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Caribou

Ghost town · Boulder County, Colorado

Central City quadrangle, USGS topographic map (1905, 1:62,500)
Central City quadrangle, USGS topographic map (1905, 1:62,500) · U.S. Geological Survey, Historical Topographic Map Collection · Public domain

Caribou is a ghost town in Boulder County, Colorado. It is one of 5 former communities in Boulder County on the federal names register. That ranks the county 14th among the 48 Colorado counties with a vanished settlement on record.

The U.S. Geological Survey lists Caribou as a historical populated place on the Nederland topographic quadrangle: the name is no longer in official use for a community, whether the settlement was abandoned, absorbed into a neighbouring town or renamed. The recorded location is 39.9808° N, 105.5786° W.

In old newspapers

The earliest digitized newspaper pages printed in Colorado before 1931 that mention “Caribou”, from the Library of Congress. A page may use the name for something else; open it to read the context. 892 pages in all.

Key facts

USGS quadrangleNederland
Elevation9,997 ft
Nearest living townEldora, CO
Distance to it1.6 miles
GNIS feature ID181099
Coordinates39.98082, -105.57861

Open the location on a map

What's there now

Caribou is no longer a community in its own right. The nearest living town is Eldora, CO (population 440), about 1.6 miles away in a straight line, and the site sits at roughly 9,997 feet above sea level. Much of the land around former townsites is private; check access before you visit.

Images

Caribou, Boulder County, Colorado, ca. 1960
Caribou, Boulder County, Colorado, ca. 1960 · Robert W. McLeod / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Nearby places

Questions

Where is Caribou?

Caribou is in Boulder County, Colorado, at 39.9808, -105.5786.

How many ghost towns are in Boulder County?

Boulder County, Colorado has 5 ghost towns on record at Wayfarrow.

Sources and licences

Facts marked "approximately" carry an uncertain date in the source. Text on this page is generated from the sources above; no encyclopedia prose is copied. Last updated 2026-11-05.