Virginia Dale, Slade's Station

Jack Slade was one of the most feared men on the Overland Trail, and he built this stage station in eighteen sixty-two and, by most accounts, named it for his wife. Ben Holladay's Overland Stage Company had rerouted its line south through Colorado that year, and Slade was hired to establish a division station here, one where passengers could disembark, eat a meal, and spend the night. He was an excellent stage manager when sober.

He was not always sober. After a drunken shooting spree at nearby Fort Halleck in November eighteen sixty-two, Holladay fired him. Slade and Virginia headed to Montana, where vigilantes in Virginia City hanged him on March tenth, eighteen sixty-four, for disturbing the peace one too many times.

The timber station building still stands, one of the last stage stations of its kind.