Historic Routt County

Lucky 8 Ranch resides in an area with great history and heritage.  

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Before the gold rush and coal mining, Routt County was home to the Ute Indian tribes.  They would travel from Utah during the summers to hunt, fish, and bathe in the healing waters of the many natural hot springs in the area.  Then in the 1820s, trappers had visited the place in search of beaver.  In 1861 gold was discovered in North Routt County at Hahn's Peak.  This led the way to the modern Routt County you see today.  In the late 1800s, pioneers migrated to the rich and fertile valleys of the Yampa River to farm & ranch.  They were soon followed by the hopes of finding fortune in coal by entrepreneurs. 

Oak Creek was incorporated in 1907 as a coal mining town.  The town once proclaimed "Coal cream of Northwestern Colorado."  The mining success brought the railroad to Phippsburg and eventually to Oak Creek.  Immigrants from around the world flocked to the area.  Between the 1920s and 1940s, the number of different ethnic groups was unusually high for its population.  The town claimed that by 1918 there were over two dozen different spoken languages.