Conrad Frederick William Unfug

     Conrad Frederick William Unfug was born on 5 September 1850 at Bielefeld, Province of Westphalia, Kingdom of Prussia. He married, at age 38, Zeralda Engleton Boone, age 36, daughter of Van Daniel Boone and Mary Ann Randall, on Monday, 4 March 1889 at Pueblo, Pueblo County, Colorado.
     From Gary R. Hawpe, ed. and Edith Todd, comp., 'Conrad Frederick William Unfug and Zerelda E. Boone,' Van Bibber Pioneers E-Newsletter, Vol. 4 No. 9 (July 2001), pp. 4 - 5.

This article and pictures of the Unfug family can be located at the Francisco Fort Museum in La Veta, Huerfano County, Colorado.

CONRAD FREDERICK WILLIAM UNFUG

Conrad Frederick William UNFUG born 5 Sep 1850 Bielefeld, Westphalia, Germany. Arrived Denver 1874. Married 4 March 1889 Pueblo, Colorado to Zerelda E. BOONE.

Conrad celebrated his 15th birthday on the high seas while enroute to St. Louis in 1865. Here he worked until the dream of finding his fortune in Colorado led him to the boomtown of Denver, arriving there in 1874.

Hearing of the gold excitement in the Black Hills of South Dakota, he communicated with a brother, William and the two formed a partnership to establish a trading post to serve as an outfitting point at Cheyenne, Wyoming. The venture, however did not meet expectations and he returned to Denver the following year. When he reached Denver excitement was centered on California Gulch, which was later to become Leadville. There he went with high hopes, but after a years hard toil and disappointment he decided on making his stake elsewhere.

On 5 Feb 1879, Conrad and several others established the gold mining camp of Kokomo, which was later to be in Park County. During the spring of that year, hordes of miners swept over the range from Leaddville. The following year the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad was to make Kokomo its terminal and the camp thus became one of the embryo cities of the famous Ten Mile Mining District. Fire destroyed a large part of Kokomo during the winter of 1881. It was then that Conrad decided to come to Walsenburg, although he kept in touch with his mining interests in the years that followed.

In the meantime, during the '80s, he was engaged by the D&RG Railroad to help survey the lines being extended from Garland City (now Alamosa) to the points in the San Luis valley. With the completion of the work he returned to work with his brother in the UNFUG store. Later after his marriage in 1889, he moved to Pueblo where he engaged in business until 1904. He and his family then returned to Walsenburg to remain permanently.