The Museum of Northwest Colorado in Craig hosted a tour of Breeze Basin Friday. Director Dan Davidson told the group about the history of Loudy Simpson Park, and other cabins, structures, and early settlers. There were two stops at the golf course, and other stops at area ranches.

Davidson talked about the first families who moved to the area, dating back to the 1870s. It was all Grand County at first before the entire area broke off to become Routt County on Jan. 29, 1877. Then in 1911, Moffat County was formed to have its own county seat of Craig, separate of Routt County.

The Tilton family moved from Kansas into this primitive cabin when they came to the Yampa Valley in the early 1880s . The cabin had been built by some cattle men who had located in the area in the 1870s. Today, the land is part of the Yampa Valley Golf Course.

The homesteaders first set up their homes near the Yampa River. As more people came, they moved further away and to higher ground. They came in large family groups, like the Breeze family. They moved from Central Illinois. Their father was widowed with all of the kids, some old enough to be with their spouses. One gravestone on the tour was in a field, full of badger holes. It is of Mary “Breeze” Waymon. Her gravestone says she was born in April of 1861 and died on Oct. 16, 1885. Davidson has no records of how. The headstone reads, “Sleep on dear one, And take your rest, God called the home, He thought it best.”

The tour also spoke about the Meeker Massacre in 1879 and how the troops from Wyoming came directly through Moffat County and the Breeze Basin area to Milk Creek and then what is now the town of Meeker. Meeker Massacre on Wikipedia 

White River Museum in Meeker