Central, CO

Central is the official City of Central, better known locally as Central City, a high-country home-rule municipality in Gilpin and Clear Creek counties. It sits at roughly 8,700 feet, serves as Gilpin County's seat, and shares the Central City-Black Hawk Historic District with its neighboring city. The place grew from the 1859 Pike's Peak Gold Rush after John H. Gregory found the Gregory Lode in Gregory Gulch; within months, prospectors were pouring into the gulch and the new settlement was taking shape.

Central's old mining map is still the local reference point: Gregory Gulch, the uphill streets of Central City, the 80427 postal area, and the civic buildings of the county seat. The city's history also includes Mountain City, an early settlement downhill from Central, and the railroad and mining activity that linked the two names. Today, Central is a compact mountain city whose formal limits sit inside a landscape shaped by gold, steep roads, neighboring Black Hawk, and the historic district that joins them.