. Today the Grantsville side holds two residences, one built after 1900 and the other likely moved from another area. On the other hand, the Leesburg side contains the cemetery and the remains of 18 structures, including the post office, schoolhouse, hotel, tax assessor’s office, mercantile, butcher shop, boarding house, and stagecoach office. And while the Confederate cause was lost, the name given to the camp by the Southerners was not. It eventually won out for the entire site as the decades passed.

There is more to both stories, of course. And while neither appears in the current film, I invite you to come to a show of Ghosts of the West at the movie house where it first began its journey: the Historic Park Theatre, built when the film’s events were still in living memory. Catch a screening at 2 p.m. on August 17 and September 7 & 21. (A special schedule is planned for October.) As the film’s writer-director, I will be on hand whenever possible to answer questions about the entire project after each program. Visit www.HistoricParkTheatre.com for information and tickets. Visit KnightSkyPictures.com, the production company’s official website, to view the film’s trailer, gallery, and production info. [Portions of this article originally appeared in Ghosts of the West: Tales and Legends from the Bonanza Trail by E. S. Knightchilde.]

EPHS Class Of ‘83 Reunion Fun