What we know
George Ratcliff, from Derbyshire, England, rode for the pony express before coming to the Divide in 1860 (McGrath's Real Pioneers of Colorado, vol. 3, and a Dillon family history, in the Larkspur Historical Society's files, S-0199). In July 1863 he sold two claims on Spring Creek, 'the Ratcliff claims,' to Sarah Coberly (S-0199). In the late 1860s he lived at what became part of the Perry Park Ranch; the Dillon history says he first homesteaded there and later sold those holdings and moved to the T-Ranch (S-0199), and the county map credits him with starting the ranch at the Sinclaire House (S-0123). By September 1874, a county commissioner living near the Bear Canon post office, he had 720 acres here at the mouth of Spring Creek, 200 cows and a new two-story frame house, 22 by 32 feet. He patented more land nearby from 1872 to 1904; about 1882 he and William Dillon, who married his daughter Elizabeth in 1885, bought Mrs. Crull's Spring Creek ranch, later the upper or Meadow Ranch; and in 1887 Newton Grout put up 'very substantial buildings' for him. The T-Ranch, apparently named for its T brand, grew to 5,000 acres. Ratcliff died at the family home on West Plum Creek on Sept. 20, 1909 (S-0199). Clara Turner, whose family lived on the T Ranch in the 1910s, named its owners as 'Dillon, Ratcliffe and Dillon' and confirmed 'Their brand was a T'; the way from the ranch to the Lone Tree school went 'by the Camel Rock' (DCL oral histories doh/663, 1993, and doh/1067, 1995, S-0213).
Where it was
Placed at the mouth of Spring Creek on Plum Creek (USGS GNIS, S-0007), from a September 1874 description of the farm 'lying on Spring creek where it empties into Plum Creek' (Larkspur Historical Society files, S-0199). Ratcliff's 1872 patent for the SW1/4 SE1/4 of Sec. 26, T8S R68W lies 0.4 mile northeast (BLM GLO record, S-0199), and GNIS's Ratcliff Plum Creek Ditch is 0.33 mile south (S-0007); the 1874 distances (ten miles from Castle Rock, eight from Larkspur) and a later '10 miles from Sedalia' fit. The house site is not known. 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-0006: USGS Geographic Names Information System, Colorado file, 2021-08-25 edition
- S-0007: USGS GNIS DomesticNames, Colorado (current edition)
- 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-0123: Douglas County Historic Resource Map (Douglas County Community Planning and Sustainable Development, the Douglas County History Research Center of Douglas County Libraries, and the Douglas County Historic Preservation Board, 2012), as put on Google Maps and Google Earth by the Larkspur Historical Society
- 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-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.