Page:Bench and bar of Colorado - 1917.djvu/17



HEN the first seekers after gold pitched their camp upon the banks of Cherry Creek, near its confluence with the Platte, in the spring of 1858, and thus laid the foundation for what, in the course of a few years, developed into the City of Denver, the greater part of what today is known as Colorado was part of the Territory of Kansas. All the territory west of a straight line drawn from the northeast corner of New Mexico to the southern boundary of Nebraska and extending as far as the Utah line was embraced in the Kansas county of Arapahoe, and the first court in this region—the Pike's Peak country it was commonly called—was a Kansas court.

Buried in the archives of Kansas, among the records of that state's territorial days, is an act passed by the territorial legislature on August 25, 1855, which, among other things, provides for the appointment of one Allen P. Tibbitts as probate judge of Arapahoe county. Inasmuch as Arapahoe county contained the major part of our present-day Colorado, Tibbitts may rightfully be called Colorado's first judge, even though he never visited Arapahoe county, much less held court within its boundaries. Why Judge Tibbitts failed to assume the duties of his office is not recorded. Most likely he was aware of the fact that, with the exception of a few trappers and hunters, there were no white people in the country then, and he did not relish the long overland trip in those days when hostile Indians infested the region.

March, 1859, witnessed the organization of the first real court in the Pike's Peak country. With the arrival of a steady stream of gold seekers and others in the settlements along Cherry Creek and the Platte, the need of a court had made itself felt in the community. Accordingly the