Virginia Dale ~ Virginia Dale, Colorado - Colorado Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

PANEL 1

At midnight we drew up at Virginia Dale Station. . . . Nature, with her artistic pencil, has here been most extravagant with her limnings. Even in the dim starlight, its beauties were most striking and apparent. The dark evergreens dotted the hillsides, and occasionally a giant pine towered upward far above its dwarfy companions, like a sentinel on the outposts of a sleeping encampment.
— Edward Bliss, Overland Trail stagecoach passenger, 1862

What a welcome sight Virginia Dale must have been to nineteenth-century travelers. It was one of the largest stagecoach stations on the Overland Trail, offering hot meals and other conveniences to weary passengers—the equivalent, for its day, of an interstate truck stop. Westbound emigrants parked their wagons here, too, restocking their larders and gathering information about the road ahead, while ranchers came from miles around for supplies, conversation, and (on Saturday nights) raucous dances. Founded in 1862, Virginia Dale enjoyed a lively heyday until 1869, when the transcontinental railroad opened north of here. The trail traffic slowed considerably, but the station remained a gathering point for local residents. Used as a community center since the 1940s, the building today stands on private land about two miles from here—one of the few original Overland Trail stations still intact.

“I turned quickly and looked into the muzzle of two revolvers. I had met Slade before, but now we were properly introduced.”
—1880s reminiscence, Frank G. Bartholf, Larimer County commissioner

Trouble seemed to follow Jack Slade everywhere. He committed his first murder in Illinois at age thirteen, allegedly killed a drinking buddy in Wyoming, and was said to have sliced off a man’s ears in eastern Colorado before pumping him full of lead. But he had one legitimate talent—he ran an efficient stagecoach operation—and as long as the line functioned smoothly and the mail arrived on time, Slade’s employers could overlook his bullying and boozing. He came to Virginia Dale in 1862 as the Overland Stage Line’s division agent; inevitably, though, trouble found him here, too. Suspected of robbing $60,000 from one of his own stages, Slade was fired and sent packing to Montana, where he immediately made new enemies. He died in 1864 at the end of a vigilante’s noose.

PANEL 2

“We set out from this place [the Cache la Poudre] without road, trail, or guide through the plains and hills. We succeeded well, from 15 to 20 miles a day, for some time until we got within some 40 or 50 miles of the North Fork of the Platte, when the hills became worse and we had to detain more times hunting out the route and working it.”
— John M. Pyeatt, traveler on the Cherokee Trail, 1849

Fourteen California-bound prospectors passed right through here in 1849, roughly following present-day U.S. 287. But rather than continuing north to join the Oregon Trail (the continent’s main east-west thoroughfare), these impatient travelers forged a new route across the desert flats of southern Wyoming, parallel to today’s I-80. They eventually picked up the Oregon Trail at Fort Bridger, having shaved 150 miles off the journey. Their road (dubbed the Cherokee Trail, after the gold party’s Indian members) lacked sufficient water and forage for plodding wagon trains, and thus it drew meager emigrant traffic. But its time-saving trajectory met the needs of U.S. postal officials, who adapted the old Cherokee road to create a new frontier mail route. Renamed the Overland Trail, it emerged in the 1860s as one of the nation’s main westward conduits.

Unlike the Oregon, Santa Fe, and Mormon trails, the Overland Trail was a carefully planned and maintained highway—in essence, a government road. Congress designated it the West’s official mail route in 1861 and awarded the contract to the Central Overland California & Pikes Peak Express, which sold it to Ben Holladay in 1862. With stations every ten to fifteen miles offering protection and provisions, the 1,900-mile route was less vulnerable to Indian attack than the more established Oregon Trail, and its South Platte River approach provided excellent access to fast-growing Denver. When fights between the U.S. Army and northern Plains tribes grew bloody in the mid-1860s, pioneer traffic shifted from the Oregon Trail to the better-defended Overland Trail. From then until the Union Pacific Railroad’s 1869 debut, the way West came right through Virginia Dale.

PANEL 3

Colorado's vast plains, rugged mountains, and grand plateaus, so magnificent in their beauty and variety, seem at times to overshadow the state's history and people. But look closely. The story of Colorado is every bit as dramatic as the physical terrain. Many peoples have helped sculpt Colorado's past: the Anasazi, whose civilization dates back thousands of years; the Utes, who occupied the Rockies for centuries; the numerous other native peoples who lived in this region; Hispano pioneers, the state's first permanent non-Indian settlers; and the men and women who came here and built cities, dug mines, and planted farms. Colorado's natural endowment is world-renowned. But the state's history, like the land on which it unfolds, features its own breathtaking peaks and valleys, its own scenes of improbable awe and splendor.

A new generation of roadside markers is in place to help you experience the history of Colorado in all its color and fullness. Produced by the Colorado Historical Society, the Colorado Department of Transportation, and the Federal Highway Administration, in collaboration with local partners, these illustrated signs introduce you to people and events as large and colorful as the state itself. Every mile you travel in Colorado has stories to tell; the markers help you chart your journey through the past. For an in depth view, visit the Colorado History Museum in Denver, the Colorado Historical Society’s various regional museums, and the county and local museums found throughout Colorado.