Eagle County Historical Society
Bancroft Award Nomination, June 2015
A. Description of the project:
The Eagle County Historical Society would like to nominate the book, Boom Town to
Ghost Town: The Story of Fulford, written by Richard Perske and published by the ECHS.
Fulford is a one-time gold mining camp located at the base of New York Mountain, about
20 miles southeast of the town of Eagle, Colorado.
During the 1890s mining boom times, Fulford boasted a population of several hundred
people and a handful of mining-related businesses. The camp enjoyed a brief second
boom in 1913, but when the gold excitement died, so did the little mining town. These
days, Fulford is home to a small summer cabin community.
Locally, interest in Fulford has always been strong. The mining camp was prominent
enough to earn mention in Muriel Sibell Wollle’s Colorado mining camp book, Stampede
to Timberline, in 1949. However, over the 125 years since the camp first boomed,
accurate information has been hard to come by. The camp is mentioned briefly in a
number of books and has been the subject of local newspaper articles. There is a
persistent, dramatic and inaccurate story of a lost gold mine that is tied to the untimely
death of an adventurous miner, Arthur Fulford. In 2012, the property owners of Fulford
began talking about the need for some accurate Fulford history. That’s when retired
highway engineer and Fulford property owner Richard Perske stepped forward and
volunteered for the task.
Perske spent almost two years researching archives, obituaries and files at the Eagle
County Historical Society, Eagle Valley Library District and elsewhere. He tracked down
obituaries, discovered a surprising link between the mining town of Aspen and Fulford,
and probably risked his eyesight reviewing every issue of the Fulford Signal newspaper
that published for eight months in 1893. He interviewed people who had connections to
Fulford, including a mining engineer who had done his own Fulford gold explorations in
the 1950s.
The end result was a manuscript that captured the facts about Fulford and its context in
Colorado’s mining boom times. Perske took the book beyond just Eagle County by
setting the scene with an explanation of Leadville’s mining boom and the railroad race to
Aspen staged by the Colorado Midland Railroad and the Denver & Rio Grande. A detailoriented author, he include sidebar information about how mining claims were patented,
the role that assay offices played in mining camps, and even the unusual canned-food
diets that sustained the miners. He explored the lives of the Eagle County pioneers who
were involved with the Fulford boom. He produced finely detailed, hand-drawn maps of
the mining camp that are included in the book.
With the influence of the ECHS, the book also includes an unusual appendix containing
reproduced historic newspaper accounts of the Fulford camp and some of its prominent
miners. Readers can see for themselves the first-hand accounts of how the events of the
time took shape.
The Eagle County Historical Society worked closely with Perske throughout the project.
Volunteer Kathy Heicher edited the book, breaking the text into chapters and locating and
getting permission to use relevant photographs and illustrations. ECHS volunteers Jaci
Spuhler, Bill Heicher and Joanne Cermak spent hours proofreading.
The local community, eager to know more about Fulford, stepped forward to assist with
the project financially. Grants to cover the publishing cost came from private individuals
and businesses, memorial donations, the Eagle Valley Library District, the Eagle River
Foundation and the Holy Cross Roundup Foundation. A local printing company, Eagle
Valley Printing, produced the book.
The end result was publication of the book in May 2015. The book has proven popular,
and sales of the volume benefit the Eagle County Historical Society. It is the only known
book specifically focused on Fulford.
The book was just the first step in making the public aware of the true story of Fulford.
The ECHS worked with local newspapers in publicizing the book. The Eagle Valley
Library District and Eagle County Historical Society honored author Perske with the
presentation of the Nimon-Walker Award (recognizing individuals who have helped to
preserve Eagle County’s history) at a May 3 reception that drew over 80 people. The line
of people seeking the author’s signature on the book stretched out into the hall.
This summer, the ECHS is continuing its efforts to share the facts about Fulford with a
special “Fulford History Hike” event (tentatively slated for Aug. 1). The docent-led hike
(including Perske) will take people through the remains of the mining camp and some
beautiful high mountain meadows. Participants will learn about the stagecoach road, the
ups and downs of the mining boom, the challenges of living in a mining camp and the
facts about the pioneers who were drawn to Fulford. The intent is to create a
hiking/history program that could be repeated annually as a fund-raising project for the
ECHS.
For those unable to handle a hike at 8,000-foot elevation, the ECHS will offer a “Fulford
Night at the Museum” event on Sept. 10 at their museum in Eagle. Again, the author will
be present to share the facts, and ECHS docents will create a PowerPoint Fulford history
program.
B. How the project has contributed to public awareness in Colorado history:
Until the publication of this book, Fulford’s history was a matter of legends and lore and
very little fact checking. Researchers, descendants of Fulford residents and people who
will always have a touch of gold fever will now have an accurate source to go to for facts
about Fulford.
The story of Fulford parallels Colorado’s history. This book tells the story of adventurous
and hard-working pioneers who were drawn here by the excitement of the gold and silver
mining time, but stayed on after the bust to create thriving mountain ranch community.
The book is an eye-opener for people who think Eagle County’s history started when the
Vail ski resort developed in the 1960s.
Frankly, the Fulford book project was a huge (and sometimes overwhelming) task for the
ECHS. It took three years, hundreds of volunteer hours and some strong community
support to move the project from idea to published book. We not only learned the facts
about Fulford, we learned how to obtain ISBN and Library of Congress numbers and bar
codes for the book price. We persuaded other publishers to share artwork and mined the
collections of the Eagle County Historical Society, Eagle Valley Library District, Denver
Public Library and History Colorado for useful photos and information. The fact that our
little Historical Society was able to produce a book of this quality serves as an example
for other groups who may be hesitant about taking a similar plunge into the world of
publishing local history books.
Supporting documentation including hard copies of the book and related publicity are
being sent via mail.