%1 http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/ en Chicago-Colorado Colony http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/chicago-colorado-colony <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Chicago-Colorado Colony</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2017-12-06T12:21:54-07:00" title="Wednesday, December 6, 2017 - 12:21" class="datetime">Wed, 12/06/2017 - 12:21</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/chicago-colorado-colony" data-a2a-title="Chicago-Colorado Colony"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fchicago-colorado-colony&amp;title=Chicago-Colorado%20Colony"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>The Chicago-Colorado Colony (1871–73) established the city of <a href="/article/longmont-0"><strong>Longmont</strong></a> near the confluence of <strong>St. Vrain</strong> and Left Hand Creeks in 1871. Financed by wealthy Chicagoans and consisting mostly of immigrants from the Midwest, the colony was an agricultural community that emphasized thrift, temperance, and the communal use of resources—most importantly, <a href="/article/water-colorado"><strong>water</strong></a>.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Inspired by <strong>Horace Greeley</strong>’s <strong>Union Colony</strong>, members of the Chicago-Colorado Colony built a robust <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/irrigation-colorado"><strong>irrigation</strong></a> system that allowed Longmont to prosper as a major agricultural hub along the <a href="/article/front-range"><strong>Front Range</strong></a> for nearly a century. Many of Longmont’s streets—including Bross, Collyer, Gay, Pratt, and Terry—are named for colony founders. In addition to establishing some of Colorado’s first public parks, the Chicago-Colorado Colony was also home to the state’s first public library.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Origins</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Though it eventually adopted the idealistic slogan of “industry, temperance, and morality,” the Chicago-Colorado Colony had somewhat less idealistic origins as part of a scheme to sell railroad land. To encourage railroad building in the American West during the nineteenth century, the US government routinely granted railroads land on either side of their right-of-way; the railroads could then offer the land for sale to pay for railroad construction or to make a profit.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>By 1870 the <strong>Denver Pacific Railroad</strong> (DP) was looking to sell land along its right-of-way between <a href="/article/denver"><strong>Denver</strong></a> and Cheyenne. Chicagoan Col. <strong>Cyrus N. Pratt</strong> was the general agent of the National Land Company, the real estate subsidiary of the DP. Pratt, along with <strong><em>Rocky Mountain News</em></strong> founder and fellow DP investor <a href="/article/william-n-byers"><strong>William Byers</strong></a>, believed an agricultural colony modeled after the <strong>Union Colony, </strong>established that year in present-day <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/greeley"><strong>Greeley</strong></a>, made a perfect client.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>With Pratt as secretary, the Chicago-Colorado Colony Company incorporated in Chicago on November 20, 1870. Unitarian minister Robert Collyer served as president, with newspaperman Sidney H. Gay as vice president. Another prominent investor was former Illinois lieutenant governor William Bross. In January 1871, while Pratt helped secure some 300 investors in Chicago, Byers led a committee consisting of former lumberman Seth Terry and several other colony representatives to what was then <a href="/article/colorado-territory"><strong>Colorado Territory</strong></a>.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>During a tour of the Front Range that included a visit to the Union Colony, the committee crossed paths with Enoch J. Coffman, a <a href="/article/homestead"><strong>homesteader</strong></a> near the small community of <a href="/article/burlington-boulder-county"><strong>Burlington</strong></a>, located along St. Vrain Creek. Impressed with Coffman’s wheat harvest, the committee chose the area near Coffman’s homestead—the confluence of St. Vrain and Left Hand Creeks—for the location of the colony. The Chicago-Colorado Colony quickly bought 23,000 acres from the National Land Company and secured an additional 37,000 acres from the federal government and other landowners.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>To recruit new residents for the colony, Byers filled the <em>Rocky Mountain News</em> with advertisements that promised potential colonists bountiful harvests and instant prosperity. The <em>Chicago Tribune </em>published similar ads. <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado-climate"><strong>Colorado’s climate</strong></a>, said to be a cure for many maladies, already had a sterling reputation in the humid Midwest, so the colony had little difficulty persuading Chicagoans to make the journey across the plains. For $150 plus an initiation fee of $5, colonists received a forty-acre farm, and an additional $50 bought a lot in town.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>First Years</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Once the land was secured, Terry and some 250 colonists took a train to Erie, Colorado, and then wagons to Burlington, arriving at the site of their new home in early March 1871. They built a temporary shelter and set to work digging ditches and building homes. Terry, later elected the colony’s first president, laid out a town and named it Longmont, after the area’s striking view of <a href="/article/longs-peak"><strong>Longs Peak</strong></a> to the west.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>By the end of May 1871, the colony had 390 members, including 151 from Illinois and another 89 from Colorado. Thirty-six came from Massachusetts. Of the Coloradans who relocated to Longmont, about 75 came from Burlington. Others, including doctors Conrad Bardill and Joseph B. Barkley, came from the Union Colony. Longmont’s first winter was mild, leading Terry to mistakenly believe that the colony would not suffer during the coldest months. The next year’s harsh winter changed the settlers’ perception of the climate, but they were undaunted.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Perhaps more important to the colony than anything else were the irrigation ditches, which allowed farming and provided drinking water to Longmont. By the summer of 1871, colonists had dug numerous small ditches in town and near their fields. Initial crops included wheat, strawberries, and pumpkins, and colonists also raised turkeys and cattle for meat and dairy. Illinoisan Jarvis Fox built the colony’s first flour mill in 1872.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In the summer of 1871, colonists had also begun digging an eighteen-foot-wide primary ditch that they called the Excelsior. The colony soon ran out of money, however, and the ditch was never completed. Improvising, the colonists formed the Highland Ditch Company to build and manage their primary ditch, which was now to be called the Highland. Money from a Chicago investor helped pay for the construction of a headgate at the mouth of St. Vrain Canyon, and water from the St. Vrain began flowing into the eight-mile-long, twelve-foot-wide Highland Ditch on March 30, 1873. From there, it was diverted into numerous other ditches to water crops and to provide drinking water to Longmont.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The Chicago-Colorado Colony was home to one of Colorado’s first public parks—Lake Park, named for Lake Michigan and completed in 1871—as well as the territory’s first public library, founded in 1871 by Elizabeth Thompson, a philanthropist who lived on the East Coast. The library doubled as Longmont’s first schoolhouse. Seth Terry’s fourteen-year-old son William attended school there and became the first librarian.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Temperance was enshrined in the colony’s constitution, and anyone caught with alcohol in the early days had to return their land to the colony. However, residents soon put the temperance law to the test, and saloons were allowed as early as 1873. A protracted fight between proponents of drink and of temperance ensued, resulting in periodic bans on liquor between 1875 and 1916, when Colorado instituted statewide prohibition. Legal liquor finally prevailed in Longmont with the lifting of national prohibition in 1933.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Though the community it founded continued to prosper, the Chicago-Colorado Colony essentially ended with the incorporation of the city of Longmont in 1873. The company continued selling off property until it formally dissolved in 1890.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Legacy</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The initial work of the Chicago-Colorado colonists—especially the irrigation ditches they built—allowed Longmont to become one of the most agriculturally productive places in Colorado for nearly a century. The Highland Ditch, for example, has been enlarged six different times since its construction and currently irrigates more than 20,000 acres each year. Residents of Longmont maintain the hard-working, pragmatic attitudes of their predecessors.