# Sentinel Rock inscription cave (stage waiting place, 1870s-1890s)

- URL: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/sentinel-rock-inscription-cave-stage-waiting-place-1870s-1890s/
- Also known as: the Perry Park stage cave
- Kind: Other sites
- Status: Living today
- County: Douglas County, Colorado
- Point: 39.2614, -104.9902 (from a cited description (good to a few hundred feet))

- Updated: 2026-10-17

## What we know

A cave at the foot of a smaller rock beside Sentinel Rock. In the late 1800s people taking the stage to meet the railroad at Larkspur stopped and sheltered here, and while they waited some carved their names and dates into the soft rock (Larkspur Historical Society, Gary O'Hara, 2015, S-0045). By 1882 a free carriage met the 8:15 D&RG train at Larkspur for the Perry Park resort (Rocky Mountain News advertisement, Aug. 9, 1882; S-0016). The earliest legible inscription is 'CARRIE CURTIS 1871', which the society thinks was carved by one of the Henry Harper Curtis family, with 'H.H. Curtis 1876' nearby; about 40 inscriptions are at least partly readable, with dates as late as 1928 (S-0045). The country club's history calls the cave an early stagecoach stop with carvings 'dating from the 1860s' (S-0243). No 1860s source has been found: the earliest date in the cave is 1871, and Perry Park's stage connection appears in the newspapers from 1882. The area's 1860s stage station was Sarah Coberly's on Spring Creek, about 2.5 miles north (see Coberly-Crull Spring Creek ranch).

## Where it was

At the 11th tee of the Perry Park Country Club, the start of hole 11 in OpenStreetMap (way 868204101, 2026-10-17). The Larkspur Historical Society puts the cave at the base of 'the much shorter rock just to the South of Sentinel Rock' and says 'Sentinel Rock is situated near the golfing tee-off of hole 11' (S-0045); the club's history puts the cave 'on today's 11th tee' (S-0243). Sentinel Rock itself has no point in the federal names file or in OpenStreetMap. Good to a few hundred feet.

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

## Sources

- S-0016: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0016
- S-0045: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0045
- S-0103: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0103
- S-0243: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0243

## Nearby

- [Nanichant Inn (Nanichant House)](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/nanichant-inn-nanichant-house/): 0.3 mi southeast
- [Perry Park Manor House (1891)](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/perry-park-manor-house-1891/): 0.3 mi east
- [Perry Park](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/perry-park/): 0.3 mi south
- [Perry Park post office (1892)](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/perry-park-post-office-1892/): 0.5 mi south
- [B-17 crash (1944)](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/b-17-crash-1944/): 1.1 mi southeast
- [George Nickson ranch (Park Valley Ranch; Nickson Brothers Ranch)](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/george-nickson-ranch-park-valley-ranch-nickson-brothers-ranch/): 1.5 mi northeast

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