# Bijou Basin

- URL: https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/bijou-basin/

- Kind: Towns and settlements
- Status: Historic or vanished
- County: El Paso County / Elbert County, Colorado
- Point: 39.1357, -104.4571 (stand-in point)
- Post office: Bijou Basin, 1869–1907

- Updated: 2026-10-06

## What we know

Ranch settlement on the El Paso-Elbert line: Dan Holden settled in 1862; about twenty settler families in 1868; a store, blacksmith shop and saloon; PO 1869-1882 and 1885-1907 (discontinued April 1907); cheese factory from May 1902; mail from Monument and later Peyton. The basin itself is at 39.162, -104.424.

## Where it was

USGS GNIS Cemetery 193209, Bijou Basin Cemetery. The post office stood 'ten miles southeast of Elbert', with Peyton 'seven miles south'; the old store building 'yet stands on what is now known as the "Dowling ranch"' (Elbert County Tribune, April 11, 1907). Both distances fit the cemetery.

The official point of a school, cemetery or store of the same name, standing in for the place itself.

## Nearby

- [Fremont's Fort](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/fremonts-fort/): 2.5 mi southeast
- [Bijou Basin fight (Aug. 25, 1868)](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/bijou-basin-fight-aug-25-1868/): 2.5 mi northeast
- [Cheese Ranch](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/cheese-ranch/): 4.1 mi southwest
- [Gomer's Mill](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/gomers-mill/): 4.6 mi west
- [Barnwell](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/barnwell/): 4.9 mi northwest
- [Elbert](https://palmerdivideresearch.com/places/elbert/): 7.2 mi northwest

Source numbers (S-0000) refer to https://palmerdivideresearch.com/sources/. Compiled by Michael Christensen for Palmer Divide Research; CC BY 4.0.