What we know
George Nickson, from England, lived with his sister Mary and her husband, George Ratcliff, at 'Perry Place' until he took up a homestead north of it on West Plum Creek: 160 acres and a log cabin, in 1872. The ranch grew to 840 acres and more than doubled with 1,080 acres bought from Harry Jones in 1907; its barn of 1900 was built with pegs, not nails, and it ran a dairy from the early 1900s until 1934. His sons Andrew, Joe and Charles were partners from 1913 to 1918, and the family sold the ranch, then 1,800 acres, in 1950 (Barbara Cannon's history of Huntsville and Larkspur, in the Larkspur Historical Society's files, S-0199). Clues: in 1876 the Glen Grove school was moved 'near the highway below the John Kinner place east of the George Nickson place,' so the Nickson place was probably west of the road near the Kinner house; another account puts it on Highway 105 south of the West View Ranch, near Perry Park (S-0199). Andrew Nickson's 1916 patent for the E1/2 NE1/4 of Sec. 7, T9S R67W was a later addition, not the homestead (S-0199). In April 1886 a Perry Park correspondent wrote that 'George Nickson, who resides one mile northwest from here, is busy at present, bailing hay' (Castle Rock Journal, April 7, 1886). His obituary says he served the South in the Civil War, came to Colorado after it and settled 'near Perry Park,' with ranch buildings 'as good as any in the county'; he died in late October 1901 and was buried at Bear Canon cemetery (Castle Rock Journal, Nov. 1, 1901; S-0202). A Douglas County Libraries photograph of George and Sarah Nickson outside their log cabin (dated 1880-1895) puts the cabin 'near the intersection of Tomah Road and Highway 105 in Glen Grove', about 0.9 mile east of this point, and says Nickson came to West Plum Creek in 1866, first applied for a homestead on Feb. 8, 1869, and married Sarah Paddison in 1872 (DCL photos/2192, S-0213).
Where it was
On the 1937 county aerial photograph (sheet 163) the ranch headquarters, large barns, corrals and a house among trees on the creek bank, stands in the NW SW of Sec. 11, inside the 1875 patent; the point is on it (DCL aerials, S-0213). Good to a few hundred feet. Earlier placement: George Nickson's patent of Dec. 1, 1875, in the same certificate series as Koontz's homestead and probably his own: W1/2 SW, NE SW and NW SE of Sec. 11, T9S R68W (BLM GLO, S-0080); the center of those tracts on the BLM PLSS grid (S-0120). His earlier patents adjoin it on the west and south: E1/2 SE, NW SE and SE NE of Sec. 10 (Aug. 5, 1869), SE SW and SW SE of Sec. 11 (Dec. 15, 1870) and SW SE of Sec. 10 (June 5, 1871) (S-0080). 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-0016: Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection (coloradohistoricnewspapers.org)
- S-0045: Larkspur Historical Society website (larkspurhistoricalsociety.org)
- S-0046: Douglas County Libraries, Archives & Local History: "Douglas County Timeline," "Douglas County Historic Sites," "Douglas County Schools Overview" (research collection PDFs 2, 7, 6)
- S-0080: General Land Office land patents, Bureau of Land Management (glorecords.blm.gov)
- S-0120: Bureau of Land Management, National Public Land Survey System (PLSS) data: CadNSDI section and quarter-section polygons, Colorado
- 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
- S-0202: Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection: the unlocated-list hunt, 1867–1960 (via S-0016)
- S-0213: Douglas County Libraries, Archives & Local History, digital archive (archives.dcl.org, CONTENTdm cdm17197): item records of all 15 collections
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.