Travelers to this area appeared in the early 1800s. Tom Boggs, a brother-in-law of Kit Carson , farmed at Wagon Wheel Gap in the summer of 1840. Ranchers and homesteaders moved in when stagecoach stations (linking the mining operations over the Divide with the east) were built in the 1870s, but the great “Boom Days” started with the discovery of rich minerals in Willow Creek Canyon in 1889. Creede was the last silver boom town in Colorado in the 1800s. At its peak there were 10,000 people in the area. The Creede mines were in continuous operation from 1890 until 1985. The original townsite of Creede was located on East Willow Creek just above its junction with West Willow Creek. Below Creede were Stringtown, Jimtown, and Amethyst. The Willow Creek site was soon renamed Creede after Nicholas C. Creede who discovered the Holy Moses Mine. Soon the entire town area from East Willow to Amethyst was called Creede. In 1892, with the discovery of large silver deposits, the campsite experienced a "silver rush" and the population exploded. At the same time, the capitol city of Denver, Colorado was experiencing a major legal reform movement against the gambling clubs and saloons located in that city. Numerous owners of the major gambling houses in Denver quickly relocated to Creede's business district. One of these relocators was the infamous confidence man, Jefferson Randolph Soapy Smith. Soapy became the uncrowned king of Creede's criminal underworld, and opened the Orleans Club. Other famous people that came to Creede at this time were Robert Ford (outlaw)Robert Ford, the man who killed outlaw Jesse James (outlaw)Jesse James, Bat Masterson and William Sidney "Cap" Light, the first deputy sheriff in Creede, and brother-in-law of Soapy Smith. On June 5, 1892 a major fire destroyed most of the business district. Three days later, on June 8, Edward Capehart O'KelleyEd O'Kelley walked into Robert Ford's make-shift tent-saloon and shot him dead. The town of Creede was incorporated on June 13, 1892, but the anti-gambling reform movement in Denver had ceased, and the Denver businessmen moved back to their old stomping grounds. Creede’s boom lasted until 1893, when the Silver Panic hit all of the silver mining towns in Colorado. The price of silver plummeted and most of the silver mines were closed. Creede was one of the few silver towns to have enough other minerals to stay alive—it never became a ghost town, although the boom was over and its population declined. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creede%2C_Colorado