What we know
The first settlement at Palmer Lake: a cabin near the north end of the lake about 1869, with a barn and a corn mill whose timbers were cut '1869'. Owned by Judge Hiram P. Bennet, Hiram Jr., Joseph F. Bennet, Daniel C. Oakes and Alvin B. Daniels; Joseph Bennet's family lived in the cabin and he carried mail on the Divide before the trains (recollection). Sold in 1885 to Frank D. McClure; T. A. Hanks ran his livery here until 1899; the Higginsons bought part in 1907; the ranch house was razed in August 1958 (Sabin, S-0019, pp. 15, 21, 49, 56, 64, 113). The Bennet brothers built a barn with a grist mill in 1871; Thomas A. Hanks built the 1909 barn, which came down on July 4, 2008 (PLHS newsletter, 2008; S-0002).
Where it was
'Near the north end of the lake'; 'the tilled fields, the log cabin, the later frame house and other buildings lay a quarter of a mile over the line in El Paso' (Sabin, S-0019, pp. 15, 21). Placed a quarter mile south of the county line (the north line of Sec. 5, T11S R67W, BLM PLSS) above the lake's north end. Good to about a quarter mile.
Placed from a written description, such as a land section, a distance from a landmark or an old survey note.
Sources
- S-0002: Palmer Lake Historical Society website (palmerdividehistory.org)
- S-0019: Marion Savage Sabin, Palmer Lake: A Historical Narrative, ed. Lloyd McFarling; 2nd ed. by Roger Davis; "Fifth Edition" (Palmer Lake: Palmer Lake Historical Society, 2019); first published Denver: Sage Books, 1957
- S-0120: Bureau of Land Management, National Public Land Survey System (PLSS) data: CadNSDI section and quarter-section polygons, Colorado
Sources are named in the text above. Numbers such as S-0080 refer to our source list. Most newspaper quotations were read in the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. Long quotations from recent books are shortened here.