# Upton T. Smith farm

- URL: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/upton-t-smith-farm/

- Kind: Ranches and homesteads
- Status: Historic or vanished
- County: Douglas County, Colorado
- Point: 39.3222, -104.9745 (from a cited description (good to a quarter mile))

- Updated: 2026-10-17

## What we know

In fall 1869 Upton T. Smith entered a quarter of this section from the government; he improved it and kept it, and by 1898 his farm was 560 acres (PBR 1898, S-0191, pp. 1230-1231). Cash entries in Sec. 27 (1877 and 1895) and in Secs. 24 and 27 (1899), T8S R68W, added to his homestead quarter to make that total (BLM GLO records, in the Larkspur Historical Society's files, S-0199). The society's ranch history says he built a log cabin in 1869 and was superintendent of the Perry Park Ranch in 1876 (S-0199). He combined farming and dairying: in 1889 he sold butter in Denver at 25 cents a pound, and in 1894 he milked about 30 cows and took the milk to the Sedalia separator (Castle Rock Journal, July 17, 1889, and July 18, 1894, S-0199). He was county treasurer and the first commander of Blunt Post No. 65, G.A.R. (PBR 1898), and later vice president of the First National Bank of Castle Rock and president of the Peoples Bank (Stone, S-0193, vol. 4 p. 274). By 1902 he lived in Castle Rock, in a house of native rhyolite at 403 Cantril Street (S-0199).

## Where it was

The SW1/4 of Sec. 26, T8S R68W, Upton T. Smith's 160-acre homestead patent of Feb. 15, 1873 (BLM GLO record, in the Larkspur Historical Society's files, S-0199), probably the quarter of this section he entered in 1869 (Portrait and Biographical Record of Denver and Vicinity, 1898, p. 1230, S-0191). The point is the center of that quarter on the BLM PLSS grid, so it marks the land, not the house. 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: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0016
- S-0045: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0045
- S-0080: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0080
- S-0120: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0120
- S-0191: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0191
- S-0193: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0193
- S-0199: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/#s-0199

## Nearby

- [George Ratcliff ranch (the T-Ranch)](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/george-ratcliff-ranch-the-t-ranch/): 0.4 mi south
- [Lone Tree School](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/lone-tree-school/): 0.4 mi northeast
- [Jackson Creek Ranch (Newton S. Grout)](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/jackson-creek-ranch-newton-s-grout/): 1.5 mi northwest
- [Coberly-Crull Spring Creek ranch (1863-about 1882)](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/coberly-crull-spring-creek-ranch-1863-about-1882/): 2.1 mi southwest
- [Peter Brennan ranch (later the Ford Ranch)](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/peter-brennan-ranch-later-the-ford-ranch/): 2.4 mi southwest
- [Vera Burton homestead (1940)](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/vera-burton-homestead-1940/): 2.4 mi east

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