All Entries Tagged With: "leper colony"

Last Leper Colony Closes Doors

(Wildhorse Creek) The last known leper colony in Colorado closed today due to a disappearing clientele and conflicts with local logging interests. Actually there were no lepers living there. A short ceremony was conducted without incident and the place was then abandoned.

This community of people suffering from the disease called leprosy was founded in 1843 buy Guy Ultimathule, a Norse seaman who contacted the disease himself in 1840. For almost 50 years the leper colony thrived despite the inability to grow much food. Water and game, however, were plentiful and the lepers were not particularly concerned with the scurvy.

Then in 1893 some of the more industrious lepers struck gold in their little leper fountain in the town plaza. They were rich and, in light of their close-knit society, so was everyone else in town. From about 1900 the lepers had been living a life nothing short of pomposity, their lavish lifestyle delving into the stark, lower reaches of narcissism. 

Most people in the surrounding communities were never aware of  the leper stronghold.  In recent decades the only contact was by beer truck drivers dropping off kegs of beer, Thursdays and Saturdays since 1953.

The colony was nominated as an historic place by the Colorado Preservation Society in 2007.