Why the county is called Custer

A county name can carry a date. Custer County was created in 1877, when the Colorado legislature split it off from the southern part of Fremont County to govern the silver rush filling the Wet Mountain Valley.

The name points to a single moment in national news. George Armstrong Custer, an Army officer, had died the year before at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in what is now Montana. That battle was fresh in people’s minds in 1877, and the new county took his name. So the map here is really a snapshot of the late 1870s: a mining boom on the ground and a recent battle in the headlines, both folded into one county line.

Knowing this helps put other local names in order. Fremont County, just to the north, is named for an earlier explorer, and Custer was the younger county split away from it. Understanding which county came first explains why so many old records for this area sit in Fremont County files from before 1877.

For the documented story of how and when the county was formed and named, look to History Colorado.