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Agricultural Extension Service

The agricultural extension service in Colorado (1887–present) links individuals, organizations, and communities with research experts to address agrarian issues. These issues encompass rural problems associated with farming and ranching, as well as urban…

Beef Industry on the Colorado Plains

Colorado’s beef industry traces its roots back to the latter half of the nineteenth century, when cowboys drove cattle across the plains in some of the most iconic imagery of the American West. However, the state’s modern beef industry did not begin…

Bison Reintroduction

Conservation efforts and reintroduction of the American bison (Bison bison) in Colorado began in Denver during the early twentieth century. By that time, the bison population had declined precipitously since the mid-nineteenth century because of…

Chicago-Colorado Colony

The Chicago-Colorado Colony (1871–73) established the city of Longmont near the confluence of St. Vrain and Left Hand Creeks in 1871. Financed by wealthy Chicagoans and consisting mostly of immigrants from the Midwest, the colony was an agricultural…

Grand Valley Irrigation

The story of irrigation in Colorado’s Grand Valley speaks volumes about the reciprocal relationship between land and community in the arid American West. Early white colonizers of Colorado’s Western Slope espoused concepts of landscape and water control…

John Wesley Iliff

If there is a name in Colorado history that is synonymous with cattle and ranching, it is John Wesley Iliff (1831–78). At the time of his death, Iliff owned approximately 35,000 head of cattle and thousands of acres stretching from northeast Colorado to…

Painter Family

The Painter was a prosperous ranching family in Colorado during the early 1900s. Even though ranching went into universal decline following a brutal winter in 1886, the Painter family remained successful due to equal parts luck, persistence, and…

Richard Wetherill

Richard Wetherill (1858–1910) was a nineteenth-century rancher and explorer who lived in southwest Colorado. Although he is often credited with "discovering" some of the most significant Ancestral Pueblo archaeological sites…

Rock Art of Colorado

Colorado is home to a rich variety of prehistoric and historic art carved on cliff sides and boulders. Most rock art is found in river basins. The mountain areas that cut a wide vertical swath through the state are relatively devoid of rock art. There…

Sugar Beet Industry

Today sugar beet production is a small part of Colorado’s economy, but in the twentieth century it was the most important agricultural activity in the state. Of more than twenty sugar-refining factories, most built between 1899 and 1920, only the Fort…

Sunflowers

Sunflowers, several species of which are native to Colorado, are grown as ornamental garden plants, for their edible seeds, and as commercial crops for confection seeds and oil. Sunflowers offer many ecological and economic benefits to commercial…

The Bee Family Farm

The Bee Family Farm is a historic farm located between Fort Collins and Wellington. In operation as a working farm since 1894, it is now an outdoor museum that preserves and displays the family’s historic artifacts, buildings, and fields to help visitors…

The First National Western Stock Show

The origins of Denver’s annual National Western Stock Show, today one of the city’s biggest tourism draws, date to 1898, a time when American cities competed for the attention of various national organizations in the hope of hosting conventions to bring…