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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

So far, we found very little information about Spar City. The little that we've found leads us believe that the community is historic.<1>

We've added Spar City to our Gazetteer with the hope that we can develop more information. If you can help us with Spar City, please Contact Us.

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Spar City (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Spar City. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Neighboring Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the northwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the west. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the north.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties instead of the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the west contained birth and death records; the county to the north contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Although our information shows that the community of Spar City is historic, it would have been located within present day Mineral County.

To see how the shape of Colorado's counties have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Mineral County: Archuleta, Hinsdale, Rio Grande & Saguache.

Below are the counties that are near Spar City. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Spar City:

  • Mineral County     (The home county of Spar City)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Spar City, with the one closest to Spar City listed first.
    • Creede
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Creede
      • Creede is located in Mineral County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 315 people
      • Former name for Creede:
      • Amethyst
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Creede <2>
    • Bachelor City ‑ Historic
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Bachelor City have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bachelor City
      • Bachelor City is located in Mineral County
  • Archuleta County
    • Pagosa Springs
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Pagosa Springs have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pagosa Springs
      • Pagosa Springs is located in Archuleta County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,132 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Pagosa Springs <2>
  • Hinsdale County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Spar City, with the one closest to Spar City listed first.
    • Old Carson ‑ Historic
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Old Carson
      • Old Carson is located in Hinsdale County
    • Carson ‑ Historic
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Carson
      • Carson is located in Hinsdale County
    • Lake City
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Rio Grande County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Spar City, with the one closest to Spar City listed first.
    • South Fork
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for South Fork have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for South Fork
      • South Fork is located in Rio Grande County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 425 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for South Fork <2>
    • Gerrard
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gerrard
      • Gerrard is located in Rio Grande County
    • Agua Ramon
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Agua Ramon
      • Agua Ramon is located in Rio Grande County
    • Summitville ‑ Historic
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Summitville
      • Summitville is located in Rio Grande County

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Spar City, see our County-by-County Page for Spar City.

Cemeteries Near Spar City ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Spar City.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

If you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our selection of Genealogy Websites (see below).

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Spar City covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Spar City, with the one closest to Spar City listed first.

  • Creede Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
  • McCoy Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the McCoy Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the McCoy Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • White Ranch Family Cemetery
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the White Ranch Family Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the White Ranch Family Cemetery is located 8 miles [12.9 km]<5> to the west of Pagosa Springs.
    • The White Ranch Family Cemetery has also been known as:
    • White Spring Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2484263 <4>
  • Eoff Ranch Cemetery
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
  • New Cemetery
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the New Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the New Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Old Cemetery
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Old Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Old Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.

While we didn't find Spar City in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Spar City.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Spar City, with the one closest to Spar City listed first.

  • Creede
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Creede
    • Creede is located in Mineral County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 315 people
    • Former name for Creede:
    • Amethyst
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Creede <2>
  • South Fork
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for South Fork have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for South Fork
    • South Fork is located in Rio Grande County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 425 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for South Fork <2>
  • Summitville ‑ Historic
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Summitville
    • Summitville is located in Rio Grande County
  • Lake City
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Spar City. See our List of 1890's Communities around Spar City.

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Spar City ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 25 newspapers that have been published in the area around Spar City.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Spar City. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Spar City and those printed in the larger area surrounding Spar City.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<5> of Spar City.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Spar City:

The official website for State of Colorado: https://www.colorado.gov/

Footnotes ...

<1>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Spar City, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>The location has been supplied by the Geographic Names Information System - which is maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). While these values should be definitive, we found that accuracy can vary and you should double-check the location if accuracy is required.
<4>The Find-a-Grave website is an excellent research tool with information about a cemetery's location and interments. They also offer a forum for their members which can provide additional help. More information about Find-a-Grave can be found on their website: findagrave.com.
<5>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Spar City) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Spar City. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 37.7072, Longitude: -106.9684       In this case, the coordinates for Spar City have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).




 

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In closing, please keep in mind that we can not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of the information on this website, so use with care. We encourage you to double-check the information that is critical to you.

If you've found an error or have additional information that you would like to share, please don't hesitate to write: Click here to contact us.

This page was last modified/updated: 12 Jul 2025