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Like the Union Colony after which it was modeled, the Chicago-Colorado Colony became a manifestation of communitarian ideals in Colorado. But unlike Horace Greeley’s venture, the Chicago-Colorado Colony was founded on equal parts corporate scheming and utopian idealism. As such, the colony serves as an example of how opposing ideologies of communitarianism and capitalism nonetheless combined to build stable communities in the nineteenth-century American West.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/encyclopedia-staff" hreflang="und">Encyclopedia Staff</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/longmont-history" hreflang="en">longmont history</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/chicago-colorado-colony" hreflang="en">chicago-colorado colony</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/nc-pratt" hreflang="en">n.c. pratt</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/seth-terry" hreflang="en">seth terry</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/william-byers" hreflang="en">william byers</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/denver-pacific-railroad" hreflang="en">denver pacific railroad</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/robert-collyer" hreflang="en">robert collyer</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/william-bross" hreflang="en">william bross</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/longmont" hreflang="en">longmont</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/boulder-county" hreflang="en">boulder county</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/boulder-county-history" hreflang="en">boulder county history</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/horace-greeley" hreflang="en">Horace Greeley</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/colony" hreflang="en">Colony</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/agriculture" hreflang="en">agriculture</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/farming" hreflang="en">farming</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>Robert R. Crifasi, <em>A Land Made from Water: Appropriation and the Evolution of Colorado’s Landscape, Ditches, and Water Institutions </em>(Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2015).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Mabel Downer Dunning, <em>The Chicago-Colorado Company Founding of Longmont</em>, ed. Mildred Neeley, Clara Williams, Muriel Harrison, Colleen Cassell, and Mildred Brown (Longmont, CO: n.p., 1975).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>St. Vrain Valley Historical Association, <em>They Came to Stay: Longmont, Colorado, 1858–1920 </em>(Longmont, CO: Longmont Printing, 1971).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Carah Wertheimer, “<a href="https://www.timescall.com/2016/09/04/the-rise-and-fall-of-north-longmont-a-century-old-tale-of-saloons-water-rights-and-the-ballot-box/">The rise and fall of North Longmont: A century-old tale of saloons, water rights and the ballot box</a>,” <em>Longmont Times-Call</em>, September 4, 2016.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>James F. Willard, ed., <a href="https://archive.org/stream/experimentsincol00jame/experimentsincol00jame_djvu.txt">Experiments in Colorado Colonization 1869–1872</a> (Boulder: University of Colorado, 1926).</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p>Karen Antonacci, “<a href="https://www.timescall.com/2015/01/31/happy-144th-birthday-longmont/">Happy 144th birthday, Longmont</a>,” <em>Longmont Times-Call</em>, January 31, 2015.</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-4th-grade--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-4th-grade.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-4th-grade.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-4th-grade field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-field-4th-grade"><p>The Chicago-Colorado Colony (1871–73) established the city of Longmont. It was paid for by wealthy Chicagoans and made up mostly of people from the Midwest.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Members of the Chicago-Colorado Colony built an <strong>irrigation</strong> system that made Longmont a major farming community. Many of Longmont’s streets are named for colony founders. The colony established some of Colorado’s first public parks. It was also home to the state’s first public library.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Origins</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The Chicago-Colorado Colony was initially part of a plan to sell railroad land. The US government wanted to encourage railroad building. The government gave railroads land on either side of their tracks. The railroads could sell the land to pay for railroad construction or to make a profit.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>By 1870 the <strong>Denver Pacific Railroad</strong> (DP) was looking to sell land between <strong>Denver</strong> and Cheyenne. Chicagoan Col. <strong>Cyrus N. Pratt</strong> and <strong><em>Rocky Mountain News</em></strong> founder <strong>William Byers</strong> wanted to build a farming colony in this area.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The Chicago-Colorado Colony Company was formed in Chicago on November 20, 1870. In January 1871, Byers led a committee to what was then <strong>Colorado Territory</strong>.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>During a tour of the Front Range, the committee met Enoch J. Coffman, a <strong>homesteader</strong> near the small community of <strong>Burlington</strong>. The committee was impressed with Coffman’s wheat harvest. They chose the area near Coffman’s homestead for their colony. The Chicago-Colorado Colony bought 23,000 acres. They secured 37,000 acres from the federal government and other landowners.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>To get new residents, Byers filled the <em>Rocky Mountain News</em> with ads that promised good harvests. The<em> Chicago Tribune</em> published similar ads. <strong>Colorado’s climate</strong> was said to be a cure for many illnesses. That meant the colony didn't have trouble getting Chicagoans to come. For $150 plus an initiation fee of $5, colonists got a forty-acre farm. An additional $50 bought a lot in town.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>First Years</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Some 250 colonists arrived in early March 1871. They set to work digging ditches and building homes. They laid out a town and named it Longmont, after the view of Longs Peak to the west.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>By the end of May 1871, the colony had 390 members. There were 151 from Illinois and another 89 from Colorado. Thirty-six came from Massachusetts. Of the Coloradans who moved to Longmont, about 75 came from Burlington.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The most important part of the colony was the irrigation ditches. The ditches allowed farming and provided drinking water to Longmont. By the summer of 1871, colonists had dug many small ditches. Crops included wheat, strawberries, and pumpkins. Colonists also raised turkeys and cattle for meat and dairy.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The colonists formed the Highland Ditch Company to build and manage their primary ditch. The ditch was to be called the Highland. Money from a Chicago investor helped pay for the construction. Water from the St. Vrain began flowing into the eight-mile-long, twelve-foot-wide Highland Ditch on March 30, 1873. From there, it went into other ditches to water crops and provide drinking water.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The Chicago-Colorado Colony was home to one of Colorado’s first public parks. Lake Park was named for Lake Michigan. It was completed in 1871. The territory’s first public library was also founded in 1871. The library doubled as Longmont’s first schoolhouse.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The Chicago-Colorado Colony essentially ended with the creation of the city of Longmont in 1873. The company continued selling off property until it dissolved in 1890.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Legacy</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The work of the Chicago-Colorado colonists made Longmont one of the most productive farming communities in Colorado for nearly a century. The Highland Ditch has been enlarged six times since its construction. It currently irrigates more than 20,000 acres each year.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-8th-grade--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-8th-grade.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-8th-grade.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-8th-grade field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-field-8th-grade"><p>The Chicago-Colorado Colony (1871–73) established the city of <strong>Longmont</strong>. It was paid for by wealthy Chicagoans and made up mostly of immigrants from the Midwest.