I was just looking at the data and it seems that this website has been visited by people from more than 30 countries over the past couple of days. Some of those visitors – including many from the U.S. of A. – probably have no idea why Ralston Creek is named that (or why this is Ralston Creek Review); or why in Arvada, Colorado we have a Ralston Road and Ralston Valley High School and Ralston’s
There are no photos of Lewis Ralston. This is Benjamin Wadsworth, the founder of the City of Arvada
Crossing Event Center, as well as a lot of other things and places with Ralston in the name. If anyone really thought about it, he or she might wonder if there is relationship between Ralston Creek and the Ralston Branch of the Chestatee River in Georgia.
Well, a lot of Denver Bronco fanatics know that the team had its first ever winning season under Coach John Ralston back in 1973; but it was a different Mr. Ralston who gave his name to all those things I have mentioned, almost by accident.
The Ralston we need to discuss here is Lewis Ralston, who was born in Georgia in the year 1804. There are very few books recounting his life. The best and most complete one is a thin volume (barely 120 pages) entitled Ralston’s Gold, by Lois Lindstrom1, which was published in 2011 by Coloradream Publishing. It seems to be the only book that company has ever published.
Lewis Ralston seems to have had an interesting life, lived as one of those people who almost made it big; who almost became famous; who was almost at the right place at the right time.
The Georgia colony was only established in 1732, and less than 45 years later its inhabitants participated in the American Revolution. In the early 19th Century, most of the state remained wilderness, with the settlements and civilized society being those of the Cherokee people.
Lewis Ralston moved to the Cherokee country in 1825. He met a man named Benjamin Parks, Jr., who, like Ralston, was of European descent, and they became partners in a business supplying horses and cows. The next year he married a Cherokee woman, Elizabeth Duncan Kell. There are no existing pictures or physical descriptions of either Lewis or Elizabeth. The couple settled on Cherokee land near where a small stream joined the Chestatee River, and that stream became known as Ralston Branch.
In the autumn of 1828, Ralston’s partner, Benjamin Parks, was out hunting when he found a shiny rock in a stream. That discovery set off a major gold rush which brought thousands of prospectors to the area by 1830.2 Even before the discovery of gold, the State of Georgia, backed by Andrew Jackson, John C. Calhoun and the U. S. Army, had been working to steal the Cherokee lands and move the Cherokee “west of the Mississippi.”3
Lewis Ralston had established gold mines on his property, but those mines and almost everything else he owned were taken from him as the State of Georgia confiscated the Cherokee property and the Cherokee people were forcibly removed to Oklahoma – an event known as the “Trail of Tears.” The Ralston family remained in Georgia, though not much is known of them for the next several years.
In January of 1848, gold was discovered in California by a crew building a sawmill for John Sutter. Two members of that crew were former neighbors of the Ralstons, and they sent a letter back to their old Georgia friends telling them of the strike. Thus, Ralston was one of the first people outside of California to learn of the discovery that sparked the 1849 California gold rush. He waited another year, and in 1850 Lewis started West with a group of Georgians.
In June of 1850, that party was in the wilderness that is now north central Colorado. As it camped near the confluence of a small creek with Clear Creek, Lewis Ralston brought out his gold pan and soon found about one-third ounce of gold. To commemorate the event, the small creek was named Ralston Creek. The party was headed for California, however, so they moved on.
It is not known whether Lewis Ralston made it to California, or how long he may have stayed. it is known that he was back in Georgia by 1853, and was no richer for his excursion.
By 1858, the United States was seeing the approaching “clouds” of the Civil War and there was anticipation that more gold would be found out in the undeveloped western territories. That year, Lewis Ralston joined another group going to Colorado. He returned to Ralston Creek, but was unable to establish any commercially viable gold mine. After a few months, he returned to Georgia once again. Only a few months after that a major gold discovery was made some 20 miles farther west on Clear Creek and the Colorado gold rush began.
In 1863, Lewis Ralston joined the Confederate Army as a 59-year old private. After finishing the war on the losing side, Ralston and his wife, Elizabeth, moved to western Georgia. After that, they may have moved to the Cherokee settlement in Oklahoma; but that is not certain. It is not known when they died or where they were buried. It is known that Lewis Ralston left his name to many places and things that he certainly would not have imagined during his lifetime.
All of this information is covered in the first 100 pages of Ralston’s Gold and is 
based on Ms. Lindstorm’s very thorough research of the limited information available about this man – and some of it is, admittedly, conjecture. The rest of the book is essentially a first person account – though it is written in the third person – of the tedious process of obtaining historic designation and establishing what is now Gold Strike Park in Arvada, Colorado, at the place of Lewis Ralston’s 1850 gold discovery.
Lois Lindstrom is a retired schoolteacher and was one of the founders and the first president of the Arvada Historical Society. She worked diligently for many years, sometimes with and sometimes against, the City of Arvada, the Colorado Historical Society and other groups from 1971 until the park was finally established in 2004 – 33 years later.
The most interesting part of the story of the park – at least to me – is that my high school chemistry teacher, Ralph W. “Bill” Ashton, was very active in assisting Ms. Lindstrom throughout that entire period. I doubt that the park would have ever come into existence without his efforts and influence.
Way to go, and thank you, Mr. Ashton.
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1. Ms. Lindstrom is the author of an earlier book entitled First Gold: Lewis Ralston and Arvada, June 22, 1850 (1992), which I have not read.
2. An interesting article about Benjamin Parks, Jr. was published in North Georgia Journal, Volume Two, No.1, Spring 1985. That article can be read by clicking here.
3. The United States Supreme Court ruled such actions illegal in Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832), but the Executive Branch refused to comply with that decision.