At 10 a.m. on May 21, the Gilpin County commissioners recessed their work session and drove to Mile Marker 2 of Highway 119 to tour various historic sites around the county. They began at Cottonwood Camp, unveiling the Chinese Pioneers sign. They also visited the historic Red Tail cabins near Robinson Hill.

There will be four new heritage tourism route signs throughout the county. The commissioners unveiled two of them today, with the other two scheduled for unveiling later this summer.

Grant Manager Jamie Boyle and County Manager Ray Rears attended the first sign unveiling.

Boyle described the sign’s content, noting that from 1870 to the 1890s, Gilpin County had a significant group of Chinese immigrants, primarily miners, who did back-breaking physical labor such as pan-mining leftover gold mines in the area.

Many of the miners were recruited from China, or from the railroad in other parts of western America, by an influential leader, Chin Lin Sou. He had been a crew leader on the Central Pacific Railroad and had an excellent grasp of English, earning him respect in Gilpin County.

He brought his wife and their daughter, Lilly, to Gilpin County. Lilly is believed to be the first Chinese-American child born in Colorado.

Initially residing in Central City, the Chinese immigrants were eventually forced out of town and relocated to Cottonwood Camp, which had a train depot, houses, and infrastructure until a flood wiped out everything in 1911.

This community, numbering over a hundred, was, outside of Denver, the largest group of Chinese immigrants in the state – an important yet often overlooked part of local history.

There are no markers for their graves or much documentation of their lives. Gilpin County worked closely with the Gilpin County Historical Society to gather information, which was taken from the Society’s book, The Little Kingdom of Gilpin.

Cottonwood Creek provided the group with clean drinking water, as much of the available local water was polluted with mining runoff.

Rears mentioned that he had performed a cleanup of the area ten years prior, where he possibly saw some Asian pottery shards along the creek. The only remaining remnants of the Chinese immigrants are the mineral cases in the commissioners’ room at the Gilpin Courthouse, which have a distinct Asian style.

Commissioner Sandy Hollingsworth noted that May is Asian-Pacific Islander Month, making the unveiling particularly timely. Boyle summarized that shedding light on the group’s history and honoring their presence felt appropriate.

The signs were funded through Gilpin’s lodging tax, revenue of which provided the $7,000 needed to match a Colorado Tourism Grant. Together, they completely covered the project’s costs.

Next, the commissioners visited the historic Redtail Cabins, located off Robinson Hill at 114 Redtail Road, a private dirt road only recently named. Two historic cabins, a concrete root cellar, and the remains of a stone building, all believed to be built around 1900, occupy the property.

The County acquired the property around 2018, and the commissioners expressed a desire to see the cabins since they had yet to visit them.

Then the commissioners went to see the second sign on the tour, located at the Gilpin County Community Center on the west side of the building.

This sign describes the strange tale of a submarine discovered in Missouri Lake in 1932. The submarine was commissioned by the U.S. Navy to be built in Central City by Rufus T. Owen in 1898.

Owen tested the submarine in Missouri Lake, but the placement of rocks inside for ballast was miscalculated, causing the sub to sink. Permanently.

It was forgotten until 1932, when a mining company needed to drain some of the lake for ore mining. Then, in 1944, a Central City resident recovered the sub from the lake. It sits today on display at the Gilpin History Museum located at 228 East First High Street in Central City.

For more information, visit the Heritage Tour signs at mile marker 2 of Highway 119, and at the Community Center at 250 Norton Drive.