Virginia Dale is a tiny

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

located in northwestern Larimer County,

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

, United States. Virginia Dale is situated in the

foothills Foothills or piedmont are geographically defined as gradual increases in elevation at the base of a mountain range, higher hill range or an upland area. They are a transition zone between plains and low relief hills and the adjacent topogr ...

of the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...

on U.S. Highway 287, approximately 45 mi (72 km) northwest of Ft. Collins and approximately 4 mi (6 km) south of the

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to t ...

border. In the late 19th century, Virginia Dale was a famous stop on the

Overland Trail The Overland Trail (also known as the Overland Stage Line) was a stagecoach and wagon trail in the American West during the 19th century. While portions of the route had been used by explorers and trappers since the 1820s, the Overland Trail was ...

. The

stage station A stage station or relay station, also known as a staging post, a posting station, or a stage stop, is a place where exhausted horses could be replaced by fresh animals, since a long journey was much faster without delays when horses needed rest ...

, the last of its kind still standing, and its associated home, the Hurzeler House, are owned and maintained by the Virginia Dale Community Club.

Overland Trail stage station

The Virginia Dale stage station was established in 1862 by

Jack Slade Joseph Alfred "Jack" Slade, (January 22, 1831 – March 10, 1864), was a stagecoach and Pony Express superintendent, instrumental in the opening of the American West and the archetype of the Western gunslinger. Born in Carlyle, Illinois, he wa ...

, former station manager at Julesburg, Colorado where he famously got into a dispute with Jules Beni. Beni had previously shot Slade five times but Slade survived and exacted his revenge by ambushing Beni, tying him to a fencepost and shooting off his fingers before delivering a coup de grace to the head. Slade kept Beni's ears as trophies. While station master in Julesburg, Slade met and breakfasted with Samuel Clemens, "

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has pr ...

" and made quite an impression upon Twain. Twain wrote about his encounter with Slade in his 1872 publication "

Roughing It ''Roughing It'' is a book of semi-autobiographical travel literature by Mark Twain. It was written in 1870–71 and published in 1872, as a prequel to his first travel book ''The Innocents Abroad'' (1869). ''Roughing It'' is dedicated to Twai ...

". When

Ben Holladay Benjamin Holladay (October 14, 1819 – July 8, 1887) was an American transportation businessman responsible for creating the Overland Stage to California during the height of the 1849 California Gold Rush. Ben Holladay created a stagecoach ...

took over the Overland Stage in 1862, he changed the route, taking it south from Julesberg along the

South Platte River The South Platte River is one of the two principal tributaries of the Platte River. Flowing through the U.S. states of Colorado and Nebraska, it is itself a major river of the American Midwest and the American Southwest/Mountain West. It ...

to Greeley and then up the old Cherokee Trail through Latham, LaPorte, Virginia Dale, Colorado, and into Wyoming. Virginia Dale was a "home station" on the

, meaning that passengers could disembark, get a meal, and stay overnight in a hotel if the stage was delayed by weather or nightfall. Thirty to fifty horses were kept at the station which was located in a pleasant, grassy glade (or "dale") along a clear bubbling stream, later named Dale Creek. Slade probably named the post after his wife Virginia, whose maiden name might have been "Dale". Slade was an excellent stage manager as long as he stayed sober. Many stories credit him with outrageous actions from shooting up a saloon in LaPorte for serving his stage drivers whiskey, or for having "a fondness of shooting canned goods off grocery store shelves" Colorado, a guide to the highest State, By Writers' Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of Colorado
/ref> to robbing the stage of $60,000 in gold, which later disappeared. Slade was fired as stage manager in November, 1862 after a drunken shooting spree at nearby Fort Halleck and left with his wife for Virginia City, Montana where he was hanged in early 1864 by angry miners. The Virginia Dale stage station hosted many famous travelers such as author Albert D. Richardson ("Beyond the Mississippi") and an Illinois governor, probably Richard Yates. Samuel Bowles, editor of the Massachusetts '' Republican'' wrote in 1865,

"Virginia Dale deserves its pretty name. A pearly, lively-looking stream runs through a beautiful basin of perhaps one hundred acres, among the mountains - for we are within the entrances of one of the great hills-stretching away in smooth and rising pasture to nooks and crannies of the wooded range; fronted by rock embankment, and flanked by the snowy peaks themselves; warm with the June sun, and rare with an air into which no fetid breath has poured itself-it is difficult to imagine a loveable spot in Nature's kingdom."

