Exploring local history: The cemetery just north of the town site on a hill, looking toward Bald Mountain, May 1966. PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE BOULDER LIBRARY FOR LOCAL HISTORY[/caption]
Located on parts of the Enterprise Lode is the Caribou Cemetery. According to documentation, the first burials were in 1875, and the last was in 1898. Barbed-wire fencing went up in 1953. The year was 1958 when burials continued. Then again in 2020.
Many of the first burials were miners who came from the tin mines of Cornwall, on the very southwestern tip of the United Kingdom. Their children, who died of diphtheria and scarlet fever, were buried at Caribou too.
Today, Caribou Cemetery is in the process of some much-needed restoration, thanks to the collaboration with the Nederland Area Historical Society and a group of individuals. One of the people involved in the project is Silvia Pettem.
Pettem first visited the Caribou Cemetery in 2004. She found herself appalled at its damage and neglect. Though she has always been into western Boulder County’s mining history and cemeteries, at the time, it never occurred to her that there was anything she could do.
It wasn’t until Pettem’s friend, Julie Annear, whom she had met in the 1980s, called that Pettem realized that together, they could begin to restore some dignity and respect to those buried at Caribou.
Pettem shares, “I’ve researched and written on Boulder County history for decades. Combined with my interests in genealogy, I feel that my contribution is to portray Caribou through its social history,” including writing about the people who lived and died there.
There are between 30 and 40 burial sites at the Caribou Cemetery, but not all names are known. Pettem hopes to get the word out to the public, creating the cemetery’s website and speaking, along with others, at an upcoming meeting of the Denver Mining Club.
Many involved in the restoration project had a connection with Tom Hendricks. He was buried at the cemetery in January 2020. Pettem considers herself a “cemetery person.” She says, “I’m one of those people who seem to need that connection to a previous era. Kind of like going back in time.”
Memories of taking wildflower hikes with grandchildren in the Caribou townsite and around Caribou Hill are part of the inspiration to restore Caribou Cemetery. The result of the project is to make the cemetery inviting to descendants and friends of those buried there.
With any hope, the restoration project will allow the cemetery to “remain a place of beauty and reflection.” Pettem also wishes to “see markers installed for the known burials so that those people will be remembered,” and to see the community inspired by these efforts.
To learn more about the Caribou Cemetery restoration project or to make a donation, visit http:// cariboucemetery.com/. To find out more about the Denver Mining Club, visit https://www.denverminingclub.org/. For further information visit the Nederland Area Historical Society’s website: https://www. nederlandareahistoricalsociety.org/.
Sponsored by the Town of Nederland, with funds from the American Rescue Plan Act.
