Park County's seat moved twice before it settled in Fairplay

Park County’s county seat did not start in Fairplay. It moved as the mining boom moved, which is a useful way to read the county’s map.

The first action was at the Tarryall diggings, where placer gold was found in a creek and a busy camp grew fast. Tarryall served as an early county seat. As strikes shifted, so did the center of power: the seat moved to Buckskin Joe, a camp near present-day Alma that also went by the name Laurette. When that camp faded, the seat settled in Fairplay in the 1860s, and Fairplay has held it ever since.

This matters for understanding the county today. Tarryall and Buckskin Joe are now gone or nearly gone, while Fairplay endured because it became the lasting government and trade center for the basin. Many other names you will see on maps and trail signs around the county, like Montgomery, Hamilton, and Leavick, mark camps that boomed and emptied in just a few years.

The lesson is that a Colorado town’s survival often came down to whether it became a courthouse, rail, or supply hub, not just whether it had ore. To trace the seat’s history and the camps behind it, start with the South Park National Heritage Area and Park County’s official site.