One Letter's Difference: How the Spelling Changed

The name of this town carries a small scar from the Civil War, hidden in a single letter. When the camp was founded in eighteen fifty-nine, the promoter George Spencer spelled it Breckinridge, with an i in the middle, to honor the sitting Vice President of the United States, John Cabell Breckinridge, and to win the town its post office. For a couple of years the spelling stood.

But then the nation split apart. Vice President Breckinridge sided with the South, accepted a commission as a Confederate general, and was expelled from the United States Senate near the end of eighteen sixty-one. The people of this Union-loyal mining town were furious to share a name with a man they now viewed as a traitor.

Their solution was quiet but pointed. They changed the i to an e, turning Breckinridge into Breckenridge, and kept the town without keeping the disgraced man's exact name. Records suggest the change came right around the time of his expulsion in December of eighteen sixty-one.

Historians note there may be an older layer here too, a possible earlier link to an explorer named Thomas Breckenridge, but the story locals treasure is the wartime one. So the next time you see the name, look at that middle letter and remember it once quietly declared which side this town was on.