Clear Creek is a tributary of the South Platte River

South Platte River

The South Platte River is one of the two principal tributaries of the Platte River and itself a major river of the American Midwest and the American Southwest/Mountain West, located in the U.S. states of Colorado and Nebraska...

, approximately 66 miles (106.2 km) long, in north central Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The creek flows through Clear Creek Canyon in the Rocky Mountains

Rocky Mountains

The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...

 directly west of Denver, descending through a long gorge to emerge on the Colorado Eastern Plains

Colorado Eastern Plains

The Eastern Plains of Colorado refers to a region of the U.S. state of Colorado east of the Rocky Mountains and east of the population centers of the Front Range.-Geography:...

 where it joins the South Platte. The creek is famous as the location of the most intense early mining

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

 activity during the Colorado Gold Rush

Colorado Gold Rush

The Pike's Peak Gold Rush was the boom in gold prospecting and mining in the Pike's Peak Country of western Kansas Territory and southwestern Nebraska Territory of the United States that began in July 1858 and lasted until roughly the creation of the Colorado Territory on February 28, 1861...

 of 1859. Mountain man

Mountain man

Mountain men were trappers and explorers who roamed the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through the 1880s where they were instrumental in opening up the various Emigrant Trails allowing Americans in the east to settle the new territories of the far west by organized wagon trains...

 Jim Baker had a cabin on the creek from 1873 until his death in 1898. The creek provided the route of the Colorado Central Railroad

Colorado Central Railroad

The Colorado Central Railroad was a U.S. railroad company that operated in Colorado and southeastern Wyoming in the late 19th century. Originally founded in the Colorado Territory in the wake of the Colorado Gold Rush to ship gold from the mountains, it eventually expanded from its initial...

, and later for U.S. Highway 6 and Interstate 70

Interstate 70 in Colorado

Interstate 70 is a transcontinental Interstate Highway in the United States, stretching from Cove Fort, Utah to Baltimore, Maryland. In Colorado, the highway traverses an east–west route across the center of the state. In western Colorado, the highway connects the metropolitan areas of Grand...

 as they ascend to the Continental Divide

Continental Divide

The Continental Divide of the Americas, or merely the Continental Gulf of Division or Great Divide, is the name given to the principal, and largely mountainous, hydrological divide of the Americas that separates the watersheds that drain into the Pacific Ocean from those river systems that drain...

 west of Denver.

Geography

The creek rises at the continental divide near Loveland Pass

Loveland Pass

Loveland Pass, elevation 11,990 ft. above sea level, is a high mountain pass in the Rocky Mountains of north-central Colorado, U.S.A.....

 in the Front Range

Front Range

The Front Range is a mountain range of the Southern Rocky Mountains of North America located in the north-central portion of the U.S. State of Colorado and southeastern portion of the U.S. State of Wyoming. It is the first mountain range encountered moving west along the 40th parallel north across...

, northwest of Grays Peak

Grays Peak

Grays Peak is the highest mountain in the Front Range of the Southern Rocky Mountains in the U.S. State of Colorado. It is one of 54 fourteeners in Colorado. Its nearest major city is Denver. The first man to ascend Grays Peak, botanist Charles C. Parry, named the peak for his botanist...

 in western Clear Creek County

Clear Creek County, Colorado

Clear Creek County is one of the 64 counties of the state of Colorado of the United States. The county population was 9,322 at U.S. Census 2000. The county seat is Georgetown...

. It descends eastward through Clear Creek Canyon past the towns of Silver Plume

Silver Plume, Colorado

The historic Town of Silver Plume is a Statutory Town located in Clear Creek County, Colorado, United States. Silver Plume is a former silver mining camp along Clear Creek in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...

, Georgetown

Georgetown, Colorado

The historic town of Georgetown is a Territorial Charter Municipality that is the county seat of Clear Creek County, Colorado, United States. The former silver mining camp along Clear Creek in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains was established in 1859 during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush...

, and Idaho Springs

Idaho Springs, Colorado

The City of Idaho Springs is a municipality in the U.S. state of Colorado that is the most populous settlement in Clear Creek County, Colorado. Idaho Springs is located in Clear Creek Canyon, in the mountains upstream from Golden, some thirty miles west of Denver...

, all of which were founded as mining camps in the 1859 gold rush. Within the canyon it receives numerous smaller tributary creeks that descend from the rugged mountains on either side.

At the mouth of the canyon, the creek passes through the town of Golden

Golden, Colorado

The City of Golden is a home rule municipality that is the county seat of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. Golden lies along Clear Creek at the edge of the foothills of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. Founded during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush on 16 June 1859, the mining camp was...

, past the Coors

Coors Brewing Company

The Coors Brewing Company is a regional division of the world's fifth-largest brewing company, the Canadian Molson Coors Brewing Company and is the third-largest brewer in the United States...

 brewery. East of the foothills, it flows through the northwest part of the Denver Metropolitan Area, passing through north Lakewood

Lakewood, Colorado

Lakewood is a Home Rule Municipality that is the most populous city in Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. Lakewood is the fifth most populous city in the State of Colorado and the 172nd most populous city in the United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that in April 1, 2010...

 and Wheat Ridge

Wheat Ridge, Colorado

The City of Wheat Ridge is a Home Rule Municipality located in Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. Wheat Ridge is a western suburb of Denver. The Wheat Ridge Municipal Center is approximately west-northwest of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver...

, then roughly along the route of Interstate 76. Along this section it is largely an ignored urban stream

Urban stream

An urban stream is a formerly natural waterway that flows through a heavily populated area. Urban streams are often significantly polluted, due to urban runoff and combined sewer outflows....

, with an undeveloped floodplain. Part of the creek path forms a wooded park with bicycle/foot path. It passes under Interstate 25

Interstate 25 in Colorado

In the U.S. state of Colorado, Interstate 25 follows the north–south corridor through Colorado Springs and Denver. It replaced U.S. Highway 87 and most of U.S. Highway 85 for through traffic....

 between its junction with Interstate 70 and U.S. Highway 36

U.S. Route 36 in Colorado

U.S. Route 36 is a major east–west route in the U.S. state of Colorado, extending from Rocky Mountain National Park to the Kansas state line.-Route description:...

 (the Boulder Turnpike). It joins the South Platte from the west in southeast Thornton

Thornton, Colorado

The city of Thornton is a Home Rule Municipality in Adams and Weld counties in the U.S. state of Colorado and a suburb of the Denver-Aurora-Broomfield, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. Thornton is northeast of the state's capital, Denver. The United States Census Bureau that the city population...

, near the junction of Interstate 76 and State Highway 224

Colorado State Highway 224

-Route description:SH 224 runs , starting at an interchange with , heading south on Broadway, then east on 70th Avenue. The highway crosses the South Platte River to an interchange with and ends at a junction with .-Major intersections:...

.

History

Clear Creek was originally named Cannonball Creek as early as 1820, called so by the French hunters of the expedition of Stephen H. Long, after the river rocks in its bed. In the 1830s it became known as Vasquez Fork, also Vasquez River, after the fur trader Louis Vasquez who had his fort at the mouth of the river and trapped along it. It gained its present name from the gold rushers in 1859.