Fagan's Grave
The individual who froze to death one hundred yards from Loring’s camp was a teamster named Michael Fagan. After the storm passed, a burial detail scraped away the snow alongside West Kiowa Creek, and dug a shallow grave to hold the remains of the frozen teamster. To keep the wolves away, they placed several rocks over the grave, then covered the rocks with a mound of dirt. They also erected a wooden cross with the probable inscription: “Michael Fagan – May 2, 1858.” The only eulogy given was a simple statement in the report of Colonel Loring to the Secretary of War: “a citizen teamster in the quartermaster’s employ was frozen to death….”
Just a few weeks after Fagan’s burial, the first of the gold seekers began to pass by his grave on their way to the Cherry Creek diggings. The teamster had been buried only a short distance to the east of the Cherokee Trail, just at the edge a favorite campground. After the evening meal and before writing of the day’s events in their diaries, many a gold seeker must have walked the campground and paused for a moment to read the marker above the mounded grave
Fagan's Grave
