Why is our town called Nederland? Our area has undergone many
changes in the 150 years as a settlement and town. First in the
area were Native American groups who hunted and traveled through
here for generations. In the mid-19th century the first white
homesteaders who settled here gave it a variety of names. First
known as Dayton, then Brownsville, and in 1871, when the first
post office was located here, it was called Middle Boulder. That
was the same year Abel Breed bought the silver-rich Caribou Mine
and decided to bring his ore from Caribou Hill to the ¬warmer'
climate of Middle Boulder for milling. It was also the same year
the Boulder Canyon Road was completed, though it would be nearly
forty years before the first automobile (a Stanley Steamer)
would make the difficult trip up from Boulder in 1910. In 1873,
Breed sold the Caribou Mine to the Mining Company Nederland from
Holland. Breed's Caribou Mill in Middle Boulder became known
among the miners as ¿the Netherlands,î meaning ¿low landsî
(which it is