|
GC46CJ2
Spaulding HomesteadType: Traditional | Size: Micro 
| Difficulty: 
| Terrain: By: Denali41 @ | Hide Date: 02/21/2013 | Status: Available Country: United States | State: Colorado Coordinates: N40° 41.863 W105° 18.873 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 0 
Little’s been written about the early settlement of Hewlett Gulch. Stanley Case’s landmark book The Poudre, A Photo History hardly mentions the gulch and its settlement. The US Forest Service has captured the gulch’s more recent history on its signage at the Hewlett Gulch Trailhead just upstream of Poudre Park. The gulch, now within Roosevelt National Forest, was designated in 1897 by the US Government as Federal Timberland Reserve. It’s early human history included use by the Ute Indians as a crucial link in their primary route between North Park and the eastern plains. Early settlement by people of European descent dates to the 1870s when Horace Huleatt constructed and lived in a cabin in the upper gulch. The gulch was named after him, but the name was inexplicably changed to “Hewlett”, as it’s known today, in the 1900s. Serious settlement of the Hewlett Gulch environs occurred in the 1920s when Frank and Ada Mae Spaulding received a special permit from the US Forest Service to “temporarily” live in the gulch. They and their 10 children lived there until the 1960s, building and occupying cabins and erecting many outbuildings. Foundations, chimneys, and certain other structures remain visible today, and the trail passes directly through a prominent site.  ONE OF THE SPAULDING HOMESTEAD SITES The Spauldings were industrious; they constructed the first local bridge across the Poudre River in 1923 and built a now washed-out jeep road from the river up the gulch to the Red Feather Lakes Road. The families operated two saw mills and trucked sawed lumber to Fort Collins. They raised milk cows, apples, strawberries, peas, and other produce, selling their harvests to nearby residents in Poudre Park. They also made unsuccessful efforts at hard-rock mining in the gulch. Today, Hewlett Gulch serves as a marvelous hiking and mountain biking venue for people coming from Front Range communities seeking relatively easy access to outdoor recreation locations. The cache is hidden in one of the four areas along the gulch trail where the Spauldings built family homes and outbuildings. Note the old “basement” foundations, the still-standing fireplace/masonry chimney, the large trees, and all the junk that’s still extant. Explore around for more than just the geocache. It’s an interesting place. This cache was created as a tribute to poudrecacher who has provided us with many fascinating caches and cache write-ups in the Poudre Canyon area. Certain of his caches provide historical glimpses of the settlement and human occupancy and development of these special canyon environs. One that particularly focused my attention on Hewlett Gulch was the Nature Bats Last--Gordon Creek cache write-up. Steve has generously loaned me books and provided e-mail attachments on the canyon area's history, for which I've been grateful. The Spaulding Homestead cache is placed close to Miss Katie's Cache, a memorial to Katie Driscoll, the other half of the poudrecacher caching team.
Add cache to watch list Log your visit Picture Gallery
GC3DDPP Which Sheep Is This One? Second Reprise (9.48 kms W) GC6BT34 I spy with my cacher eye. (23.60 kms SE) GC70GJN GM: ALPHA (32.37 kms SE) GC9NTYF Longhorn1 (33.31 kms SE) GC9NMYY Happy Birthday to Mafia Princess! (36.46 kms SE) |
Driving Directions
10 Logs:
|
2 
5 
3