Where in the world is Judge Baldwin?

QUESTION: Marshall Sprague’s book, “Newport In The Rockies,” includes the death of local character “Judge” Baldwin, and the local undertakers preparing a grave stone for his burial. Where is Baldwin buried locally?
- J.J.

ANSWER: Old Colorado City historian Dave Hughes says about the fellow who loved his hootch and was a judge of sheep, not people:

“Since he fell down a well inside a slaughterhouse barn after a night of drinking in cold, winter Colorado City, he would have been buried in the long-abandoned Third Cemetery of Colorado City which is today’s Pioneer Park in the middle of today’s Pleasant Valley on the west side. That is where 45 Colorado City folk were buried, some few with headstones, but also many without.” Baldwin was apparently one of those without. There was never a gravestone prepared for him.

Another history factoid from Hughes: On the Baldwin coroner’s inquest, ruling on the cause of Baldwin’s death was “a carpenter named W.S. Stratton. Long before he struck it rich in Cripple Creek.”