Sheriff Billy Cozens

Sheriff Billy Cozens. . , A few hours after Sheriff Billy Cozen's wife had given birth to their first child, he apprehended two bank robbers. Gilpin County afforded no jail yet, so Billy took the suspects home and chained them , against his wife's protest , to the bed where she and the baby lay. "If you disturb my wife or the baby for one minute, I'll kill you both," he warned the robbers. Mrs. Cozens reported the next day that neither of the men had moved a muscle all night. (From the old Rocky Mountain News.) , Central City, Colorado, in the wild days of the 1860's attracted prospectors, hustlers, horse thieves, killers, and dreamers. The destination of gold seekers and immigrants from all over the planet, the gold rush town did indeed, produce great wealth for a few. , Recognizing that handcuffs and a bed post weren't effective security, Cozens had some law breakers build a ramshackle jail in Central City's Gregory Gulch. One of its clients was a gunman who had cold bloodedly shot a popular miner. A mob, intent on lynching the gunman, rushed the jail several times that day from a nearby saloon, and as the crowds came on, Sheriff Cozens faced them down from the jailhouse steps. "Give up yer man, Billy," yelled the crowd. "All right, boys, come and get him," said the sheriff, taking a bead along the barrels of two six shooters, "and I'll inform you that the first man that crosses that wagon track is dead!" The crowd fell back. Few people ever did cross a line Billy Cozens drew due to his strong personal presence. Lincolnesque in stature, Cozens stood over six foot, two inches, about a foot taller than most men at that time. Cozens held the lid down on one of the wildest frontier gold rush towns without having to shoot a man. His reputation for meaning what he said meant he could say it quietly. , Central City was elbow to elbow with people suffering from gold fever. Sore losers outnumbered winners at every turn. Wearing "the star" in frontier mining towns would be a nightmare to most men. Billy Cozens made it look easy. , Convincing him that the "unescorted ladies" in town staffing the bordellos were a bad influence on their two adolescent daughters and son, Cozen's wife Mary persuaded the now middle aged lawman to hang up his badge. The Cozens family crossed over the Divide to the western slope and established a homestead ranch, overnight stage stop, and the first post office near Fraser, Colorado. , Some years later, a group of armed and angry Ute Indians led by Tabernash, proceeded to rip Cozen's fence posts out of the pasture with their horses. The land had harbored wild game rather than white man's cattle for thousands of years. The ex-lawman walked out alone with his rifle and advised them to move along. They recognized Cozens from Central City, and quickly left. , Railroad surveyors were slower to learn. According to oral history, when Moffat's railroad surveyors came over the Divide and placed stakes for a right of way in the middle of Cozen's prime pasture, he suggested they locate the tracks on the west edge of his land. They resumed pounding stakes; Cozens sat on the porch in his rocking chair and with his Winchester, shot out the survey stakes. The crew apparently concluded he could shoot faster than they could pound, and moved the right of way where he had suggested. To this day, the tracks run down the middle of the Fraser River Valley only after leaving the Cozens ranch and the Town of Fraser, heading west to Salt Lake City and San Francisco. , Cozens ultimately died of congestive heart failure in bed with his boots off. The ranch house and stage stop is preserved as a museum on the national register, located near this park. Sheriff Billy and his entire family lie buried out back.