Colorado’s legislature retroactively ratified informal miners’ court judgments

Evidence

The Gregory Diggings ruled itself through its little legal system two years before Colorado Territory was formally organized. The mining code served the function, well known in American legal history, of a makeshift judicial and political order, in places that were settled before ordinary government institutions arrived. Other mining districts copied the Gregory code. As business increased, the “judges” handled a wide range of disputes. The Colorado territorial legislature in 1861 and 1862 ratified, with a broad sweep, the local claims and judgments these informal courts had rendered. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2140