The Story of Terrellville before Fountain Was Fountain
- Angela Thaden Hahn
- 16 hours ago
- 2 min read
Most residents of Fountain know that their community takes its name from nearby Fountain Creek. What many may not realize is that before Fountain became the town we know today, the little settlement was commonly known as Terrellville.
My recent research suggests that the name grew naturally from the presence of one pioneering family. Amos H. Terrell arrived in the area in 1859 and established a home at the confluence of Fountain Creek and Jimmy Camp Creek. At a time when few permanent settlers lived in the region, the Terrell home quickly became a welcome stop for freighters, stagecoach passengers, and travelers moving along the trail. Family accounts and local histories describe Mrs. Terrell preparing meals for weary travelers while Amos operated the ranch and served the growing community.
When the federal government established the Fountain Post Office in 1864, Amos Terrell became its first postmaster and operated the office from his home. Travelers stopping for mail, meals, supplies, or directions would naturally have associated the settlement with the Terrell family.
My research has not yet uncovered a formal act naming the settlement "Terrellville." However, an 1888 history of Fountain explained that the community was "for convenience called Terrellville" in honor of Amos Terrell, the first postmaster. This suggests that the name arose informally among residents and travelers before the community developed into the town of Fountain.¹
In many frontier settlements, places were often known by the names of prominent families long before official town plats or municipal governments existed. Terrellville appears to have been one of those places. What began as a ranch house and stage stop on the frontier became a gathering place for travelers, a post office, and eventually the nucleus of a permanent community.
Today, the name Terrellville has largely faded from memory, replaced by Fountain. Yet the story reminds us that communities are often built around people before they are built around streets and buildings. Long before there was a town called Fountain, there was the Terrell family welcoming travelers at their door.
¹"Historical of Fountain," The Fountain Herald, 29 August 1903, p. 1, col. 1; digital images, Pikes Peak Library District Digital Collections (www.digitalcollections.ppld.org : accessed 8 June 2026), Terrellville.
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