| Summary: | This is Fairplay Hotel you know where you are going to stay when you come out to visit us. ha! ha! Date scanned: 2001-08-22. Identifier: NMHFM-440. Related postcard: NMHFM-217. Unmounted; text on verso. Held in the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum. Photograph of the Fairplay Hotel, which may have been taken in 1927. The Hotel was built in 1923. Fairplay was established in 1859 when placer gold was discovered at the junction of Beaver Creek and the South Platte River. The founders of this new camp called it "Fair Play" referring to the treatment they vowed people would receive there as opposed to that of a nearby gold camp. During the 1860s, Fairplay developed into a supply center for the surrounding mining camps, and in 1867 it became the county seat. After most of the town burned to the ground in 1873, it was quickly rebuilt and most of the new buildings were made of stone. The Fairplay district's small placer claims were consolidated in the 1870s and only intermittently worked through the 1890s. Dredges were brought in to work the gold placers starting in 1922 and their operations continued intermittently into the 1950s. Although Fairplay began as a mining town, ranching and farming were of greater economic importance . Sponsored by the Colorado State Library, the regional library systems of Colorado, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
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