Great Sand Dunes National Park

With the 2004 expansion of the Great Sand Dunes from a national monument to a national park, 64,000 acres of the former Baca Grant were added on the northwest. This expansion opened up land to park visitors in an area that had been heavily exploited for gold mining from the 1870s to about 1914. Hikers can now travel the dirt road from the north park boundary south toward the remains of mining camps at Duncan and Liberty.

John Duncan was born in Indiana in 1851 and, after hearing stories from men in John Fremont’s expedition about of the possibility of gold in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, he set off for the mountains in 1874. Duncan did discover gold on Milwaukee Hill, just north of Pole Creek. He often made trips east to Pueblo to take his gold ore to the smelter there. By the 1890s, Duncan had built a permanent one-room log cabin, which still stands today. Droves of people came to the area seeking their fortune in gold, and Duncan proceeded to sell lots to them, thereby founding the town of Duncan. The Duncan Post Office existed from 1892 to 1900.

The only problem was that John Duncan did not actually own the land. Duncan was located on the Baca Grant, and a US Supreme Court ruling in 1897 gave the grant all rights to the surface and minerals below the surface. Owners of the grant began evicting Duncan residents that year, and Duncan was deserted by 1900. Residents moved north to Crestone or southeast to Liberty, an appropriately named settlement just a mile away from Duncan outside the boundary line of the grant. Liberty boomed until the mines closed permanently in 1914, but the town hung on until there were so few people that the Liberty Post Office was closed in 1919.

In the late 1920s, other gold mining occurred in the Great Sand Dunes on Medano Creek, where dredges and sluices were used to process the gold-bearing sand with little success. These operations should have ceased with the creation of the national monument in 1932, but with no rangers present, they continued for a number of years.

BACA GRANT AND GREAT SAND DUNES. This map from 1975 shows the relative location of the Baca Grant to Great Sand Dunes National Monument. Note how Duncan is within the Grant boundary and Liberty is just outside the boundary. Today’s national park boundary extends north to the intersection of Cedar Spring Road and Duncan Road. Duncan and Liberty are just east of the new national park boundary. (US Geological Survey.)

LIBERTY GATE, 2012. The gate on the road to Duncan and Liberty is now open for vehicle traffic to the new trailhead parking area that was completed in 2011 and 2012. This northernmost outpost of Great Sand Dunes National Park can be reached by driving south from Crestone through the Baca Grande subdivision.

LIBERTY TRAILHEAD PARKING, 2012. A restroom and plenty of parking spaces are now available at the trailhead. From here, it is three and four-fifths miles of hiking on a very sandy road to Duncan with Liberty one mile farther on. The view is looking south to the Great Sand Dunes and Blanca Peak.

GREAT SAND DUNES AND BLANCA PEAK, 2012. This telephoto view looks south from the Liberty Trailhead parking lot. This trail is best avoided in the hot summer season, and those who hike it should be sure to carry plenty of water.

TRAIL CROSSING AT DEADMAN CREEK, 2012. Deadman Creek is one and four-fifths of a mile south of the Liberty Trailhead parking lot, and it is another two miles to Duncan from here. The Herard family settled near Deadman Creek in 1872 but had to move south to Medano Canyon in 1875 when they learned they were on the Baca Grant.

JOHN DUNCAN’S CABIN, 2009. Government personnel discuss the restoration of the Duncan cabin. Once the center of a thriving gold-mining community, Duncan residents were evicted by Baca Grant owners and US marshals between 1897 and 1900. All that remains are John Duncan’s cabin and a log structure across the road. (GRSA.)

JOHN DUNCAN’S CABIN, 2012. In 2011 and 2012, restoration of the cabin was completed by the US Forest Service. The building, which contains several bunk beds, a stove, kitchen, table, and chairs, can be rented from the US Forest Service for overnight visits.

MILWAUKEE HILL AT DUNCAN’S CABIN, 2012. The highest peak in this image is Milwaukee Hill, where John Duncan discovered gold in the 1870s. The outhouse is a new addition behind the restored Duncan cabin to serve overnight guests.

LOG STRUCTURE AT DUNCAN, 2012. This structure is on the west side of the road to Liberty, while the Duncan cabin is on the east side of the road. The road serves as a boundary line with Great Sand Dunes National Park on the west, and Rio Grande National Forest on the east.

HOTEL LIBERTY, 1907. Ruth Saunders (far left) and Julia Herard (second from left) often made the eight-mile trip on horseback from the Herard Ranch in Medano Canyon to Liberty where they would purchase supplies. With the demise of Duncan, Liberty became a key supply town for local miners and ranchers. (GRSA-5274.)

CABIN AT LIBERTY, C. 2009. Several cabins remain at Liberty today, all on private property. Liberty had a general store with a post office (1900–1919) and a hotel, which always served one dish of wild-game meat at the evening meal. With all the miners passing through, the town was a real “hair raiser,” according to one old-timer. (GRSA.)

GOLD STAMP MILL, C. 1990s. The remains of this late-1800s gold stamp mill can be found along Sand Creek in the north central portion of Great Sand Dunes National Park. Other gold-ore mills were located north of here on Pole Creek, near Duncan. (GRSA.)

GOLD DREDGE ON MEDANO CREEK, 1938. This gold dredge was part of the Volcanic Mining Company operation from the late 1920s to the early 1930s. It was located near the present-day picnic-area parking lot in Great Sand Dunes National Park. (GRSA-2152.)

HERARD-WILLIAMS FAMILY AT VOLCANIC MILL, 1930. Julia Herard Williams (seated right, in the dark outfit) was joined by her husband, John Williams (standing rear), and sons Bill and Jack (behind Julia) on this family outing to the mill. Seated to the left is Irene Tracy. (GRSA-5267.)

VOLCANIC MINING COMPANY MILL, LATE 1930s. George Opencar of Blanca established this mill to process gold, which was dredged or sluiced from the sandbars in Medano Creek. Little gold was actually found, and the operation soon fell into ruins. (GRSA.)

WATER PIPELINE TO VOLCANIC MINING COMPANY, 1929. The pipeline in the lower left of this image brought water from the mountains to the Volcanic Mining Company. This water was necessary for mining operations when Medano Creek dried up in the summer. (GRSA-2221.)

MINING ARTIFACTS, MEDANO CREEK, C. 2000. When Medano Creek runs low, remains of the old Volcanic Mining Company operations can be seen in the creek bed. Oil and gas drilling are new mining threats to the national park with two bores previously drilled on the Baca Grant now inside the park. Two more drill holes are proposed for the adjacent Baca National Wildlife Refuge. (GRSA.)