Local author Susan Consola Appleby summed up the early South Platte/Deckers area as: “A seedbed for flowering enterprises attempting to capitalize directly upon the extraction of resources such as timber, gold, lithia springs and fish.”

Good fortune smiled early near the confluence of the North and South Platte Rivers. The narrow gauge (three-feet wide) Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad ran through the canyon in 1878 on its way from Union Station to Leadville. An early townsite east of Deckers was briefly known as Symes and later as the South Platte Station. The train offered a convenient, restful means of touring the valley, transit for mining supplies, a mail drop and later, a lodging stop for those with gold fever.

So, it was in the late 1880s, Denver’s Philip Zang Brewing Company built the South Platte Hotel to accommodate the cohort of gold-thirsty miners near the short-lived town of Nighthawk. It was only accessible by train. Proprietors Charles and Millie Walbrecht were retained by Mr. Zang to manage the hotel, receiving a salary and percentage of the profits gained.

In the early 1920s, the Walbrechts were robbed by escapees from a Cañon City jail. Injuries sustained by Charles in the incident marked the beginning of the hotel’s dog days. Used briefly as a camp for boys, the structure was shuttered in 1934. Sited directly opposite the train depot, the hotel still survives today, if only barely. Now owned by Denver Water, it was saved from demolition in 2023 by the Jefferson County Historical Society.

The town of Nighthawk never lived up to its founders hopes. Despite an erratic surge of prospectors, a newspaper called Mountain Echo, and epic real estate promotions, it fell flat on its face.

By the 19th century’s turn, Appleby reported that Nighthawk’s “feeble boom ended.” And so it is today. Only a sign remains at river’s edge and State Highway 67.

Deeper access to the area came via local stage drivers late in the 19th century. Dominated by the Buzbee family of George, Enoch, Doc and George, Jr., mail and passengers were dropped by train at South Platte Station and taken by stage the final 15 miles to Deckers. A vicious blizzard in 1913 took George’s life and all but one of his horses.

The South Platte townsite can today be reached by foot via the Colorado Trail.

As to Stephen Decker, his notion of a resort eventually flowered, encompassing 27 buildings and even a music hall; its name upgraded to Decker’s Mineral Springs and Resort (see last month’s Wildcat Lore article).

The Record Journal of Douglas County weighed in in late 1912 noting, “Summer festivities including taffy pulls, rousing campfires and songs and shouts of laughter mingle with the roar and rumbling of the river below.”

Meanwhile, today’s fishermen and kayakers remain stoked, and the locals unperturbed, as the South Platte River surges majestically on.

 

By Joe Gschwendtner; courtesy photos