Much of Park County sits inside the South Park National Heritage Area

If you live in or shop for property around Fairplay, Alma, Como, or Hartsel, your land may sit inside a federally recognized heritage area.

A National Heritage Area is not a national park. The land stays in private, county, state, or federal hands as before, and the designation does not add a new layer of land-use rules on top of your property. What it does is recognize a region where the landscape and its history are closely tied together, and it supports work to preserve and explain that story.

In Park County, that story runs through the wide basin called South Park: gold and silver mining camps, cattle and hay ranching, and the narrow-gauge railroads that once crossed the high country. Old townsites, ranch buildings, mining structures, and the open park itself are all part of it.

Why this matters to a buyer or a new resident: it helps explain why so many historic structures and interpretive sites dot the county, and why local preservation and tourism efforts are active here. It is context, not a regulation.

To learn what the heritage area is and which communities it covers, start with the National Park Service page and Park County’s heritage information.