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Members of the Chicago-Colorado Colony built an <strong>irrigation</strong> system that made Longmont a major agricultural hub. Many of Longmont’s streets—including Bross, Collyer, Gay, Pratt, and Terry—are named for colony founders. The colony established some of Colorado’s first public parks. It was also home to the state’s first public library.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Origins</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The Chicago-Colorado Colony was originally part of a plan to sell railroad land. To encourage railroad building in the American West, the US government granted railroads land on either side of their right-of-way. The railroads could then sell the land to pay for railroad construction or to make a profit.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>By 1870 the <strong>Denver Pacific Railroad</strong> (DP) was looking to sell land along its right-of-way between <strong>Denver</strong> and Cheyenne. Chicagoan Col. <strong>Cyrus N. Pratt</strong> was the general agent of DP's real estate subsidiary. Pratt, along with <strong><em>Rocky Mountain News</em></strong> founder and fellow DP investor <strong>William Byers</strong>, believed a farming community modeled after the <strong>Union Colony</strong> in <strong>Greeley</strong> would work.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The Chicago-Colorado Colony Company was formed in Chicago on November 20, 1870. In January 1871, Byers led a committee to what was then <strong>Colorado Territory</strong>.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>During a tour of the Front Range, the committee crossed paths with Enoch J. Coffman, a <strong>homesteader</strong> near the small community of <strong>Burlington</strong>. The committee was impressed with Coffman’s wheat harvest.  They chose the area near Coffman’s homestead for the location of the colony. The Chicago-Colorado Colony bought 23,000 acres from the National Land Company. They secured an additional 37,000 acres from the federal government and other landowners.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>To recruit new residents for the colony, Byers filled the <em>Rocky Mountain News</em> with ads that promised large harvests. The <em>Chicago Tribune</em> published similar ads. <strong>Colorado’s climate</strong> was said to be a cure for many illnesses. That meant the colony didn't have trouble persuading Chicagoans to come. For $150 plus an initiation fee of $5, colonists received a forty-acre farm. An additional $50 bought a lot in town.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>First Years</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Some 250 colonists arrived at the site of their new home in early March 1871. They built a temporary shelter and set to work digging ditches and building homes. They laid out a town and named it Longmont, after the view of <strong>Longs Peak </strong>to the west.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>By the end of May 1871, the colony had 390 members. There were 151 from Illinois and another 89 from Colorado. Thirty-six came from Massachusetts. Of the Coloradans who moved to Longmont, about 75 came from Burlington. Others came from the Union Colony.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The most important part of the colony was the irrigation ditches. The ditches allowed farming and provided drinking water to Longmont. By the summer of 1871, colonists had dug numerous small ditches. Crops included wheat, strawberries, and pumpkins. Colonists also raised turkeys and cattle for meat and dairy. Illinoisan Jarvis Fox built the colony’s first flour mill in 1872.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In the summer of 1871, colonists had begun digging a primary ditch that they called Excelsior. However, the colony ran out of money, and the ditch was never completed. The colonists then formed the Highland Ditch Company to build and manage their primary ditch. The ditch was to be called the Highland. Money from a Chicago investor helped pay for the construction of a headgate at the mouth of St. Vrain Canyon. Water from the St. Vrain began flowing into the eight-mile-long, twelve-foot-wide Highland Ditch on March 30, 1873. From there, it went into other ditches to water crops and provide drinking water to Longmont.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The Chicago-Colorado Colony was home to one of Colorado’s first public parks. Lake Park was named for Lake Michigan. It was completed in 1871. The territory’s first public library was also founded in 1871 by Elizabeth Thompson. The library doubled as Longmont’s first schoolhouse.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Temperance was in the colony’s constitution. In the early days, anyone caught with alcohol had to return their land. However, saloons were allowed by 1873. The fight over alcohol continued for several years. There were some bans on liquor between 1875 and 1916. In 1916, Colorado passed statewide prohibition. Liquor become legal in Longmont when national prohibition ended in 1933.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The Chicago-Colorado Colony essentially ended with the creation of the city of Longmont in 1873. The company continued selling off property until it dissolved in 1890.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Legacy</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The work of the Chicago-Colorado colonists made Longmont one of the most productive farming communities in Colorado for nearly a century. The Highland Ditch has been enlarged six times since its construction. It currently irrigates more than 20,000 acres each year. Residents of Longmont maintain the hard-working attitude of the colonists.</p>&#13; &#13; <p> </p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-10th-grade--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-10th-grade.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-10th-grade.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-10th-grade field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-field-10th-grade"><p>The Chicago-Colorado Colony (1871–73) established the city of <strong>Longmont </strong>near the confluence of <strong>St. Vrain</strong> and Left Hand Creeks in 1871. It was financed by wealthy Chicagoans and consisted mostly of immigrants from the Midwest. The colony was an agricultural community that emphasized thrift, temperance, and the communal use of resources.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Inspired by <strong>Horace Greeley’s Union Colony</strong>, members of the Chicago-Colorado Colony built an <strong>irrigation</strong> system that made Longmont a major agricultural hub. Many of Longmont’s streets—including Bross, Collyer, Gay, Pratt, and Terry—are named for colony founders. In addition to establishing some of Colorado’s first public parks, the Chicago-Colorado Colony was also home to the state’s first public library.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Origins</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Though it adopted the slogan “industry, temperance, and morality,” the Chicago-Colorado Colony had less idealistic origins. It was part of a plan to sell railroad land. To encourage railroad building in the American West during the nineteenth century, the US government routinely granted railroads land on either side of their right-of-way. The railroads could then offer the land for sale to pay for railroad construction or to make a profit.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>By 1870 the <strong>Denver Pacific Railroad</strong> (DP) was looking to sell land along its right-of-way between <strong>Denver</strong> and Cheyenne. Chicagoan Col. <strong>Cyrus N. Pratt</strong> was the general agent of the National Land Company, the real estate subsidiary of the DP. Pratt, along with <strong><em>Rocky Mountain News</em></strong> founder and fellow DP investor <strong>William Byers</strong>, believed an agricultural colony modeled after the <strong>Union Colony</strong>, established that year in present-day <strong>Greeley</strong>, made a perfect client.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The Chicago-Colorado Colony Company incorporated in Chicago on November 20, 1870. In January 1871, while Pratt helped secure some 300 investors in Chicago, Byers led a committee to what was then <strong>Colorado Territory.</strong></p>&#13; &#13; <p>During a tour of the Front Range that included a visit to the Union Colony, the committee crossed paths with Enoch J. Coffman, a <strong>homesteader </strong>near the small community of <strong>Burlington</strong>. Impressed with Coffman’s wheat harvest, the committee chose the area near Coffman’s homestead—the confluence of St. Vrain and Left Hand Creeks—for the location of the colony. The Chicago-Colorado Colony quickly bought 23,000 acres from the National Land Company and secured an additional 37,000 acres from the federal government and other landowners.