Colorado State Forest Service

About forestry service, 80826, Limon, CO, US, Colorado

Franktown is an unincorporated town, a post office, and a census-designated place (CDP) located in and governed by Douglas County, Colorado, United States. The CDP is a part of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. The Franktown post office has the ZIP Code 80116. At the United States Census 2020, the population of the Franktown CDP was 409. == History == Franktown is named for James Frank Gardner, a prospector who built a cabin 2.9 miles (4.7 km) north of the present location of Franktown in 1859 that became known as Frankstown in the Kansas Territory (also in the extralegal Jefferson Territory.) The Territory of Colorado was created on February 28, 1861, and the new territory created Douglas County on November 1, 1861, with Frankstown as the first county seat. On September 8, 1862, the former Russellville post office moved to Frankstown. (Russellville, 1.6 miles (2.6 km) southeast of the present location of Franktown, had been settled by members of the William Greeneberry Russell Party in 1858.) In 1864, the county seat was moved south to California Ranch (at the present location of Franktown), a popular rest stop on the busy Jimmy Camp Trail (which followed Cherry Creek north to Denver.) The residents and post office of Frankstown soon followed to California Ranch which became known as Franktown. The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad reached the new town of Colorado Springs on October 27, 1871, and traffic on the Jimmy Camp Trail rapidly subsided. In 1874, Douglas County moved its county seat from California Ranch to the new town of Castle Rock on the railroad. Despite losing the county seat, Franktown remained a ranching and farming hub, held together by its church, school, grange, and handful of businesses.