What we know
Sarah Coberly bought 'the Ratcliff claims situate on Spring creek,' two of 160 acres each, from George Ratcliff and Henry Chevalier for $800 on July 30, 1863 (quitclaim deed), and patented 120 acres here as Sarah A. Crull in 1870 (S-0080). The Castle Rock Journal of March 9, 1906 put her early-1860s hotel and stage station on East Plum Creek and said she 'later, as Mrs. Crull, owned and lived upon the Spring Creek ranch, now a part of the George Ratcliff property on West Plum creek.' After her divorce in 1881 she sold to Ratcliff (Josephine Lowell Marr, Walk With Our Pioneers, p. 15), and about 1881-82 William Dillon put up half the price of this 'Crull Ranch,' later the T-Ranch's upper or Meadow Ranch (Dillon family history; all via S-0199). Scott makes it the Half-Way House, an overnight stage stop of about 1858-64, citing the muster roll of Co. A, 1st Colorado, there in October 1863 and a Coberly family letter of 1961, with a move to East Plum Creek in 1864; his 1999 map puts 'Coberly House or Halfway House 1858-1864' within about 230 feet of this point and 'Coberly House or Halfway House 1864-1869' near Huntsville, about 7 miles east (S-0106). Whether the stage stop was ever here is unsettled; the family's own records put the Half-Way House at Huntsville (see 'Coberly's Half-Way House, Huntsville (1860s)'). Wherever it stood, 'Mrs. Coberly's Ranch' was named on the first territorial road, from Denver City to Pueblo, in the roads act of 1862 (via Scott); it was 'Denver to Coberly's 35 miles 1,260 yards' (Rocky Mountain News, Jan. 21, 1864), or about 38 miles from Denver and 24 from Colorado City (Richard Bangs, in a later newspaper retelling); and it was an 1861 election precinct. On Sept. 22, 1863 a Third Regiment soldier was shot dead by a comrade 'on the road near Mrs. Coberly's' and 'buried near where killed' (Rocky Mountain News, Sept. 25, 1863, via S-0199). A Perry Park tradition puts the Half-Way House at the Perry homestead, the guest house on the North Ranch of Perry Park, said to have been a stagecoach stop and later moved (Ardis Webb, The Perry Park Story, 1976; Marr, Walk With Our Pioneers; via S-0199). It is a tradition only, not confirmed by any record.
Where it was
SE1/4 NE1/4 of Sec. 4, T9S R68W, on Spring Creek west of West Plum Creek: Glenn Scott's historic trail map, citing the 1863 muster roll and Coberly family correspondence of 1961 (Larkspur binder 1 p. 104). Center of that quarter-quarter; good to about a quarter mile. Sarah A. Crull's cash-entry patent of May 20, 1870 includes the SE1/4 NE1/4 of Sec. 4, T9S R68W (BLM GLO record as printed in Larkspur binder 1 p. 42); an 1872 road company's route starts 'From Mrs. Crull's Ranch [Coberly House or Halfway House]' (Scott, same page).
Placed from a written description, such as a land section, a distance from a landmark or an old survey note.
Sources
- S-0005: Larkspur Historical Society, "Historical Site Survey Binders"
- S-0016: Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection (coloradohistoricnewspapers.org)
- S-0080: General Land Office land patents, Bureau of Land Management (glorecords.blm.gov)
- S-0106: Glenn R. Scott, Historic Trail Map of the Denver 1° × 2° Quadrangle, Central Colorado (USGS Miscellaneous Investigations Series Map I-2639)
- S-0199: Larkspur Historical Society, the document store behind its "LHS Search Agent" (larkspurhistoricalsociety.org/resources/lhs-search-agents/): 362 files, about 810 MB, uploaded April–June 2026
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.