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>To recruit new residents for the colony, Byers filled the <em>Rocky Mountain News</em> with advertisements that promised potential colonists bountiful harvests and instant prosperity. The <em>Chicago Tribune</em> published similar ads. <strong>Colorado’s climate</strong> was said to be a cure for many maladies, so the colony had little difficulty persuading Chicagoans to make the journey across the plains. For $150 plus an initiation fee of $5, colonists received a forty-acre farm. An additional $50 bought a lot in town.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>First Years</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Once the land was secured, some 250 colonists took a train to Erie, Colorado, and then wagons to Burlington. They arrived at the site of their new home in early March 1871. They built a temporary shelter and set to work digging ditches and building homes. They laid out a town and named it Longmont, after the view of Longs Peak to the west.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>By the end of May 1871, the colony had 390 members, including 151 from Illinois and another 89 from Colorado. Thirty-six came from Massachusetts. Of the Coloradans who relocated to Longmont, about 75 came from Burlington. Others, including doctors Conrad Bardill and Joseph B. Barkley, came from the Union Colony. Longmont’s first winter was mild, colonists to mistakenly believe that the colony would not suffer during the coldest months. The next year’s harsh winter changed the settlers’ perception of the climate.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>More important to the colony than anything else were the irrigation ditches. The ditches allowed farming and provided drinking water to Longmont. By the summer of 1871, colonists had dug numerous small ditches in town and near their fields. Crops included wheat, strawberries, and pumpkins. Colonists also raised turkeys and cattle for meat and dairy. Illinoisan Jarvis Fox built the colony’s first flour mill in 1872.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In the summer of 1871, colonists had also begun digging an eighteen-foot-wide primary ditch that they called the Excelsior. The colony soon ran out of money, however, and the ditch was never completed. Improvising, the colonists formed the Highland Ditch Company to build and manage their primary ditch, which was to be called the Highland. Money from a Chicago investor helped pay for the construction of a headgate at the mouth of St. Vrain Canyon. Water from the St. Vrain began flowing into the eight-mile-long, twelve-foot-wide Highland Ditch on March 30, 1873. From there, it was diverted into other ditches to water crops and provide drinking water to Longmont.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The Chicago-Colorado Colony was home to one of Colorado’s first public parks—Lake Park. The park was named for Lake Michigan and completed in 1871. The territory’s first public library was founded in 1871 by Elizabeth Thompson. The library doubled as Longmont’s first schoolhouse.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Temperance was enshrined in the colony’s constitution. In the early days, anyone caught with alcohol had to return their land to the colony. Residents soon put the temperance law to the test, and saloons were allowed as early as 1873. A protracted fight between proponents of drink and of temperance ensued. This resulted in periodic bans on liquor between 1875 and 1916, when Colorado instituted statewide prohibition. Legal liquor finally prevailed in Longmont with the lifting of national prohibition in 1933.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The Chicago-Colorado Colony essentially ended with the incorporation of the city of Longmont in 1873. The company continued selling off property until it formally dissolved in 1890.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Legacy</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The work of the Chicago-Colorado colonists allowed Longmont to become one of the most agriculturally productive places in Colorado for nearly a century. The Highland Ditch has been enlarged six times since its construction. It currently irrigates more than 20,000 acres each year. Residents of Longmont maintain the hard-working attitude of the colonists.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Wed, 06 Dec 2017 19:21:54 +0000 yongli 2816 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org Front Range http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/front-range <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Front Range</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2017-01-23T16:06:17-07:00" title="Monday, January 23, 2017 - 16:06" class="datetime">Mon, 01/23/2017 - 16:06</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/front-range" data-a2a-title="Front Range"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Ffront-range&amp;title=Front%20Range"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>The Front Range is a corridor of the <a href="/article/rocky-mountains"><strong>Rocky Mountains</strong></a> and surrounding land stretching 200 miles from the Wyoming border on the north to the<a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/arkansas-river"> <strong>Arkansas River</strong></a> on the south. The western border of the Front Range consists of a collection of high mountain ranges, from the Medicine Bow and Laramie Mountains in the north to the <a href="/article/pikes-peak"><strong>Pikes Peak</strong></a> massif in the south. The western border of the Front Range consists of an assortment of mountain ranges, including a group of peaks between <a href="/article/georgetown%E2%80%93silver-plume-historic-district"><strong>Georgetown</strong></a> and <strong>Silverthorne</strong>, as well as the <strong>Indian Peaks</strong>, <strong>Mummy Range</strong>, Laramie Mountains, Medicine Bow Mountains, Kenosha Mountains, Tarryall Mountains, Rampart Range, and Pikes Peak. The region’s eastern boundaries are somewhat less clear, generally consisting of the foothills of the mountains and the western edge of the <a href="/article/colorado’s-great-plains"><strong>Great Plains</strong></a>.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The Front Range has a long history of human migration and habitation, as it offers access to the resources of both mountains and plains, as well as shelter from the extreme weather of both environments. Today, the corridor has a population of 4.5 million and is the site of Colorado’s largest cities, including <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/fort-collins"><strong>Fort Collins</strong></a>, <a href="/article/boulder"><strong>Boulder</strong></a>, <a href="/article/denver"><strong>Denver</strong></a>, and <strong><a href="/article/colorado-springs">Colorado Springs</a>.</strong></p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Early Inhabitants</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Stone tools and other artifacts found at the <a href="/article/lindenmeier-folsom-site"><strong>Lindenmeier</strong></a> archaeological site in northern <a href="/article/larimer-county"><strong>Larimer County</strong></a> indicate the presence of indigenous hunter-gatherers along the Front Range as early as 12,300 years ago. On the eastern slope of Pikes Peak, archaeologists have found evidence of human occupation dating to 5,000 years ago, and some etchings in the rocks at <strong>Garden of the Gods</strong> date back at least 1,000 years.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>By AD 1500, the Front Range was home to the Nuche (<a href="/article/northern-ute-people-uintah-and-ouray-reservation"><strong>Ute</strong></a><strong> </strong>people), who spent the summers hunting in the high country and wintered in camps at the base of the mountains. After the Ute obtained horses in the mid-seventeenth century, some bands began hunting buffalo on the plains. In the early nineteenth century the Utes along the Front Range were joined by the <strong>Arapaho</strong> and <strong>Cheyenne</strong>, two peoples who had been pushed out of their homeland in the upper Midwest. The Arapaho ranged farther into the mountains than the Cheyenne and became enemies of the Ute as the two groups competed for game and other resources in the high mountain valleys. Other indigenous groups that frequented the Front Range plains in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries included the <strong>Jicarilla Apache</strong>, <strong>Comanche</strong>, <strong>Kiowa</strong>, and <strong>Lakota</strong>.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>These people’s identities are inextricably linked to the geography and ecology of the Front Range. Pikes Peak, for instance, figures prominently in the Ute creation story in which the Creator built their nation around the mountain. The band that most commonly frequented the area around Pikes Peak knew the mountain as “Tava,” or “sun mountain,” and called themselves the “Tabeguache,” the “People of Sun Mountain.”