The M.J. Patterson Contracting Company of Denver completed this pin-connected, six-panel steel Pratt pony truss in 1901.

The 1892 Coal Creek School is a good example of a one-room rural schoolhouse that has also served as a community gathering space and polling place for several decades.  The coal shed/privy and horse shed remain on the property. 

The site is important for its use by Utes well into the late 19th century during their annual fall and winter gathering of pinyon nuts in the surrounding area.

In September of 1879, Ute warriors skirmished here with troops under the command of Major T.T. Thornburgh as the troops entered the Ute Reservation on an expedition from Fort Steele, Wyoming to the White River Agency in northwestern Colorado. 

The 1902 Buford School has long been the educational center of the rural area near Buford and served as the local school until consolidation in 1952.

The Town of Meeker was founded in 1885, a few years after the White River War (also known as the Ute War, or Ute Campaign) that led to the forced relocation of the Ute tribes to Eastern Utah and Southern Colorado. 

Built in 1892 to accommodate the growing rural population in Rio Blanco County, the Coal Creek School originally featured local sandstone walls and decorative cedar shingled gables. 

Mathias and Sigrid Villa homesteaded on Strawberry Creek near Meeker, Colorado in 1915.  The couple built a cabin that still stands today.