Adams Area.

In the early days, the road between the Forks and Log Cabin went south around McNey Hill, not over the top as we drive today. Thousands of travelers passed along this route in the 1880s, back and forth to the gold discoveries and growing towns at Manhattan, Lulu City, and Teller City.

As the only road between the supply town of Fort Collins and North Park, on the far side of Cameron Pass, all freight, supplies, equipment, building materials passed over it.

The tracks of the 125-year-old alignment are still visible. The grasses are yet to grow back, and the roadway can be seen rising across the crest of the hillside.

Today's alignment of Red Feather Lakes Road, over the top of the hill, was engineered in 1896. Prior to that, the wagon road turned south just as the road emerges at the top of today's S-curve, on the west, at about mile marker 8.

The wagon road can be seen from that vantage point, about a quarter mile downhill from the parking area of the Cherokee Park State Wildlife Area, at about mile marker 8.

Following that first road about two miles south and west, there's a natural spring amongst a stand of ancient cottonwood trees, called now Antelope Springs.

It was here that a mythical Mr Adams, whose full name is lost to history, stopped and set up residence.

The evidence for existence of this settlement is unequivocal--on the very ground.

In Antelope Springs, Mr Adams left indelible evidence of his tenure: two parallel stone walls climbing the mountain sides from the wagon road, several hundred yards apart.

Varying in height from three feet to five feet or more, they extend several hundred yards in more-or-less straight lines.

Dry-stacked, they are not the works of an experienced waller. They are randomly placed, randomly sized, and the notion of alternating rows of stone is absent. It appears that whatever stone was nearest to a pick up was used next, and there is no evidence of finishing.

In 1882, after a couple of years of wall building at Antelope Springs, the story is that Mr Adams "sold" his place to a J.J. Bush, of Golden, Colorado.

With that, Mr Adams moved on.

Antelope Springs can also be reached from the summit of McNey Hill, at what is sometimes called Gate 0 of Glacier View Meadows. Driving east down Hewlett Gulch Road a little over a mile, Antelope Springs is visible from the road, looking north. Perhaps a quarter mile across the drainage of Gordon Creek, the cottonwood grove sits at the foot of a mountainside with two stone walls.

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Sources.

• Lafi Miller, Those Crazy Pioneers: With the Life and Times of Lady Moon & Vignettes of History.
• Doris Greenacre, Livermore Womens Club. Among These Hills: A History of Livermore, Colorado.

Property.

• Antelope Springs: State of Colorado
• Trail from junction with Highway 74E to Section 16: 
• Parcel: 1909000015 MICHAEL AND JOY PTASNIK LLC
• Parcel: 1909000014 JOHNSON ALVIN J

Larimer County Land Information Locator