# Dirty Woman's Ranch (by 1861)

- URL: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/dirty-womans-ranch-by-1861/
- Also known as: the 'Dirty Woman Ranch'
- Kind: Ranches and homesteads
- Status: Historic or vanished
- County: El Paso County, Colorado
- Point: 39.0839, -104.8703 (from a cited description (good to half a mile))

- Updated: 2026-10-17

## What we know

A road ranch on the creek that still carries its name. Mrs. Byron N. Sanford (Mollie Dorsey Sanford) wrote in her journal on Dec. 27, 1861: 'Last night we stopped at what is called 'Dirty Woman's Ranch' and really it could have no more appropriate name'; a pig had got its head stuck in the cream jar (as quoted by Lavelett, S-0011, p. 46; her account of Camp Weld and Fort Lyon in 1861-62 was printed in the Colorado Magazine in 1930, cited by Perrigo, S-0156). Henry B. Walker and his wife lived 'on what was the 'Dirty Woman Ranch'' from 1862; their son Ben was born there on Aug. 12, 1864, and passing soldiers camped there and bought milk, butter and eggs (Lavelett 1979, S-0013, p. 65; see Henry Walker's house burned, Sept. 1868). A clipping in the Larkspur binders calls it a home station on Monument Creek (S-0199). Lavelett's town history says the gulch was named in the 1870s for a woman who kept animals in her shack (S-0011, p. 46), and Case has the woman homesteading in the 1870s (S-0110); the 1861 journal makes the name at least a decade older. Monument's Dirty Woman Creek Park, declared in 1979, keeps it (S-0013).

## Where it was

Glenn Scott's historical trails map, which labels it 'Dirty Womans Ranch 1860 (Location?)' (S-0106): about 220 feet from Dirty Woman Creek and half a mile south-southeast of Front and Second streets. Lavelett puts the gulch at 'the first creek crossed when entering Monument from the south' (S-0011, p. 46), and has the Walkers moving 'down to the edge of Monument' to live on the ranch (S-0013, p. 65). Good to about half a mile.

Placed from a written description, such as a land section, a distance from a landmark or an old survey note.

## Sources

- S-0005: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0005
- S-0011: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0011
- S-0013: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0013
- S-0072: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0072
- S-0106: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0106
- S-0110: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0110
- S-0156: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0156
- S-0199: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0199

## Nearby

- [Santa Fe stone arch bridge](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/santa-fe-stone-arch-bridge/): 0.2 mi northeast
- [Santa Fe bridge collapse (July 17, 1895)](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/santa-fe-bridge-collapse-july-17-1895/): 0.2 mi northeast
- [G.A.R. Hall, Monument](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/g-a-r-hall-monument/): 0.4 mi north
- [St. Peter Catholic Church (1911)](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/st-peter-catholic-church-1911/): 0.5 mi north
- [Rio Grande cattle pens, Monument](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/rio-grande-cattle-pens-monument/): 0.5 mi northwest
- [Monument public school (1890s)](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/monument-public-school-1890s/): 0.5 mi north

Source numbers (S-0000) refer to https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/. Compiled by Michael Christensen for Palmer Divide Research; CC BY 4.0.