Reprinted from “The History of the Crystal Valley” with permission

The Crystal Valley was part of the vast territory, including all of the mountainous part of Colorado, that the Ute Indians considered to have been theirs since time immemorial. Certainly, the Utes were in possession in the seventeenth century when the first Spanish explorers penetrated the mountains [which are] now part of this state.

They were a nomadic people, whose lives had just begun to achieve some ease as a result of their fairly recent acquisition of horses, sometime after the introduction of these animals to the New World by the Spanish. The Crystal valley was one of their favorite summer haunts, abounding in fish and game, lush grasses for their ponies, timber, and even natural hot springs for bathing.

As the Eastern Slope was prospected and developed, the Utes were pushed back to the western side of the Continental Divide, Colorado Governor John Evans managing in 1863 to get formal acquiescence in this state of affairs from the Utes. The 1863 Treaty guaranteed the Western Slope to the Utes “as long as rivers run and grasses grow.”  The vast lands thus guaranteed to the Utes were still little known by white men.

The first white man known to enter the Crystal valley was a prospector and trapper named William Gant, who travelled down the Crystal in 1859 and then much later settled in New Castle.  Gant told of finding an old rusted pan during his trip and thought this indicated that other whites had been there before him. If so, they could have been trappers working from Antoine Robideaux’s Fort Uncompahgre (near the present city of Delta) during the heyday of beaver Trapping “mountain men,” circa 1840, or possibly ‘49ers on their way to California.

Apparently the first exploring party of consequence reached the valley in 1860 and was led by Richard Sopris, later a mayor of Denver. Sopris and fourteen companions left Denver in early July, travelled through South Park, then down the Blue River, then over to the Eagle, then to the Roaring Fork and on up the Crystal. They named Mount Sopris for their leader before leaving the valley to take a more northerly route home.

When gold was discovered in the San Juan mountains to the south in 1870-71, the Immigrants to that area, who were of course trespassing on Ute lands, managed to get the Government to renegotiate with the Utes. As a result, the Utes ceded their first Western Slope territory, including all the mining region of the San Juan mountains, in the 1873 Brunot Treaty. The resulting development of that mining region brought a considerable number of prospectors that much closer to the Utes’ treasured Crystal valley.  And, indeed a party of seven, led by one Benjamin Graham, had already established a cabin at the head of the Crystal before the Utes discovered their camp in 1874 and drove them out.  The Utes did not, however molest the official surveying parties led by U.S. geologist Dr. F.V. Hayden in 1873 and 1874. Dr. Hayden’s teams did quite a thorough job of mapping the area and naming the mountains and streams. Dr. Hayden reported that the Elk Mountains presented the most complex geological problem he had encountered anywhere on the continent as the mountains had been lifted and tossed in several directions by some great force.

At the same time, Dr. John Parsons of Denver let a separate expedition to explore the agricultural and mineral resources of the Elk Mountains, and with the aid of prospectors enlisted along the way, even constructed a ‘road’ over Schofield Pass to the Crystal. Taking advantage of this improvement, a geologist named Sylvester Richardson explored the upper valley and discovered the marble outcroppings. Shortly thereafter the marble was rediscovered by George Yule, a prospector who later became sheriff of Gunnison County and a Gunnison County Commissioner. Yule Creek, which runs through the marble area, still bears his name.