"A Look Back"

The Stories presented here are about people and events during the early days when this corner of Colorado was first settled.

Christina Murray – last and first
By Shannan Koucherik for the Museum of NW Colorado

Some of Craig’s stories are lengthy and cover decades. Others are short but packed with fascinating details.

Christina “Tena” Murray came to the Yampa Valley as a young woman stricken with tuberculosis – called consumption during her lifetime. She was one of a large Scottish farming family born on Prince Edward Island, Canada in 1865. Her father had immigrated from Renfrewshire, Cathcart, Scotland hoping to raise his family where rich land was available for those who were willing to work for it.

As did many other consumption patients, Tena came to the arid western part of the United States hoping to beat the killer disease. She was preceded to the Yampa Valley by her cousins the Taylors and one of her brothers and a sister. She soon took a homestead of 160 acres with the goal of building a home for herself, but she would never see the fulfillment of her dream.

Tena managed to build a small home on the land west of the new community. Her claim was approximately where the intersection of Highways 40 and 13 is in 2008. She filed an affidavit stating that “it is bona fide my intention to become a CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES, and to renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign Prince, Potentate, State and Sovereignty whatever, and particularly to Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland whereof I was heretofore a citizen or subject.” (State of Colorado document dated August 11, 1888 executed at Hahn’s Peak, Colorado)

To supplement her income as her health began to fail she took a job as the postmaster of the little community known as Yampa, Routt County, Colorado (just east of present day Craig,) on April 27, 1889.

The name of the town was changed from Yampa to Craig on August 28, 1889, so in the course of a day, Murray became the last postmaster of Yampa and the first postmaster of Craig without moving a foot.

By July 1, 1889, she was too ill to stay at her homestead – she and her family had managed to clear and plow approximately four acres of land, but she hadn’t planted any crops. She moved into the little town and kept at her postmaster position until her death on February 28, 1890.

She was buried in the Fairview cemetery near the relatives she had come to be near.

William F. Teagarden took over the position of postmaster after Christina Murray’s death and her sister Annie and brother John bought 40 of the original 160 acres the following year. Records indicate that they, “the heirs of Christina Murray,” paid $1.25/acre for a total of $50. Annie had married Richard Jaap by that time and the couple left the Yampa Valley soon afterward.

Teagarden purchased eventually purchased the land and became known as one of the founding fathers of Craig.

Christina Murray only lived a quarter of a century and she didn’t leave a lasting legacy like so many others, but she was a part of the growth of Craig and as such, her short life became important in our history.