![]() Casto would make money from travelers who paid the toll to use his road, and those travelers would also turn his town of Mount Vernon into a thriving transportation hub.Ĭasto’s plan worked for about two years. ![]() To do this, he and three others started the Denver, Auraria, and Colorado Wagon Road Company, which built a toll road from Denver through Mount Vernon and up the canyon to Gregory’s gold strike. Casto’s ultimate goal was to capitalize on John Gregory’s recent gold discovery at what is now Central City and Black Hawk. Steele had a handful of neighbors there, including the clergyman Joseph Casto, who platted the town of Mount Vernon in the fall of 1859. He named the area after George Washington’s estate in Virginia. Steele lived at the base of Mount Vernon Canyon in the foothills west of Denver, where he had settled earlier in 1859. That October the Territory of Jefferson was born, complete with a territorial constitution and a slate of officers, including Governor Robert W. By the spring of 1859 the settlers around Denver were growing frustrated at the lack of any real government in their part of Kansas, so they called a meeting for representatives from the region’s mining districts to discuss the possibility of organizing a new territory. The territorial capital lay hundreds of miles to the east. ![]() When the Colorado Gold Rush of 1858–59 brought thousands of prospectors to what is now Colorado, the land where they settled was still part of Kansas Territory. ![]() Today two early stone houses remain just south of Interstate 70, and much of the original town plat is preserved in Matthews/Winters Park. Steele, who made it the de facto capital of the unofficial Territory of Jefferson while he was governor in 1859–61. The town is best known as the home of Robert W. The town of Mount Vernon was established in 1859 at the base of Mount Vernon Canyon, west of Denver. ![]()
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