The station itself was built with timber cut by Hiram 'Hi" Kelly, one of the first profitable cattle ranchers in the Laramie area. In 1865 future Vice President Schuyler Colfax (then Speaker of the US House of Representatives) was detained at the post by Native American raids. It is possible that Virginia Dale served briefly as a telegraph station.

Settlement

After the construction of the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

in 1867, the stage stop was abandoned. Settlers began moving into the area in 1872, establishing the first school in 1874. The first church was built in 1880. The community was formerly the site of a post office and cafe along Highway 287 until the 1990s, when the cafe and post office were shut down. The area continues to be a region of cattle ranching. The original 1874 school still stands along U.S. Highway 287 and the original stage station still stands a short distance east of the highway. The U.S. Post Office at Livermore ( ZIP Code 80536) now serves Virginia Dale postal addresses.

Historical marker

The settlement is memorialized by a bronze plaque just off U.S. 287 on the easterly side (about a mile north of the school and a few hundred yards north of the abandoned post office). The plaque reads as follows: : THIS MEMORIAL IS THE PROPERTY OF THE STATE OF COLORADO. : --- : THREE-QUARTERS OF A MILE NORTHWEST FROM THIS POINT IS THE ORIGINAL VIRGINIA DALE. FAMOUS STAGE STATION ON THE OVERLAND ROUTE TO CALIFORNIA, 1862-1867. ESTABLISHED BY JOSEPH A. (JACK) SLADE AND NAMED FOR HIS WIFE, VIRGINIA. LOCATED ON THE CHEROKEE TRAIL OF 1849. FAVORITE CAMP GROUND FOR EMIGRANTS. VICE PRESIDENT COLFAX AND PARTY WERE DETAINED HERE BY INDIAN RAIDS IN 1865. ROBERT J. SPOTSWOOD REPLACED SLADE. : --- : ERECTED BY THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF COLORADO FROM THE MRS. J. N. HALL FOUNDATION AND BY THE FORT COLLINS PIONEER SOCIETY, 1935.

Climate

According to the

Köppen Climate Classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, nota ...

system, Virginia Dale has a warm-summer humid continental climate, abbreviated "Dfb" on climate maps. The hottest temperature recorded in Virginia Dale was on June 29, 2018, July 19, 2022, and July 21, 2022, while the coldest temperature recorded was on February 5, 2014.

References

* Dan Rottenberg, 2008, ''The Death of a Gunfighter: The Quest for Jack Slade, the West's Most Elusive Legend'', Westholme Publishing, LLC, Yardley PA, .

On pages 252-253 can be found a description of Slade's construction of Virginia Dale; p. 253 offers of a photo taken in 1870. Slade's decline into drunken escapades in Denver and Laporte (60 miles north of Denver) led to his replacement by Robert Spotswood, an Overland Stage Company official. Spotswood replaced Slade with Lem Flowers at Virginia Dale—Flowers would then cover what had been Slade's Denver - LaPorte - Virginia Dale inspection route; cf Chapter 15 "The Breaking Point" pages 263-275.

External links

The Overland Trail: Virginia Dale

Pictures of the Virginia Dale Stage Station.

1866 description of spending the night at Virginia Dale
{{Authority control Former populated places in Larimer County, Colorado Ghost towns in Colorado History of Colorado 1862 establishments in Colorado Territory