Hello! and welcome to the Pueblo County Colorado USGenWeb page. Your County Coordinator for this page is Karen Mitchell (km1109@ghvalley.net) . I took over this page on 3-14-2002 and hope to add the data you need to help with your research. If there is anything special you would like to see here please let me know. I welcome all contributions and will try to get your data posted ASAP. Be sure to contact me for assistance. I would like to thank the previous County Coordinator, Laurie Daugherty, for her hard work and dedication. If you would like to help out or adopt a COGenWeb county, please contact the State Coordinator Gail Kilgore .
Brief Historical SketchPueblo County is one of the original Colorado counties. In 1866 part of Huerfano County was added to the southeast corner. Named for the Spanish word for "town" or "village". The group of adobe houses built at the site of the present City of Pueblo in 1841-1842 came to be known as "the pueblo". The name was then adopted by the city and then suggested as the name for the county. For Centuries, people have camped or settled in what we now call Pueblo, the crossroads of the Fountain Creek and the Arkansas River. Zebulon Pike camped at the confluence of the rivers in 1806. It was from this campsite that he made his unsuccessful assault on nearby Pikes Peak. In the 1840's, fur traders built Fort Pueblo. From that fort, which was later abandoned after the Indian Massacre in 1854, came the name Pueblo. With the advent of the gold rush in 1858, settlements sprang up all over the West, and the city of Pueblo took off. By 1880 the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad had found its way to Pueblo, and the Colorado Coal and Iron Company was producing steel profitably. Western Union had linked Pueblo with Denver, and Pueblo's population had almost reached 35,000, more than half of whom were immigrants who made a living in the steel mill and who stayed to give Pueblo its strength. On June 3, 1921, the Arkansas River left its banks to inundate the heart of the city, causing millions of dollars in damage. One-hundred and twenty lives were lost, and 142 were missing on that fateful day ... but Pueblo survived. And to make sure that a tragedy never recurs, the river bed was moved and confined to a concrete channel where it flows quietly today. Part of the river path is being brought back to its original place through downtown to make the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk of Pueblo.
The population of Pueblo County:
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| © 2002 - 2008 Karen Mitchell |
These County pages were swept 5-22-2008.
