Conifer Colorado | About Trey Parker and South Park

Conifer Colorado and the notable Trey Parker

Conifer is an unincorporated community

Conifer, Colorado, is home to Trey Parker and known as a really nice place to live. The average temperatures in both summer and winter are not extreme. In the summer months, the Temperature lingers around the upper 70 degrees Fahrenheit, with cool nights. In the winter, the coldest it usually gets is in the single digits. The area averages about 63” of snow a year.

Conifer’s biggest feature is that it’s a nice mountain community in close proximity to Denver. A few commercial strips are on both sides of the historic U.S. Route 285.  Pike National Forest runs right through town. The community’s attractions are outdoor recreation opportunities, wildlife, and gorgeous mountainscapes. There is no official town in Conifer, but you can find everything you need to outfit a mountain trip or basic essentials as you pass through.

There is Conifer High School, which was ranked 434 in the top 500 schools in the nation by Newsweek in 2011. Home prices are well above a million dollars, although you can find more affordable cabin-type getaways. Essentially, it’s fair to say that Conifer is an affluent community that enjoys a peaceful mountain lifestyle.

Conifer, Colorado is really not a very historically significant place.

Originally known as Bradford Junction in the 1860s. The greatest historical significance of Bradford Junction is that it was a stagecoach stop for those traveling to South Park. It remained a stagecoach stop up until the 1890s when the railroad replaced the stagecoach road and lessened the number of people stopping in Bradford Junction. At this time, the area primarily became a cattle ranching community and was eventually known as Conifer. Cattle ranching still exists, although the mountainscape is now dotted with lovely homes.

Naming of Conifer

In the early 1900s, the area became known as Conifer. Some say it is named after George Conifer, the proprietor of a local tavern. While others believe it was named after the conifer tree, which grows near the original Bradford Junction.

Trey Parker has helped bring significance to Conifer as he is now considered a notable person of Conifer. 

Trey Parker, the creator of the sitcom cartoon South Park, has become a notable native person of Conifer, Colorado. One can only imagine what it would be like growing up in a small community like a Conifer. Such a nice place that is clearly out of harm’s way and cradles youth for life ahead.

The South Park Conifer Connection

The main street in Conifer, Colorado, the most historically significant aspect of Conifer, is U.S. Route 285. This route was the original stagecoach road to South Park and is still the major thoroughfare. Early settlers passed through Conifer to get to the boomtown of South Park or Fairplay Diggings.

The only thing that’s odd or remarkable about Conifer is that U.S. hwy 285 is the original route to South Park; and that Trey Parker grew up in Conifer. Once you put South Park and Conifer together in this context, it’s hard not to wonder about these two places. Knowing that Trey Parker grew up in Conifer, a nice small mountain community surrounded by cattle ranching, and on route to South Park. U.S. Route 285 becomes more than main street Conifer. The route has history, way more than Conifer; it has direction and was a pathway to riches and a better life. It was also the road to damnation and suffering.

Although South Park and Fairplay have much more history than Conifer, a huge amount is not written down. What there is lets us know that times were troubled back then. This quote from The Fairplay Flume of October 28, 1880, reveals the contradictory morals of that day.

“As the name implies, Fairplay was conceived from an honest motive, and we are proud to say that the principles proclaimed by the pioneer founders of the town have been rigidly kept. The history of the past proves it, and the future will further demonstrate it.”

(Gold, Guns, and Grass South Park and Fairplay, Colorado)

by Kathleen Fitzsimmons