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The Town of Lake City is the Statutory Town that is the county seat and the only incorporated municipality in Hinsdale County, Colorado, United States.〔(【引用サイトリンク】accessdate=2011-06-07 )〕 It is located in the San Juan Mountains in a valley formed by the convergence of Henson Creek and the headwaters of the Lake Fork of the Gunnison River about seven miles (11 km) east of Uncompahgre Peak, a Colorado fourteener. Lake City is named after nearby Lake San Cristobal. This area lies at the southern end of the Colorado Mineral Belt and when rich mineral deposits were discovered the native population was pushed from their tribal lands and the town of Lake City was incorporated in 1873. With the completion of the first road into the mountains in this region, Lake City served as a supply center for the many miners and prospectors flooding into the area. As a supply center, the town boomed to as many as 3,000 to 5,000 settlers. But as the first-discovered deposits were found to be only moderately productive and no new extensive or rich deposits of minerals were found, by 1879 the boom had subsided. With the arrival of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad in 1889, Lake City saw a second upturn in the economy that lasted into the 1890s. The railroad cut the cost of shipping gold and silver ores to smelters, reduced the cost of shipping supplies into Lake City, and provided shipment of cattle and sheep into the area for summer grazing in the high Alpine meadows. By 1905, the mining era was over and Lake City entered a decades-long period of economic decline. Population figures hovered at 1,000 then dropped to 400 after 1910. Although mining continued throughout the twentieth century, it consisted primarily of exploration and speculation rather than productive operation. Beginning in 1915, visitors began coming to Lake City for the entire summer season and by the 1930s tourism had emerged as a viable industry. The Hinsdale County Historical Society formed in 1973 and began accumulating documents and photographs recording the town's history. In 1978, the Lake City Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Residents have restored many of the boom town mining era buildings and currently promote tourism as an industry. Restoration has not only aided the local economy by making Lake City a desirable tourist destination, it has served economic development with preservation projects creating jobs for local carpenters, craftsmen, and contractors. The town population was 408 at the 2010 United States Census. Lake City's educational needs are served by the Lake City Community School. ==Early history== Prior to written history, the Ute people lived in this area of the San Juan Mountain Range where they hunted and fished in the high mountain valleys during the summers. Even though the land was owned by the Utes as part of a treaty that set the area aside as a tribal reservation, by the 1860s prospectors had begun to enter the region in search of minerals. When rich silver deposits were found in the Lake City area, word spread, and pressure was put on the federal government to negotiate a new treaty with the Utes. Consequently, the native population was again pushed from their lands when in 1873, a new treaty was negotiated under which the Utes gave up their rights to the San Juan Mountains. In 1873, the town of Lake City was incorporated as a supply center for the prospectors and miners who were flooding the area. Lake City was platted in fall 1874 during construction of the Saguache & San Juan Wagon Toll Road, which opened the San Juan region for settlement. Town developers chose this location for the town site because of its flat terrain and abundant water. The broad valley provided a park-like setting which the optimistic town developers used to their advantage. They laid out a 260-acre town site that occupied the entire valley floor - 72 blocks of 32 uniform city lots, 25' x 125' in size. To promote the speculative town, Otto Mears subsidized ''The Silver World'' newspaper and published the first issue on June 19, 1875. It was the first newspaper published on the Western Slope.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=Lake City Colorado National Historic District )〕 It was not unusual for mining towns to grow into boom towns within a matter of only a few months, and Lake City was no exception. Promoted as the "Metropolis of San Juan", the town flourished as a distribution point for goods and supplies forwarded to mines and camps in the northern Hinsdale County mining districts. The initial influx of pioneers, prospectors, and miners attracted scores of merchants and dozens of lawyers and assayers to provide goods, supplies, and services. Merchants profited by outfitting the surge of prospectors who flooded into the area in 1876 and 1877 and by supplying dozens of mines in the outlying mining districts. The early boom years brought the usual red-light district to Lake City as was seen in any male-dominated mining town of that period. Records from 1878 show that the city had two breweries and a "Hell's Acre" district with 20 saloons, dance halls, and brothels. Lake City had as many as 3,000 to 5,000 residents at one time. But despite this promising activity, northern Hinsdale County's mining districts lacked the three key factors in mining development: year-round transportation, abundant ore, and capital to finance development of underground workings, and by 1879, the boom had subsided.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=Lake City Colorado National Historic District )〕 Constructed of rapidly built wooden structures, much of the town was destroyed by a fire in 1879. The town was rebuilt using brick and stone, and consequently many of those structures remain today. By this time Lake City was manufacturing its own building materials using local lumber, locally quarried stone, and bricks made from clay obtained at the nearby Slumgullion Earthflow. By 1884, the population was beginning to dwindle, but the arrival of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad on narrow-gauge tracks that were laid in 1889 cut the cost of shipping gold and silver ores to smelters, and the economy saw an upturn which extended into the 1890s. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lake City, Colorado」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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