Huerfano Butte

The orphan is a volcano that never erupted. Huerfano Butte is a plug of alkali basalt that cooled underground roughly 26 million years ago, one of the swarm of intrusions around the Spanish Peaks, and a monzonite dike dated to 25.2 million years cuts through it. Erosion stripped away the softer rock around it and left the cone standing alone a few hundred yards from I-25. The butte is on private land with no public trail. A newer state panel beside this bronze tells of the Hispano plazas that grew up along the river it named.

What the plaque says

This tablet is the property of the State of Colorado Huerfano Butte The isolated cone-shaped butte, east of this point and 10 miles north of Walsenburg, was named El Huerfano, "The Orphan," by early Spaniards. The name appeared in Spanish records as early as 1818. This butte was near the Trappers' Trail from Taos. Passed by Fremont and Gunnison on their railroad surveys of 1853. The river and county also now bear the name. Altitude 6,150 feet. Erected by the State Historical Society of Colorado from the Mrs. J. N. Hall Foundation and by the Huerfano Group of the Colorado Mountain Club, June 3, 1951.

Where it stands