Liberty, Duncan, and Denton Spring

Hotel Liberty was located on the remote north side of the dunefield. In the early 1900s, a regular stagecoach and mail route brought visitors, mail, and supplies to Liberty. In this photo,19-year-old Julia Herard (second from left) and her friend Ruth had made the 8-mile trip on horseback.

Great Sand Dunes Archives

Liberty and Duncan were 19^th century mining boomtowns established in the foothills north of the dunefield, while Denton Spring is located southeast of the dunefield. Like most boomtowns, their heyday was relatively brief.

 

The Clarke family poses with their two children and a group of unidentified men in Duncan, circa 1890s.

NPS Archives, courtesy of the Clarke family

In 1874, 23-year-old John Duncan followed in the footsteps of Zebulon Pike and John C. Fremont, crossing the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. But unlike the two earlier explorers, Duncan was seeking gold. He began finding small amounts of ore in the foothills north of the dunes, and advertised the finds to regional newspapers. While Duncan never became wealthy from gold, he sold parcels of land for $75 each, a large sum for that time. By the 1890s, the town of Duncan had a hotel, restaurant, grocery store, general store, clothing store, livery, bakery, bathhouse, and newspaper. At its peak, the community may have housed up to 3,000 residents.

George Adams, the owner of the Baca Ranch where the prospecting was occurring, was increasingly resentful of the swarms of people settling in the Duncan area. They were trespassing and taking mineral resources that were not theirs. The case eventually went all the way to the US Supreme Court, which ruled in Adams’ favor. In 1900, US Marshalls came in to evict residents, and conflict erupted. Some miners resisted with guns, and Marshalls retaliated by blowing up cabins. By the end of 1900, Duncan’s last residents had left, and the community suddenly became a ghost town. Homes were dismantled, leaving rock foundations still visible today. Today, only John Duncan’s cabin still stands, restored by the US Forest Service.

 

Some of the homes in Duncan and Liberty were very spacious for their time and remote location. This unidentified family in Liberty poses on their front porch with the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in their backyard. A child’s toy horse is also visible on the porch.

NPS Archives

Many Duncan residents moved a few miles south off the Baca property, founding the town of Liberty, close to the Great Sand Dunes. Named for the freedom the residents felt in this new location, it boomed for over a decade, with regular stagecoach service, a hotel and school. Eventually it also faded into a ghost town, as gold mining prospects weren’t as rewarding as they were hyped to be. There are a few buildings still standing today at Liberty, but most of the townsite is private property, not accessible to the public.

 

Though remote, Liberty had a viable school with two teachers. These children would have regularly played on the nearby dunes.

NPS Archives

Liberty and Duncan were larger towns with many amenities, and there are a number of photos documenting people's lives there. However, little is known about the Denton Spring mining community, located in the foothills southeast of the dunes. The little spring itself has been used by Indigenous peoples since ancient times, and elk and deer still visit the spring today for water. Some scattered bricks, planks, and foundation stones are all that remain of this little boomtown.