Gilpin County’s blurry borders
And Other Odd Happenings In Court
Gilpin County’s boundaries have now and again been a matter of debate. Take the Jefferson-Gilpin border. That line starts, according to the state constitution duly adopted in 1876, at the junction of the center of the North and main Clear Creeks. It goes on from there along a straight northward line. Except it’s not exactly a straight line. In fact, it’s been amended. Now it zigs up from the creek to a certain determined point and then takes off straight north. Of course it has to start it’s little boundary line dance step from the creek junction no matter where that might be. But that junction varies a few feet most years. This creates what can only be called a moving county line.
Moving Your House Without Moving It
Two or three householders in Jefferson County have apparently decided recently that they like Gilpin’s lower taxes and so have quit being in Jefferson County. A couple of other houses are in Jeffco but would seem to really be in Gilpin. What are the two county assessors to do? It would perhaps be easy to settle such a dispute. Just go to the river junction and start walking up to the duly amended zig point, then zag and head straight north and when you hit the Boulder County line you know you’ve done it. If the house is east of the line then it is in Jeffco, if west, the folks at home there are Zekes. Come to think of it, only one of our vehicles, the truck my dog Gus thinks is his, has a ZK license plate anymore. Does that mean we’re only partly Zekes now? Could the newly moved houses get ZK license plates? And, what if they don’t like it in Gilpin and want to move back? Are they ex-Zekes?
Did The Legislature Fix It?
The legislature, in its infinite wisdom, convened a committee to look into this mater way back when. They amended the state Constitution. They pin-pointed the point where the zig “zags” before the line traces north even if they left vague where the creeks come together. Strangest of all, they made it clear that any taxes collected in error by Jefferson County would not be owed to Gilpin County. Where were our Gilpin legislators at that meeting? Here’s my theory: Back in the day there were several lovely restaurants near the state’s gold dome. There were prime rib specials. This led to long lunches and our boys missing the boundary line meeting. Or, were they representing both Jeffco and Gilpin as so often happened? But, before we decide to go to court to fix this weird situation, we should pause and chuckle about what really goes on in court.
Odd Things in Court
Helen Ferril, ace court reporter, picked up some gems as she roved up and down the district listening in court. Here are some: D.A to defendant: “Did you offer him any provocation?” Defendant: “He could have had it any darn time he asked for it!”
Consider this one: “I hand you Prosecution Exhibit No. 1 (a bill of sale made out to Jeremy Smith) and ask you to identify it, because you could not last Tuesday.” Defendant: “Oh well, Yessir. It’s my uncle, but he doesn’t live down here, he lives in Gilpin.”
Then there was the case of a prostitute suspected of being part of the Smaldone’s game in Rollinsville, probably, I’d say, at the Pirate’s Den. D.A.: “Doctor, have you examined her?” “Yes.” “Professionally?” “Yes.”
All of this leads me to wonder why we ever thought we could settle our county lines in court anyway. Still, we’d best keep an eye on Clear Creek County.
Is Clear Creek County Plotting?
Perhaps Clear Creek County is plotting to grab a bunch of Gilpin real estate. Where is the summit of the “snowy range” also sometimes called the “shining mountains?” Maybe back in 1876 no one wanted to walk up there so they just left it vague. For that matter, where is the “dividing ridge between the North and South Clear Creek waters.” We’re supposed to make the county line follow that ridge up to the said snowy crest, but it looks to me like it snakes over toward Clear Creek County a couple of times more than that vague ridge does today. Have we been hoodwinked? That’s not to mention the fact that the Fry gravel pit keeps grabbing that dividing ridge, gobbling it up, and obliterating it forever. Will Clear Creek claim the newly created lands? In a way you could say our Gilpin county line is caught between a shifting river junction and those ever shifting snowy mountains. We’re between a sand bar and an avalanche slope.
The Supreme Court Moves the Mountains
I’m pretty sure the citizens of Park County and of Summit County got a chuckle out of their boundary dispute. It had to do (you guessed it) with where the snowy range truly goes. Various geographers and surveyors testified about that line in contradictory ways. Obviously those lines are hard to plot in the high county. For example, if you’re driving over Fremont Pass you can empty your coffee dregs in three river basins. First you can dribble it downstream to the South Platte. Second you can dribble what’s left to the mighty Colorado via the headwaters of the Blue. Then, if there’s any left at all, you can dump it at Climax Mine and watch it flow down to the Gulf of Mexico via the Arkansas. Try to get a defined county line out of a place like that! What the Supreme Court decided to do was just make things more convenient. They simply moved the Continental Divide around a little bit. They decided that the crest of the snowy mountains over by Park County was really the Mosquito Range. Viola! A solution. Nothing like moving a mountain range to make things work.
A County Line Body
My Grand County informant tells a story he swears is true. An unfortunate hobo, probably riding the blind on a passenger train, slipped and fell to his death in the Moffat Tunnel. As every county commissioner knows, such deaths cost lots of coroner time and expense. Who was responsible?
The County line in the Moffat Tunnel is at the apex of the tunnel supposedly at the Continental Divide. So, the Grand County coroner took a hand car and was driven up to the apex where the body lay. A Gilpin representative, not the coroner, went along to keep everything on the up and up. The Grand County Coroner decided that the tunnel apex wasn’t exactly on the Continental Divide, but a few feet up track. The Gilpin representative argued that it didn’t matter because the body was clearly on the Grand County side. Not so, argued the Grand County coroner, the head of the body was still on the Gilpin side. A magistrate was consulted. It was Gilpin County by a head.
Not to Worry
These days the ham and eggs bill at the four county breakfast meetings is shared by turns. If all four counties can agree about the breakfast bill we’ll probably not have to go to court over the county lines.