Fremont's Orchard

On the Overland Trail of the 1860s, the station west of Bijou Creek was Fremont’s Orchard named for one of the early explorers through the area, Captain John C. Fremont. The station lay approximately 20 miles from the Junction (Fort Morgan) and south of the South Platte River near modern-day Goodrich.

Fremont’s Orchard was not a true orchard in any real sense, but a grove of cottonwood trees that on the sparse plains was a delightful surprise. Perry Eberhart described Fremont’s Orchard as a meeting and trading place along the South Platte River trail and many travelers stopped for a night or two:

[Fremont’s Orchard] was long known as a haven to Indians and wary mountain men. It was also a meeting-place for Indians and traders, a rendezvous, pow-wow site where Indians traded valuable furs for baubles and beads brought from the east by the mountain men. 

In 1861 it was a logical site for a stage station, an oasis after 16 barren and difficult miles from the previous stop. As with other stations along the Platte River Trail, Fremont’s Orchard became the center for early settlers in the region. It was a supply center, social center, a place for settlers to congregate to learn the latest news from “the states” or just to watch the hopeful emigrants go by. As was necessary for stage stations of the day, Fremont’s Orchard had thick sturdy walls, “a fortress” for settlers during the Indian scares – and there were many….

Though this was a major camping place along the route, it wasn’t used was a stage station until Ben Holladay’s Overland Stage Company began operating in the area in 1862. In August 1863, a post office was established at Fremont’s Orchard with John D. Kinnear as postmaster, though the post office was discontinued a year later. The post office opened again briefly between 1874 and 1877.

The trail at this point was a difficult one through heavy sands. Charles M. Clark described the journey from Bijou Creek to Fremont’s Orchard – with a little practical joke along the way:

After leaving the cut-off [near Fort Morgan], there is a long strip of heavy sand to cross, which extends to Bijou Creek, a small clear running stream, but which is more or less tinctured with alkali, and it was generally considered unsafe to allow the cattle to drink of it. This alkali consists of potash, soda, lime, magnesia, etc., the products of burnt grass and plants, which have been consumed by the fires that often sweep over these vast prairies. 

We frequently saw large surfaces thickly incrusted with it, and so thick was the deposit, that we could have scraped up bushels of it. It is more frequently observed after a heavy rain, it being dissolved, and then precipitated upon the surface of the ground. Passing on from this creek, we found near the river bank, a fine spring of water, issuing from a crevice on the wall rock, falling into a moss lined basin, and passing through a pebbly channel to the river - one of those crystal founts whose beauty is full as refreshing as its water. 

After some miles of travel over the upland, we descended, and encamped for the night on a beautiful bottom, where we found excellent feed for our stock. After supper, and while many of us were seated within the tent, engaged at euchre, several of our number, who were without, discovered what they termed an ingis fatuus, or will-o'-the-wisp, dancing oer the bottom, near a line of marsh, and all were called out to look at it.... 

Just then, another one appeared, moving backwards and forwards, and apparently approaching us, and several of the party, with Fred at the head, proceeded after it. After some minutes, they returned and stated that they had succeeded in getting quite close to it, and one remarked that it was the “prettiest thing he ever saw, burning with a blue, flickering flame” -...[we] were about ready to start, when a smothered, tell-tale snicker, from one of the party, arrested our attention, and we decided to remain in status quo and await the denouement.... our will-o'-the-wisps were two lanterns, in the hands of men, who were out looking up their cattle.... 

    

On leaving here, we follow up the bottom, and soon rise a heavy hill, which leads us over a ridge for a distance of about two miles, when we descend a precipitous bank, and find ourselves in Fremont's orchard, where there are many ancient looking cottonwoods, bearing a striking resemblance to so many old apple trees, which is the first timber that is met with after leaving O'Fallon's bluff. The bluffs or sand hills that border this orchard on one side, are cut and divided into many channels, which wind and circle back for long distances, sometimes terminating abruptly, but oftener dividing into others, which, if followed, will sometimes lead to the summit of the hill, or back again to the bottom from whence we started. 

In following them up, we notice on either side many niches and caves, together with isolated pillows and columns of sand; indeed, in many places it is like groping through the ruins of an ancient city. Here is an old cathedral front, with its gothic arches and columns, its pinnacles and spires, its ornamented niches and canopies, and large ramified windows; and there are numerous pedestals, towers, and fantastic figures, all of which are exceedingly curious, and well worthy of more than a passing notice. We continued our way through the orchard, which stretches out for a half mile or more; and at a distance of four miles, reached Fremont's Hill...

In 1862, a toll road was built at Fremont’s Orchard called the Fremont Orchard Plank Road and Turnpike Company extending from Bijou creek along the south side of the Platte, but the road was still challenging. In 1863, the Platte Valley Wagon Road Company was chartered to improve the road, but this proved too much of a challenge. Fremont’s Orchard became less traveled when the Overland Mail was diverted along the Cut-off in 1865 at the military establishment of Fort Morgan and went overland directly to Denver.

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Sources:

1. Photo: What Fremont's Orchard may have looked like. Photo taken near Orchard, Colorado by author.
2. Map: Fremont's Orchard station in John M. Townley, The Overland Stage: A History and Guidebook (Reno, NV: Jamison Station Press, 1994).
3. Sources:
4. Clark, Charles M. A Trip to Pike's Peak and Notes by the Way (Chicago, IL: S. P. rounds' steam book, 1861).
5. Eberhart, Perry, Ghosts of the Colorado Plains (Athens, OH: Swallow Press, 1986).
6. General Laws and Joint Resolutions, Memorials and Private Acts, Passed at the Second Session of the Legislative Assembly of the Colorado Territory (Denver, CO: Rocky Mountain Printing, 1862), p. 109-110.
7. Monahan, Doris, Destination, Denver City: The South Platte Trail‎ (Athens, OH: Swallow Press, 1985).
8. Shwayder, Carol Rein, Chronology of Weld County, Colorado, 1836-1983 (Greeley, CO: Unicorn Ventures, 1983).