Yampa is the gateway to the Flattop Mountains. Originally named Egeria, Yampa was first inhabited by white men as a hunting camp. Peter Simon, Sam Fix and Henry Crawford filed the first claims in 1881.

For hundreds of years, the Steamboat Springs area was the summer hunting grounds for the Ute Indians. In the early 1800's, white trappers passed through the area spreading word of the lush grass and mineral springs. In 1875, James Harvey Crawford, a Civil War veteran from Sedalia, Missouri, brought his young family to be the first permanent settlers in Steamboat Springs.

Before Alexander Gray homesteaded at the site of the present town in 1883 it was called Wilson and contained enough residents to contribute an election board plus one voter to 1882 county elections.

By 1884 a post office and school were opened and a water-powered lumber mill was in operation, but the town has never incorporated.

Oak Creek was created by coal. Even before the railroad arrived, the economic and social life of south Routt County was clearly linked to the development of "Routt County Gold." Small wagon mines opened as early as 1887 when William Mahoney and homesteaders John and Henry Meyers pioneered wagon mining at a site just outside of the present town.

The townsite of former Mount Harris is located on Hwy. 40 between MM 114 and MM 115 between Milner and Hayden, Colorado. The community began to be settled in June 1914 when brothers, George and Byron Harris opened the first mine at the mouth of Bear River Canyon.

Milner was named for merchant and banker F. E. Milner who settled here in 1898. The town served as supply headquarters for surrounding coal mines for over 50 years. Well before cattle ranching became the county's major industry and well before any other farmers in the area, the Hitchens brothers, James, Billy and Joe, began to raise grain in the area in the early 1900's.

Major James B. Thompson and Porter M. Smart, who reportedly ran an Indian trading post in 1875, were the first white settlers in the region.

Hahns Peak is Routt County's oldest permanent town and was the county seat for 35 years. It was named for German immigrant, Joseph Hahn who spelled his name Henn but pronounced it Hahn, and the misspelling has been perpetrated in the name of both mountain and town.

Columbine was named for Colorado's state flower. The Columbine Mining Camp is listed on the Colorado Inventory of Historic Sites. It developed as a result of gold finds at higher elevations, travel over The Laramie Trail and the opening of a new road from the railhead at Rawlins. The camp probably started in 1880 or 1881 but it was not until 1897 that James R.