Twenty Mile House

The bronze gives the house to two men and leaves out the woman who ran it. Alfred Butters put up the first one-room station about 1864; by local tradition George Long traded it to Nelson and Susan Doud for a span of mules, and Susan Doud is the one remembered for operating it before the couple moved to the Seventeen Mile House. James Sample Parker, a former bullwhacker, bought it in 1874 and made it a railroad depot in 1882. The monument was moved here in June 1988, so its quarter mile due west no longer measures.

What the plaque says

This tablet is the property of the State of Colorado Due west ¼ mile stood the Twenty Mile House (Twenty miles from Denver) First house built in Parker, 1864. On the Smoky Hill Trail, an emigrant route that was dotted with unmarked graves of pioneers. Junction of the Smoky Hill and Santa Fe stage lines. A refuge for early settlers against Indian attacks. Hostelry kept in turn by Nelson Doud and by James S. Parker (for whom the town of Parker is named). Erected by the State Historical Society of Colorado from the Mrs. J. N. Hall Foundation and by the American Pioneer Trails Association, Dr. Margaret Long, and school children of Parker. 1945 20 Mile House historical monument relocated this site June 1988 Parker Area Historical Society and the Town of Parker

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Colorado State Capitol — 19 mi
  A capitol of Colorado granite, marble, onyx and gold, with three different steps claiming to stand exactly a mile high.
• Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge — 21 mi
  Mustard gas, nerve agent and pesticides for forty years, then bald eagles, bison and black-footed ferrets on the same ground.
• Dinosaur Ridge — 26 mi
  A hogback near Morrison with the bones of 1877 on one flank and the footprints a road crew blasted open in 1937 on the other.
• Red Rocks Amphitheatre — 26 mi
  Walker's Garden of the Titans, finished by the CCC between Ship Rock and Creation Rock and dedicated on June 15, 1941.

More markers nearby

• Franktown — 9.0 mi
• Overland Park — 17 mi
• Sand Creek Massacre — 19 mi
• Passing of the Street Car — 19 mi