Apache was, and is, more an area than a town. It encompassed the fertile lands north and south of Apache Creek east of Greenhorn Mountain to its confluence with the Huerfano River. It included a school and post office (1894-1925) and, for a few years at its height, a high school.
The community takes its name from the creek which was once in the hunting grounds of the Apache Indians. According to Ralph C. Taylor, longtime chronicler of local history, the creek earned its name in 1840. At that time a small party traveling south to New Mexico was attacked by Apaches who attempted to capture the sole woman traveler who was riding with her infant son. To elude the hostiles and rejoin her menfolk, she was forced to jump her horse across an arroyo without losing her grip on the baby. Her successful leap to freedom was commemorated not by naming the creek after her, but after her pursuers.
Much of Apache's history is associated with Greenhorn, a very old community north of Apache in Pueblo County. Greenhorn was named for Indian Chief Cuerno Verde, which translates to Green Horn, who was killed in battle with New Mexican troops in 1779. Green Horn was, however, a Comanche. Oh well.
Many of the first settlers were members of the Georgia Colony. This "colony" comprised many emigrants from Georgia and North Carolina who headed west for a new start after the Civil War. They arrived by wagons and railroad cars from the late 1860s well into the 1890s as relatives, friends and neighbors joined the westerners.
Apache was the home of one of the colony's first leaders, Green Russell, whose party found gold in Russell Gulch above Denver in 1859 and founded Auraria, now Aurora
Russell had a farm on the Apache but spent much of his time prospecting for gold in the mountains. The little ghost town of Russell on Highway 160, just west of the summit of North Veta Pass, is named for Green, who mined there for many years.
Apache shares its name with a settlement of a later date situated on the Denver and Rio Grande line. The original Apache was strictly an agricultural community.
It is located on the plain north of Huerfano Butte, along the interstate.
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