Kit Carson, Colorado, Named at the Junction

The town of Kit Carson sits where cattle trails crossed stage routes on the eastern Colorado plains, and its name honors the trapper, scout, and guide Christopher Carson, one of the most famous frontiersmen of the nineteenth century. The original settlement near here was a trading post where Carson dealt with Arapaho and Cheyenne people. When the railroad arrived in the eighteen seventies, it made the town a major cattle shipping point.

Kit Carson stood at the intersection of the Smoky Hill stagecoach route. The town is said to have suffered more than one destructive fire. It never grew large but it persisted, a crossroads that the surrounding ranchland continued to need.