Foster, James Allen (1827 � 1895)
[There is a discrepancy about his date of death between the information from this book and the cemetery information from Foster Cemetery from the Las Animas County website.]
Ex-Confederate Colonel James Allen Foster took over operation of a stage shop on the original townsite of Apishapa in 1868. This stage stop had previously been established in 1862 � 1863. Foster built a two-story hotel of adobe, while his wife brought in the guests with her good cooking.
Foster�s Place was the most popular stop along the stage line. Indian scares were frequent, but Foster�s was never attacked.
When the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad built a track through the area, Foster�s Place became a railroad stop. Foster built a station and hotel down the line, called �Augusta.� In later years the buildings were used as a sanitarium for the tubercular patients.
Mrs. Susan Foster died in 1889. James Foster left Colorado for a time, only to return with a new bride, a southern belle named Margaret.
When James Foster died in 1895, the second Mrs. Foster buried him next to the first wife in a cemetery now known as Fosters Cemetery. Margaret (the second wife) died in 1908. A large stone marker was erected with her name on one side, and Susan�s (the first wife) name on the other side. James Foster�s monument stood next to the memorial of the two wives, until it was vandalized in the 1970s.
From "From the Grave, A Roadside Guide to Colorado's Pioneer Cemeteries," by Linda Wommack, published by Caxton Press, Caldwell, Idaho in 1998
