Tarryall Creek

Tarryall Creek is a tributary of the South Platte River, approximately 68.5 miles (110.2 km) long,[2] in Park County in central Colorado in the United States. It drains a rural portion of north and central South Park, an intermontane grassland in the Rocky Mountains southwest of Denver. It rises in the high Rockies in several forks along the Continental Divide in the Pike National Forest southwest of Boreas Pass. It descends to the southwest through a short canyon, emerging into South Park near Como, Colorado. It crosses U.S. Highway 285 east of Red Hill Pass northeast of Fairplay, the county seat of Park County, then meanders towards the southeast, joining the South Platte from the east in the southeastern corner of South Park.

Tarryall Creek[1]
The creek as seen from the southeast side of U.S. Route 285 in Park County in late March, 2014.
Physical characteristics
Source
• location	Park County, Colorado
• coordinates	39°20′33″N 106°00′33″W
Mouth
• location	Confluence with South Platte River
• coordinates	39°05′49″N 105°20′23″W
• elevation	7,224 ft (2,202 m)
Basin features
Progression	South Platte—Platte Missouri—Mississippi

The creek was one of the most active locations for the prospecting of gold during the Colorado Gold Rush in 1859. The "Tarryall diggings" and other nearby sites on the west side of South Park attracted thousands of prospectors over Ute Pass and Kenosha Pass, and the towns of Tarryall and Hamilton, both now completely vanished, were soon founded along the creek. There are no towns on the upper creek today.

In 1955, Rory Calhoun, later of the CBS western television series, The Texan, and actress Julie Adams co-starred in the film The Looters, the story of a plane crash in the Rocky Mountains. Part of the picture was filmed about Tarryall Creek. The advertising poster reads: "Five desperate men ... and a girl who didn't care ... trapped on a mountain of gale-lashed rock!"[3]