While gold had been discovered in the nearby Moreno Valley in 1868, an event that saw the founding of Elizabethtown, the Red River Valley was not of interest to rainbow chasers of the time, for it was a pastoral place where sheep grazed and beaver were so plentiful that parts of the valley were called “Laguna” by the Spanish shepherds. Legendary mountain man Kit Carson supposedly had once commented that he’d never seen so many beaver dams in one place.It was not until 1879 when a company of investors with ties to the Waterbury Clock Company built the Copper King mine on the banks of the Rio Colorado -the Red River. Results were unspectacular and the Red River Mining Company soon moved on to better prospects elsewhere.
The 1890s again saw interest in the valley, as renewed interest in Elizabethtown and the founding of nearby LaBelle and Midnight City brought gold seekers back to the area, among them B.J. Young, a relative of Mormon founder Brigham Young, who would ultimately settle and serve as the fledgling town’s Justice of the Peace.
It was a family of Colorado farmers, however, that chose to settle in the valley and wintered over in 1894-95. The Mallette brothers from Ft. Garland, greeted the new prospectors who visited Red River in spring of ‘95.
According to the written and oral history, July 3, 1895, was the day when a teenage girl named Vesta Coffelt planted a 42-star flag on the top of Flagge (pronounced Flag-e) Mountain, in recognition that Red River City was officially a platted town in the New Mexico Territory.
The Red River Town and Mineral Company, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and their agent, Edward I. Jones, turned a gold mining camp of tents and hastily built cabins into a town. Jones, however, was only moderately successful in convincing the prospectors that mining claims were worthless and only land claims held by his company were valid. Turmoil ensued and at one point a disgruntled mob tried to hang Jones. A good talker, he managed to survive.
Gold fever hit its peak within five years, and by 1905, the population had gone from “3000” to 150, as lack of success, coupled with news of strikes in the Klondike and new finds in Cripple Creek, saw the miners move on.
While minimal interest in mining continued until the 1930s, it was the new “boom” called tourism that interested the residents. Visitors began to appear in Red River, drawn by reports of cool summer days and great fishing. Empty miner cabins became tourist lodging. The age of hospitality had begun.