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The Twenty-Mile house

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Contributed by: Henning Peterson on 3/17/2006

Have you ever wondered just what the heck that little old-fashioned house was on Mainstreet next to Guaranty Bank? If you’ve ever gone up to it, you will quickly see that it has the characteristics of an old post-office built in the 1860s. The sign in front calls it the 20-Mile House and a historical landmark.

How historical can a little house that used to be a post office be, right? Try the birthplace of the whole city of Parker! However, it wasn’t called Parker at the time, it was called Pine Grove, and it was just a one room house in the middle of nowhere. It did have one thing going for it: it was on the Cherokee Trail, the fastest route to Denver at the time. So it became one of 6 way-stations and, since it was about 20 miles from Denver, was named the 20-Mile House. It was later bought by a man named James S. Parker who took up the postage service.

By that time the area accommodated a 20 room hotel complete with restaurant and dance hall. It reached its height when the railroad was put in and Pine Grove was changed to the city of Parker. However, when the automobile came around and made trains less useful, the town declined; and when there’s a flood that wipes out most of the place, well, needless to say not too many people found it very attractive being wet and all. Parker didn’t get back on its feet till about 1981 where it became what it is today.

That’s just a little history on the 20-Mile House. I hope that I have helped those of you who stay up at night staring at the ceiling trying to figure out what that house is.

Henning Peterson is a reporter for DLHS News, the school newspaper for Lutheran High School of the Rockies.

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Henning Peterson

Parker , CO

Henning Peterson has posted 8 stories and 0 comments since joining on 3/15/2006. Henning Peterson 's average story rating is 5.

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