Creede, Colorado
town in and county seat of Mineral County, Colorado, United States
The City of Creede is the statutory town that is the county seat of Mineral County, Colorado, United States. It is the most populous community and the sole surviving incorporated municipality in the county. The town population was 257 at the 2020 United States census.
History
Before the Territory of Colorado was created in 1861, all of what is now western Colorado was occupied by the Nuche, commonly known as the Ute people. In 1866, Kit Carson, Ouray, and Nicaagat negotiated a treaty that in 1868 created the Ute Indian Reservation comprising all land in the Colorado Territory west of the 107th meridian west and south of the 40th parallel north: 25,780 square miles (66,800 km2) or about 25% of Colorado. In 1869, White prospectors, illegally trespassing on the reservation, discovered silver in the San Juan Mountains. Seeking to open the San Juan Mountains to mining, the Brunot Agreement, ratified by Congress on April 24, 1874, forced the Ute people to cede 5,780 square miles (15,000 km2) in the San Juan Mountains. Buoyed by renewed mining, Colorado became the 38th State on August 1, 1876.
In the summer of 1889, prospector Nicholas C. Creede (nee William Harvey) discovered indications of silver along Willow Creek in Saguache County, and on June 26, 1890, Creede and G.L. Smith staked the Holy Moses mining claim. Several silver mining camps soon sprang up in the gulch, and the Creede Mining District was created in 1891.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Creede, Colorado” is town in and county seat of Mineral County, Colorado, United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Creede, Colorado and town, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “town in and county seat of Mineral County, Colorado, United States” 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 Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2276193. VIAF identifies the subject as 123185749. The Library of Congress control number is n82225402. Authority coordinates are 37.850, -106.926. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1861, 1866 and 1868.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. 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 “Creede, Colorado”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Creede, Colorado primary sources, Creede, Colorado archive and Creede 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 “Creede, Colorado”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Creede, Colorado” 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.