</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The Arapaho shared with the Ute a reverence for the mountains of the Front Range. They knew Pikes Peak as “heey-otoyoo’,” or “long mountain,” and at least one Arapaho hunter made a habit of ascending <a href="/article/longs-peak"><strong>Longs Peak</strong></a> in today’s <a href="/article/rocky-mountain-national-park"><strong>Rocky Mountain National Park</strong></a> to hunt eagles. Meanwhile, the identity and spirituality of both the Cheyenne and Arapaho were tied to the plains, the realm of the all-important <a href="/article/bison"><strong>bison</strong></a> and horse.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Early American Era</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Early American explorers such as Lieutenant <a href="/article/zebulon-montgomery-pike"><strong>Zebulon Pike</strong></a> in 1806–7 and Major <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/stephen-h-long"><strong>Stephen Long</strong></a> in 1820 saw the Front Range as part of the so-called <a href="/article"><strong>Great American Desert</strong></a> and unfit for farming. What Pike and Long had seen was a land baked by sun, with too little moisture to sustain the agricultural way of life they were familiar with in the east.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>From the summit of Pikes Peak in 1893, <strong>Katharine Lee Bates</strong> saw the region differently. She was so impressed by the view that she penned the words to “America the Beautiful.” The 20,000 square miles of Front Range before her had indeed changed in seventy-five years since Major Long had seen it. Farmers had come to seed the “amber waves of grain” and irrigated agriculture had supplanted <a href="/article/beaver"><strong>beaver</strong></a> and bison pelt hunting primary industry on the “fruited plain.”</p>&#13; &#13; <p>When <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/precious-metal-mining-colorado"><strong>gold</strong></a> was discovered on Ralston, Dry, and Clear Creeks in 1859, the region’s economy and history were forever altered. Thousands of would-be miners swarmed into the Front Range, propelling Denver’s growth and sparking the emergence of towns such as Boulder, <strong>Idaho Springs</strong>, <a href="/article/central-city%E2%80%93black-hawk-historic-district"><strong>Central City</strong></a>, and <a href="/article/central-city%E2%80%93black-hawk-historic-district"><strong>Black Hawk</strong></a>. The gold boom was short lived, but miners and the men who supplied them were here to stay.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Agriculture</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>To support the mining boom, Front Range towns imported tools, clothing, and building materials from Midwestern cities such as St. Louis and Chicago. But food was more difficult to import, so farmers followed the gold seekers to Colorado to work the land along the streams of the Front Range.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Growing crops in Colorado was not easy. The Front Range offered plenty of sunshine and warm winter Chinook winds, but the growing season was short, rainfall was scarce, and unpredictable spring blizzards wiped out many harvests. Though it was difficult, farming along the Front Range had its rewards. Miners were hungry, railroad crews needed provisions, and land was plentiful thanks to a campaign that relocated the Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapaho to surrounding states. Propaganda from Colorado’s earliest boosters maintained that <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/irrigation-colorado"><strong>irrigation</strong></a> was “not a burden but a pleasure” and that <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/water-colorado"><strong>water</strong></a> constantly flowed from the mountains to the plains, furnishing a reliable supply of nutrient-rich soil. Later generations would find that this was mostly untrue—the water supply was hardly limitless—but in the early days of settlement the propaganda made life on the Front Range seem downright Edenic. Believing the area to be free from “Hay Asthma,” where one could be cured of chronic bronchitis and “<a href="/article/tuberculosis-colorado"><strong>tubercular</strong></a> or scrofulous consumption,” land-hungry easterners suffering from the repeated economic recessions of the nineteenth century poured into Colorado seeking a healthful and productive place to live.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>But the real stimulus to irrigated agriculture came from those who believed that cooperative agricultural societies in the west could be a profitable and harmonious alternative to the industrial competition and aggressive individualism of the east. Although he knew relatively little of the west, <a href="/article/nathaniel-meeker"><strong>Nathan Meeker</strong></a>, the agricultural editor of the <em>New York Herald Tribune</em>, led a committee to Colorado in search of a site for a farming community in 1869. They found a 12,000-acre parcel on the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/cache-la-poudre-river"><strong>Cache la Poudre River</strong></a>, four miles upstream from its junction with the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/south-platte-river"><strong>South Platte</strong></a>. Before the year was out, ground had been broken on the <strong>Union Colony</strong>, the beginnings of present-day <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/greeley"><strong>Greeley</strong></a>. Towns such as <strong>Arvada</strong>, Boulder, <a href="/article/city-and-county-broomfield"><strong>Broomfield</strong></a>, and <strong>Wheat Ridge </strong>all developed along a similar model—growing crops to feed miners—in the mid- to late nineteenth century. In 1870 the Colorado territorial legislature designated Fort Collins as the site of the Agricultural College (now <strong>Colorado State University</strong>), which researched and helped implement best practices for irrigation and crop production across the state.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>As overhunting led to a sharp decline in the buffalo herds during the late nineteenth century, rangy longhorn cattle began to fill the empty space on the plains. Driven up from Texas in herds of 2,000 to 3,000 along the Goodnight-Loving Trail, the cattle were sold to Indian reservations, mining communities, and railroad crews or driven east to markets in Kansas City or Chicago. The era of large-scale, free-range ranching along the Front Range was short lived, however; a severe summer drought in 1886 was followed by early<a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/snow"><strong> snows</strong></a> and freezing temperatures that decimated the cattle herds, paving the way for much of the former grazing land to be fenced off and sold into private ownership.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Gold, Steel, and Beets</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>By the early twentieth century, three major developments injected new life into the Front Range economy, broadening the region’s financial and industrial base: a new gold rush at <a href="/article/cripple-creek"><strong>Cripple Creek</strong></a>, <a href="/article/colorado-fuel-iron"><strong>Colorado Fuel &amp; Iron</strong></a>’s <strong>steel mill </strong>in <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/pueblo"><strong>Pueblo</strong></a>, and the rise of the <a href="/article/sugar-beet-industry"><strong>sugar beet industry</strong>.</a></p>&#13; &#13; <p>The gold discoveries in the Cripple Creek and <a href="/article/victor"><strong>Victor</strong></a> areas in 1890 came at just the right time. The great silver boom of the 1870s and 1880s was snuffed out when the nation returned to the gold standard in 1893, but Cripple Creek was a gold strike, and its mines were the single most important reason for Colorado’s rapid emergence from economic depression. The money that poured into Colorado Springs from the mines on the other side of Pikes Peak financed the <a href="/article/broadmoor"><strong>Broadmoor Hotel</strong></a>’s construction and covered the dome of the <a href="/article/colorado-state-capitol"><strong>capitol</strong></a> building in Denver with gold leaf. It also created millionaires who went on to build department stores, railroads, tunnels, and other industries and infrastructure in the state.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>To the south, <a href="/article/colorado-fuel-iron"><strong>Colorado Fuel and Iron</strong></a> (CF&amp;I) turned Pueblo into the “Pittsburgh of the West.” Through employment in its mines and mills, the company attracted thousands of immigrants to Colorado and permanently altered the social milieu of the southern end of the Front Range.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>While the Cripple Creek mines and CF&amp;I placed their faith in the seemingly endless mineral wealth of the Rockies, the Great Western Sugar Company gambled on a crop that was unfamiliar to most Colorado farmers in the early twentieth century. Sugar beet agriculture had not been a great success in <a href="/article/grand-junction"><strong>Grand Junction</strong></a>, where Great Western built its first factory in 1899, but the altitude, soil, and mild winters of the Front Range seemed ideally suited to this crop. Front Range farmers were eager to plant beets because they were a cash crop whose market price was guaranteed at the time of planting. In 1909 farmers harvested 108,000 acres of beets; ten years later they harvested 166,000 acres. In just one decade, Colorado had become the largest producer of sugar beets in the nation.