Origins of Staunton State Park

Staunton State Park was opened to the public in May 2013, as the 42nd Colorado State Park, with about 4,000 acres of land adjacent to the Pike National Forest. The original 1720 acres of property was donated to Colorado by Frances Staunton in 1986 to preserve the beautiful area for public use. Colorado needed the intervening time to acquire enough adjacent land to provide an entrance route from the main road, and to preserve some of the other natural wonders in the area.

Archibald and Rachael Staunton, Frances’s parents, were both educated as medical doctors in Pennsylvania, and practiced medicine in Charleston, WV. For health reasons, moved west to Denver about 1906, and began medical practices in Denver. Over the next few years, they explored the foothill areas west of Denver, and were attracted to the area that is now Staunton State Park between Shaffer’s Crossing on U.S. highway 285, along Elk Creek to the north, to the imposing flanks of Black Mountain at over 11,000 feet elevation. They filed homestead claims on 160 acres, and proceeded to tackle the list of responsibilities that allowed homesteaders to file a claim for property after 5 years of hard work. These tasks include building a cabin, living on the property for 7 months per year, raising their own food, and filing annual reports of their activities to prove the claim to the property.

The construction of Staunton Cabin took place between 1916 and 1918, after which they were granted title to the property. They provided medical care to their neighbors, and since it was typically a cashless business world in these remote areas, this care was bartered for other goods and services, such as land. In this process, the Staunton’s acquired a total of 1560 additional acres, to account for the land donation by Frances later. They also ran summer camps for children who came up by train from Denver to Pine Junction, and treated a large number of people affected by tuberculosis, a major cause of premature death in the 1920’s. These people relied primarily on locally mined coal for heating and cooking in their Denver dwellings and businesses, and the cleaner and cooler air above 8,000 feet at Staunton Ranch helped them feel better. Later, summer camps were run for families, girl scouts, and other groups. This income helped in the development of the properties on their Ranch, including a shower house and a number of rental cabins.

Frances spent the summers of the second half of her childhood at the Ranch, and her parents helped instill her with a love for this area. She later went to music school, and became an opera singer, performing in major Denver venues. After spending much of her life on this property, as well as the family home in Denver during the winters, she wanted to preserve this wonderful setting for Colorado public enjoyment. Not having married or having any children of her own, she decided to donate her family’s land to the state for the purpose of establishing this newest Colorado State Park.

The GPS location above will take you to the limits of the buckrail fencing that has been placed around Staunton Cabin to protect it. A grant from the State Parks Foundation has been awarded for the rebuilding of this cabin’s structure in a historically accurate fashion, so that it can hopefully be opened to the public on weekends as a museum with artifacts from the Staunton Family and medical practice in the early 20th century.

The cabin can be directly accessed via the Staunton Ranch (SR) trail from the upper Meadow Parking lot. Take SR to the Historic Cabins trail, which is a loop that intersects the SR trail at two points. This trail passes directly adjacent to Staunton cabin, as well as some of the other historic cabins. As an alternate, you can take the north side of the Davis Ponds loop trail, and follow the Chase Meadow trail to the shower house, where it intersects the Historic Cabins trail. Please see the Park trails map available at the entrance station or the Park’s website (http://cpw.state.co.us/placestogo/parks/Staunton/Documents/StauntonTrailsMap.pdf ) for more details.

To prove that you visited this site, you are required to do one of the following (A or B) before you can log this virtual geocache:

A) Answer the following three questions for which the answers should be obvious if you walk completely around the cabin. Send these in an email to the cache owner. Do not post them in the cache log, as they will be deleted.
1) The windows are currently boarded up with red painted plywood. Not counting the doorways (for which the plywood goes to floor level), how many windows do you see on the cabin exterior walls?
2) There are windows in the shape of a diamond (a square rotated 45 degrees). How many are on the exterior walls of the cabin?
3) There is a door on the left side of the porch, which was used to access the attic. How many steps up from the porch surface is the bottom of the door?

B) Take a photo of some item you have with you in front of the cabin or a sign or fence near the cabin, and post it in your log entry. Since the answers to the A) questions require observation of the outside of the cabin, you should not post photos of the entire cabin walls in the cache log or gallery. You may however post photo(s) of some aspect of the cabin structure, but please stay outside the buckrail fencing until the cabin is opened to the public at some future date.

Virtual Reward - 2017/2018
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between August 24, 2017 and August 24, 2018. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards on the Geocaching Blog.

Additional Waypoints
027B9NT - Trailhead
N 39° 30.021 W 105° 22.674
Trail Head for Staunton Ranch Trail at Meadow Parking lot, with water, restrooms, and picnic tables