Edited by Tom Schweich  

Geography

There are 64 counties in Colorado.

Lake County

Twin Lakes

Twin Lakes — the lakes — is a pair of glacier-carved alpine lakes about 15 miles (24 km) south of historic Leadville, Colorado. They are downstream along the Arkansas River, whose headwaters are by Leadville. The lakes, however, are on a tributary, Lake Creek, which joins the Arkansas just below the lakes. After dredging, the lakes now have a surface area of 2,700 acres (11 km2), and they serve as a reservoir to store water for use in the Front Range. Both east and west lakes are recreation areas for boating and fishing.[5]

Twin Lakes, Colorado — the town — began as a prospector camp named Dayton in 1865. It later transformed into a vital transit hub between Leadville and Aspen, a grand 19th-century luxury resort destination, and an engineering site for regional water storage. [1, 2]

Long before Western settlement, the Ute people used the glacial lake basin for seasonal camps and hunting. Prospectors founded the small settlement of Dayton in 1865 near the base of Mount Elbert. Early gold finds sparked initial growth, though mining slowed by the late 1860s.

The 1879 gold and silver discoveries turned the town—renamed Twin Lakes—into an essential wagon road and toll route over Independence Pass. Wealthy mining investor James V. Dexter bought a local lakeside hotel in 1883 and expanded it into the luxurious Interlaken Resort. It drew elite travelers for boating, dancing, and alpine recreation.

In 1896, the Twin Lakes Reservoir and Canal Company dammed Lake Creek, raising and lowering water levels to feed eastern Arkansas River Valley farms. The declining resort closed in the early 1900s, but today both Twin Lakes Village and the Interlaken Resort are preserved on the National Register of Historic Places.

Some early plant collections at Twin Lakes were:

• T. C. Porter, July 1872.
• J. M. Coulter, July 1873, Hayden's U. S. Geological Survey, 1873
• John Wolfe, July 1873 (often mis-spelled? Wolf), Explorations and Surveys Westof the 100th Meridian, Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, Lieut. G. M. Wheeler, Com'g. Some collections without a name on the label are attributed to Lt. G. M. Wheeler. I have seen a couple of labels stating Lieut. Wheeler's Expedition, 1873. Colorado Terr., Professors John Wolf & J. T. Rothrock, e.g., https://swbiodiversity.org/seinet/collections/individual/index.php?occid=23422695
• C. W. Derry, August 1874 (also in Rothrock's herbarium?)
• J. T. Rothrock, July 1875 (herbarium owner, collection by ______ Wilson), see: https://fm-digital-assets.fieldmuseum.org/1644/026/V0322951F.jpg
• Thos. C. Porter, July 1875
• A. J. McCosh, July 1877, with C. G. Greene, John C. Green School of Science, College of New Jersey, Princeton.
• Marcus E. Jones, September 1878

Hayden (1874) cronicles the Hayden expedition travels through Twin Lakes. The botany, however, was covered in Porter & Coulter (1874) Synopsis of the flora of Colorado.

Several of John Wolf[e]'s 1873 Twin Lakes collections were included in Porter and Coulter’s 1874 Synopsis of the Flora of Colorado. However, his inclusion in the book highlights a major historical controversy. When Thomas Porter and John M. Coulter rushed their Synopsis to print in early 1874, they utilized collections from a variety of botanists to make the book as complete as possible. They explicitly incorporated some of Wolf[e]'s 1873 material. However, they completely forgot to credit him in the book's preface or contributor list. This blunder caused a minor scandal in the close-knit 19th-century botanical community. In an 1874 review published in the Botanical Gazette (and tracked in the American Journal of Science), a prominent notice was published pointing out that John Wolf[e]'s name was entirely left out by an "accidental omission," even though his actual physical collections were actively cited in the text. Because the Hayden and Wheeler surveys were fiercely competitive rivals, Porter and Coulter primarily relied on Hayden's team data. Yet, they couldn't ignore the sheer volume of unique alpine specimens Wolf[e] was finding just a few miles away. Where Wolf[e]'s specimens are cited in the text, his name is printed alongside his 1873 locations (like Twin Lakes, South Park, or Grays Peak). Just like the Wheeler Report clerks, Porter and Coulter occasionally printed his location data simply as "Wolf" or "Wolfe" next to specific high-alpine grasses, sedges, and cryptogams he secured during that tumultuous July. The Synopsis was a Hayden Survey publication. By using data from Wolf[e] (a Wheeler Survey man) to patch holes in their own catalog, the authors inadvertently crossed the very survey battle lines that their leaders were fighting over in Washington.

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