Creede's silver boom drew the outlaws, and one of them is buried here

Most Creede stories are about silver and rock. This one is about the people the silver pulled in.

When the strikes hit in the early 1890s, an estimated 10,000 people poured into this narrow valley, and the rush drew a cast of characters straight out of an Old West legend. Among them was Bob Ford, the man who, a decade earlier in 1882, had shot Jesse James in the back. Ford opened a saloon in the booming camp. He did not last long. On June 8, 1892, a man named Edward O’Kelley walked into Ford’s tent and killed him with a shotgun, which made O’Kelley, as the old line goes, the man who killed the man who killed Jesse James.

Ford was not the only legend here. The con man Soapy Smith ran gambling and swindles and claimed to be the camp’s boss. Bat Masterson reportedly served a short stint keeping order. Poker Alice Tubbs and Calamity Jane passed through too. It was a raw, crowded, lawless few years, and then the Panic of 1893 sent the town into a tailspin.

The lore gets stretched in the retelling, so it is worth reading the grounded version. The Colorado Encyclopedia’s article on Creede lays out who was really here and what they did.