The Real South Park

Between 1978 and the mid-eighties I lived in the area known as South Park, Colorado. Since that time I get back as frequently as possible. One of my employments (and certainly my favorite employment) in South Park was as a reporter for the Park County Republican and Fairplay Flume, a newspaper that had roots going back to the Pikes Peak Gold Rush of the 1860s. That employment allowed me to learn the history of the area as well as the local politics and economics that drove the area until recently.

South Park is an area almost the size of the State of Rhode Island, an altiplano, or high altitude plateau bordered by the rugged Park and Front Ranges. Along with North Park and Middle Park, it is one of three such high altitude plateaus in Colorado. The term Park was derived from French trappers who called the areas "parques" which meant game preserves. In those days all three parks supported large herds of buffalo, deer, elk and other animals. Yet the first name South Park was called was Bayou Salado, also derived from French, which meant salty marsh. Only one area of South Park actually meets that description, the Salt Creek area between the extinct volcanoes of the Buffalo Peaks (possibly the inspiration for the "Volcano" episode?) and Antero Reservior.