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>However, converting fields from cereal grains to water-intensive beets and other vegetable crops put a strain on the available water supply. From 1925 to 1933, many of these crops received less than half the water they required, and sizable acreages received no water at all. When a drought hit in the 1930s, Great Western Sugar became one of the principal proponents of the <a href="/article/colorado–big-thompson-project"><strong>Colorado–Big Thompson</strong> <strong>project</strong></a> (C-BT) a transmountain water diversion project that imported water from Colorado’s <strong><a href="/article/western-slope">Western Slope</a> </strong>by pumping it under the <strong><a href="/article/great-divide">Continental Divide</a>. </strong>When it was completed in the mid-1950s, the C-BT not only allowed farmers to continue growing water-intensive crops along the Front Range but also increased the supply of drinking water for the region’s expanding urban population.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Twentieth Century</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The 1920s and 1930s were hard times for the Front Range and the state as a whole. The <strong>Great Depression</strong> and the <a href="/article/dust-bowl"><strong>Dust Bowl</strong></a> decimated the region’s agricultural industry, and thousands of farmers and ranchers were forced to abandon their homes and fields. In the late 1930s, <a href="/article/new-deal-colorado"><strong>New Deal</strong></a> programs addressed problems of unemployment, overused land, schools, airports, roads, and other public facilities. But it was not until World War II that the Front Range experienced its next economic boom. This time, assistance came from the Department of Defense.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>World War II launched Colorado into the industrial age. The <a href="/article/denver-ordnance-plant"><strong>Denver Ordnance Plant</strong></a>, <strong>Rocky Mountain Arsenal</strong>, <a href="/article/rocky-mountain-fleet"><strong>Denver Shipyard</strong></a>, and <strong>Lowry Air Field </strong>were all established in Colorado by the Department of Defense as part of the war effort. Front Range universities received funds for training soldiers in language and intelligence specialties.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Following the war, the Front Range received national attention during the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–61), partly because the president and his wife spent a lot of time in Colorado and partly because federal funds continued to pour into the area. The <a href="/article/norad"><strong>North American Air Defense Command (NORAD)</strong></a> built its missile detection center in the bowels of <a href="/article/cheyenne-mountain"><strong>Cheyenne Mountain</strong></a> near Colorado Springs, while Denver became the regional home of a variety of federal agencies. Meanwhile, Denver’s position as a regional transportation hub brought <a href="/article/interstate-70"><strong>Interstate 70</strong></a> and <strong>Interstate 25</strong> together just north of the city’s rapidly expanding downtown.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Population Pressure</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>By 1960, Colorado was the ninth fastest-growing state in the nation with the fourth-largest population increase since 1950. Ninety percent of the gain was confined to the Front Range between Pueblo and Fort Collins, while many counties on the Western Slope continued to lose population. A backlash to the progrowth doctrine of the mid-twentieth century occurred in the 1970s. Recognizing the steep environment costs of progrowth policies, antigrowth coalitions came together to shut down Colorado’s bid to host the <a href="/article/1976-winter-olympics"><strong>1976 Winter Olympics</strong></a> in protest.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>By 1989 more than 2.3 million people called the Front Range home. Securing an adequate water supply for such a quickly growing population had always been a major concern, but under President Jimmy Carter (1977–81), federal money for water projects was almost entirely cut off. Colorado was on its own and was unprepared to pay the full cost of the diversion, storage, and treatment projects that seemed necessary to support sustained population growth and a booming agricultural economy.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The biggest problem the Front Range faced at the time was that most of the state’s water fell in the form of snow on the other side of the Continental Divide. Diversion projects that drew water from the Western Slope successfully secured enough water to sustain the Front Range, but they also led to animosity between those living on the west and east side of the Continental Divide. Those living on the western side believed the Front Range was sucking up all of their water. Tensions still run high over the issue of how much water should be diverted from the Western Slope to the Front Range, resulting in fierce debates between farmers, environmentalists, recreationalists, and city and county officials over how to manage such a critical and scarce resource.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Toward the Future</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The Metro Denver area continues to expand, and communities such as Broomfield and Thornton have purchased water rights from farmers to meet their growing urban needs. As farmers evaluate options for the future, local communities may have to come up with plans to prevent the remaining prime agricultural land along the Front Range from drying up.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Some Coloradans are less than enthusiastic about spending taxpayer money to promote tourism, but people who are familiar with state finances know that it is a multibillion-dollar industry that is increasingly becoming the lifeblood of many communities. In 2014, for instance, the tourism industry set records by attracting 71.3 million visitors who spent a total of $18.6 billion in Colorado. Since 2014, revenue associated with the state’s legalization of recreational <a href="/article/cannabis-marijuana"><strong>marijuana</strong></a> has also helped the tourism economy, especially in Denver.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>As the Front Range continues to grow, questions remain about how to secure an adequate water supply and how to address the unequal distribution of economic growth in the state. As Colorado faces the challenges of a changing <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado-climate"><strong>climate</strong></a> and an uncertain future, residents will need to figure out how to forge a more solid sense of unity and cooperation. Still, with the state’s reputation for producing hearty, pragmatic citizens, Colorado’s future shines almost as brightly as its capitol’s gilded dome in the summer sun.</p>&#13; &#13; <p><em>This article is an abbreviated and updated version of the author’s essay “The Colorado Front Range to 1990,” distributed in 2006 as part of <strong>Colorado Humanities</strong>’ “Five States of Colorado” educational resource kit.</em></p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/tyler-daniel" hreflang="und">Tyler, Daniel</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/boulder" hreflang="en">boulder</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/colorado-springs" hreflang="en">colorado springs</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/ranching" hreflang="en">ranching</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/farming" hreflang="en">farming</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/colorado-big-thompson-project" hreflang="en">colorado-big thompson project</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/south-platte-river" hreflang="en">south platte river</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/weld-county" hreflang="en">weld county</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/larimer-county" hreflang="en">larimer county</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/boulder-county" hreflang="en">boulder county</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/broomfield" hreflang="en">broomfield</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/el-paso-county" hreflang="en">el paso county</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/castle-rock" hreflang="en">Castle Rock</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/douglas-county" hreflang="en">Douglas County</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/cache-la-poudre-river" hreflang="en">cache la poudre river</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>Carl Abbott, Stephen J. Leonard, and David McComb, <em>Colorado: A History of the Centennial State </em>5th ed. (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2013).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>“After the Crisis,” <em>Coloradoan </em>(Fort Collins, CO), February 28­–29 and March 1–3, 1988.