South Park City

South Park City is an open air museum in the town of Fairplay in Park County in the U.S. state of Colorado in the United States.

History

The founder of the museum was Leon H. Snyder, a lawyer from Colorado Springs, who wanted to preserve the historic buildings in the area from further decay and vandalism. The buildings were constructed during the gold rush and were after the gold was mined and the prospectors had moved left to decay. He and other colleagues founded in 1957, the South Park Historical Foundation, a supporting organization for the museum. Country and the seven buildings that were already on the premises in the old part of Fairplay, were purchased from the Foundation ( society). In the summer of 1957, six buildings were brought to fair play and rebuilding again. In 1958, other buildings were relocated and about 40,000 items could be collected through donations this year. The museum, the reconstruction of a historic mining town was finally opened in 1959 and further buildings and objects were added in the following years.

Museum

The Open Air Museum today consists of 35 furnished historic buildings with walkways, a narrow gauge railway with different pendants, and some carriages. The museum recalls in particular the Colorado Gold Rush, one of the greatest gold rushes of the United States, and the later Colorado Silver Boom in the 1850s to 1880s in South Park. In the buildings there are now more than 60,000 items, the economic and social aspects illustrate the life of that time. Two of the buildings, the South Park Saloon Brewery and the buzzer are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The museum is located at the western end of Front Street and is open daily from mid- May to mid-October.