Pearl Lake State Park
State park in Routt County, Colorado
Pearl Lake State Park, at the base of Farwell Mountain, is in Routt County, Colorado near the town of Hahns Peak Village, Colorado and is north of Steamboat Springs. Pearl Lake is named for M. Pearl Hartt, the wife of pioneer sheep rancher, John Kelly Hartt.
History
John Kelly Hartt was a principal owner of three of the largest sheep companies in U.S. history—Pioneer, Cow Creek and Yellowstone. The sheep wintered near Rawlins, Wyoming. The Cow Creek and Pioneer sheep summered near Hahn's Peak, Colorado in the place that is now Pearl Lake. John Kelly Hartt died in the early 1950s, eventually resulting in the sale of the land by his wife, Pearl, to the U.S. Forest Service. That sale started the event that shifted this region from primarily agricultural to primarily recreational.
Activities
Recreational opportunities in Pearl State Park include camping, boating, fishing and picnicking. There are 36 campsites amongst the forest of fir, spruce and pine. In addition to tent camping, trailers and small motor homes are permitted.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Pearl Lake State Park” is state park in Routt County, Colorado. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Pearl, Lake and State, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “state park in Routt County, Colorado” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7158118. Authority coordinates are 40.787, -106.891. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Pearl Lake State Park”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Pearl Lake State Park primary sources, Pearl Lake State Park archive and Pearl research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Pearl Lake State Park”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Pearl Lake State Park” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.