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Jason Blevins, “Colorado Tourism Numbers Set Record in 2014,” <em>The Denver Post</em>, June 23, 2015.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>“Denver Could Drink Deep from Wells,” <em>Rocky Mountain News</em>, December 5, 1987.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>“Front Range Futures,” December 1981.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Mel Griffiths and Lynnell Rubright, <em>Colorado </em>(Boulder: Westview Press, 1983).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Letter, Charles Hansen to D. W. Aupperle, July 29, 1937, Northern Colorado Water Users Association folder, Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District Archives, Loveland, Colorado.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Letter, March 11, 1936, Frank Delaney to Dan Hughes, Delaney Papers, Norlin Library, University of Colorado.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Letter, F. J. Bancroft, M.D., to the Territorial Board of Immigration, November 15, 1873, in <em>A Colorado Reader</em>, ed. Carl Ubbelohde (Boulder: Pruett Press, 1962).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Western Slope Protective Association, “Minutes,” March 20, 1935 (Glenwood Springs: Colorado River Conservation District Archives).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Gleaves Whitney, <em>Colorado Front Range: A Landscape Divided </em>(Boulder: Johnson Books, 1983).</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p>Kathleen A. Brosnan, <em>Uniting Mountain and Plain: Cities, Law, and Environmental Change along the Front Range </em>(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Colorado.com, “<a href="https://www.colorado.com/region/denver-cities-rockies">Front Range</a>.”</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Ben Fogelberg, <em>Walking into Colorado’s Past: 50 Front Range History Hikes </em>(Boulder, CO: Westcliffe Publishing, 2006).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Patricia N. Limerick and Jason Hanson, <em>A Ditch in Time: The City, the West and Water </em>(Golden, CO: Fulcrum, 2012).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Thomas T. Veblen and Diane C. Lorenz, <em>The Colorado Front Range: A Century of Ecological Change </em>(Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1991).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Elliott West, <em>The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado </em>(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Ellen Wohl, <em>Virtual Rivers: Lessons from the Mountain Rivers of the Colorado Front Range</em> (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001).</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Mon, 23 Jan 2017 23:06:17 +0000 yongli 2208 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org Yuma County http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/yuma-county <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Yuma County</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-article-image.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-article-image.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div id="carouselEncyclopediaArticle" class="carousel slide" data-bs-ride="true"> <div class="carousel-inner"> <div class="carousel-item active"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--1909--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--1909.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/yuma-county"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Yuma_County_0.png?itok=IZR34blP" width="1024" height="741" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/yuma-county" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Yuma County</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Yuma County covers 2,369 square miles in northeast Colorado. A part of the state’s <a href="/article/colorado%E2%80%99s-great-plains"><strong>Great Plains</strong></a> region, the county includes the lowest point in Colorado: 3,315 feet, along the <strong>Arikaree River</strong> at the Kansas border.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> <div class="carousel-item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--1910--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--1910.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/yuma-county-google-map"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Yuma_County_0.jpg?itok=u_3S_Di0" width="659" height="734" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/yuma-county-google-map" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Yuma County on Google Map</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p><span>The county seat is Wray.</span></p> <div class="mod" data-md="1001" data-ved="0ahUKEwi509a127fPAhWK1IMKHRC3DyUQkCkIgAEoAzAO" style="clear:none"> <div class="_eFb"> <div class="_mr kno-fb-ctx" data-ved="0ahUKEwi509a127fPAhWK1IMKHRC3DyUQyxMIgQEoADAO"><span class="_xdb"><a class="fl" data-ved="0ahUKEwi509a127fPAhWK1IMKHRC3DyUQ6BMIggEoADAO" href="https://www.google.com/search?biw=1333&amp;bih=651&amp;q=yuma+county,+colorado+area&amp;stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAOPgE-LQz9U3yIsvSNaSyk620s_JT04syczPgzOsEotSEwF1MsAKKAAAAA&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwi509a127fPAhWK1IMKHRC3DyUQ6BMIggEoADAO">Area</a>: </span><span class="_Xbe kno-fv">2,369&nbsp;mi²</span></div> </div> </div> <div class="mod" data-md="1001" data-ved="0ahUKEwi509a127fPAhWK1IMKHRC3DyUQkCkIgwEoBDAP" style="clear:none"> <div class="_eFb"> <div class="_mr kno-fb-ctx" data-ved="0ahUKEwi509a127fPAhWK1IMKHRC3DyUQyxMIhAEoADAP"><span class="_xdb"><a class="fl" data-ved="0ahUKEwi509a127fPAhWK1IMKHRC3DyUQ6BMIhQEoADAP" href="https://www.google.com/search?biw=1333&amp;bih=651&amp;q=yuma+county,+colorado+founded&amp;stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAOPgE-LQz9U3yIsvSNZSzk620s_JT04syczP009JLElNiYdxrdLyS_NSUlMA5O6aXTEAAAA&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwi509a127fPAhWK1IMKHRC3DyUQ6BMIhQEoADAP">Founded</a>: March 15, </span><span class="_Xbe kno-fv">1889</span></div> </div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> </div> <button class="carousel-control-prev" type="button" data-bs-target="#carouselEncyclopediaArticle" data-bs-slide="prev"> <span class="carousel-control-prev-icon" aria-hidden="true"></span> <span class="visually-hidden">Previous</span> </button> <button class="carousel-control-next" type="button" data-bs-target="#carouselEncyclopediaArticle" data-bs-slide="next"> <span class="carousel-control-next-icon" 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'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2016-09-30T12:30:55-06:00" title="Friday, September 30, 2016 - 12:30" class="datetime">Fri, 09/30/2016 - 12:30</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/yuma-county" data-a2a-title="Yuma County"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fyuma-county&amp;title=Yuma%20County"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>Yuma County covers 2,369 square miles in northeast Colorado. A part of the state’s <a href="/article/colorado%E2%80%99s-great-plains"><strong>Great Plains</strong></a> region, the county includes the lowest point in Colorado: 3,315 feet, along the <strong>Arikaree River</strong> at the Kansas border. Yuma County is bordered to the east by Cheyenne County, Kansas, to the south by <a href="/article/kit-carson-county"><strong>Kit Carson County</strong></a>, to the west by <a href="/article/washington-county"><strong>Washington County</strong></a>, and to the north by <a href="/article/logan-county"><strong>Logan</strong></a> and <a href="/article/phillips-county"><strong>Phillips</strong></a> Counties.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Yuma County has a population of 10,146. <strong>Wray</strong>, the county seat, has a population of 2,342 and is located in eastern Yuma County along the North Fork of the Republican River and US Highway 34. The city of <strong>Yuma</strong>, with a population of 3,524, is the county’s most populous city and is located in western Yuma County, at the intersection of US Highway 34 and State Highway 59. The town of Eckley, with a population of 257, lies between Yuma and Wray.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Before it became part of the <a href="/article/colorado-territory"><strong>Colorado Territory</strong></a> in 1861, the county served as camping and hunting grounds for many different Indigenous peoples, such as the <strong>Arapaho</strong>, <strong>Cheyenne</strong>, <strong>Kiowa</strong> and <strong>Pawnee</strong>. Yuma County was officially organized in 1889. Today it is one of the state’s most productive agricultural counties, drawing <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/water-colorado"><strong>water</strong></a> from the Ogallala Aquifer to support more than 800 farms and more than 260,000 head of cattle.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Native Americans</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>From around AD 1000 to 1400, members of the <a href="/article/upper-republican-and-itskari-cultures"><strong>Upper Republican and Itskari</strong></a> cultures occupied parts of northeast Colorado, including present-day Yuma County. These semi-sedentary people fished, farmed, and hunted<strong> buffalo</strong>, living in earthen lodges and crafting distinctive ceramic pots. While they were apparently able to thrive in eastern Colorado for nearly three centuries, it appears that environmental pressures—most likely drought—caused them to gradually abandon the region. There is little evidence of their presence in the area by the mid-fifteenth century.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the rapid expansion of the <strong>Lakota</strong> displaced a number of other horse-mounted groups from the northern plains, including the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Kiowa. These groups filtered south onto the plains of Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado. The Pawnee also made occasional visits to eastern Colorado, although they mostly frequented present-day Kansas and Nebraska.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>By 1790 the Kiowa had moved onto the plains from the mountains of Montana. The Cheyenne and Arapaho, meanwhile, had been migrating westward from their homelands in the upper Midwest since the early eighteenth century. By 1800 the Lakota had forced both the Cheyenne and Arapaho out of present-day South Dakota. The Cheyenne and Arapaho followed the buffalo herds across the plains, living in portable, cone-shaped dwellings called <a href="/article/tipi-0"><strong>tipis</strong></a>. During the notoriously harsh plains winters, they found shelter near bluffs and in <a href="/article/cottonwood-trees"><strong>cottonwood</strong></a> groves along the river bottoms. While the Cheyenne rarely left the plains, the Arapaho made a habit of venturing into the mountains during the spring to hunt game in the high country.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Anglo-American traffic across the <a href="/article/colorado%E2%80%99s-great-plains"><strong>Colorado Plains</strong></a> increased during the 1840s with the organization of the Oregon Territory and the California Gold Rush of 1849. In response to this incursion, Plains Indians sometimes harassed or stole from wagon trains, and many whites began to fear these attacks as they crossed the plains. In 1851 the federal government sought to make the westward journey safer for white travelers with the <a href="/article/treaty-fort-laramie"><strong>Treaty of Fort Laramie</strong></a>, signed by leaders of the Cheyenne, Lakota, Arapaho, and other Plains Indians. The treaty acknowledged Native American sovereignty across the plains, and each group would receive annual payments in exchange for guaranteeing safe passage for whites and allowing the government to build forts in their territory.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Relations between Colorado’s Native Americans and the US government deteriorated after the <a href="/article/colorado-gold-rush"><strong>Colorado Gold Rush</strong></a> in 1858–59, with the latter pursuing an agenda that sought to strip away Native Americans’ rights to the land. In 1861 the <a href="/article/treaty-fort-wise"><strong>Treaty of Fort Wise</strong></a> relegated the Cheyenne and Arapaho to a small reservation in eastern Colorado between the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/arkansas-river"><strong>Arkansas River</strong></a> and the Smoky Hill Trail. It was on that reservation, along <a href="/article/sand-creek-massacre"><strong>Sand Creek</strong></a> in present-day <a href="/article/kiowa-county"><strong>Kiowa County</strong></a>, that Col. <strong>John Chivington</strong> and the Third Colorado Volunteers slaughtered some 150 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho—mostly women, children, and the elderly—in 1864.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Enraged by the massacre, groups of Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors, such as the Cheyenne <strong>Dog Soldiers</strong>, fought a bloody war of resistance against the US Army. On September 16, 1868—on an island in the Arikaree River in present-day Yuma County—more than 600 Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Lakota warriors pinned down a group of fifty volunteer army scouts from Kansas under the command of Col. George Forsyth. The scouts entrenched themselves in the island and spent nine days under siege until <a href="/article/buffalo-soldiers"><strong>black troops</strong></a> of the Tenth Cavalry rescued them on September 25. The <a href="/article/beecher-island-battleground"><strong>Battle of Beecher Island</strong></a>—named for Lt. Fred Beecher, one of the casualties of the engagement—had the makings of a disaster until the Tenth Cavalry and other units arrived and routed the Native Americans. Beecher Island was a prelude to the last major engagement of the so-called Indian Wars of the late 1860s—the <a href="/article/battle-summit-springs"><strong>Battle of Summit Springs</strong></a>, in which the Dog Soldier leader Tall Bull was killed. After 1867, with the exception of the Dog Soldiers, most of the remaining Cheyenne and Arapaho in the Yuma County area were forced to Oklahoma per the <a href="/article/medicine-lodge-treaties"><strong>Medicine Lodge Treaty</strong></a>.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>County Development</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>After the American Indians left, the only people living in the Yuma County area before 1880 were ranchers. Joseph W. Bowles had a ranch near the North Fork of the Republican River, about twenty-three miles from present-day Yuma, while William L. Campbell had a ranch near the Nebraska state line and Frank and Charles Reeks grazed their cattle in the area of Beecher Island.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Wray began as an early cattle-trading hub for these ranchers, but the town did not officially begin until 1882, when it became a stop along the Burlington &amp; Colorado (B&amp;C) Railroad, which was then advancing toward Denver. The railroad increased the value of the surrounding land, and soon homesteaders and businesspeople moved to the settlement. The city of Wray was incorporated on June 6, 1906.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Also in 1882, A. C. Smith surveyed the town of Eckley along the B&amp;C tracks. The town was platted by the Lincoln Land Company in 1889. It was apparently named for either Adam or Amos Eckles, both of whom worked on Bowles’s ranch. A well nearby helped sustain the community, which soon had a hardware store, two grocery stores, a pool hall, church, post office, and two grain elevators.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>A. B. Smith surveyed the town of Yuma in 1885, and the town was platted in 1886. Homesteaders began arriving, and in 1887 the area became part of Washington County. By the time it incorporated in March 1887, Yuma had 105 residents. Von Horrum Schramm was one of Yuma’s most prominent early residents, as he built the town’s first brick building—the farmers exchange—as well as a bank, general store, and brickyard. He also owned a ranch southwest of the town.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>When Yuma County was carved from Washington County in 1889, Yuma beat out Wray for the county seat. Between 1896 and 1906 Yuma served as the agricultural center for farmers within a forty-mile radius. During that time Wray made several attempts to hold a new county seat election, and in 1902 it finally wrested the status from Yuma. Yuma County obtained its present size in 1903, when the state legislature partitioned the eastern part of Arapaho County. That year the county had little more than 1,700 residents.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In the early twentieth century, boosters in newly settled towns across Colorado published promotional pamphlets touting favorable features of the area, such as <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado-climate"><strong>climate</strong></a> or soil fertility. In one of these pamphlets published around 1908–9, Yuma merchant Chas J. Nelson promised “wonderful opportunities for the homeseeker or investor” in Yuma and Washington Counties. He proclaimed eastern Colorado to be “the healthiest country in the world” and provided numerous tables on rainfall and prices for farm goods as evidence of the bountiful opportunities that awaited settlers of Yuma County.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Pamphlets like Nelson’s seemed to do the trick. By 1920 Yuma County had more than 13,000 residents, and by 1930 it had become one of the state’s premier agricultural producers. That year Yuma County had more than 2,000 farms valued at more than $22 million total. By comparison, the total farm value in neighboring Washington County—a county of similar size—was $15 million that year, and only <a href="/article/adams-county"><strong>Adams</strong></a>, <a href="/article/larimer-county"><strong>Larimer</strong></a>, Logan, and <a href="/article/jefferson-county"><strong>Jefferson</strong></a> Counties had greater farm values than Yuma County. The county also had more than 50,000 head of cattle, compared to 37,000 in neighboring Washington County, and major crops included corn, winter wheat, barley, and rye. Although its population overwhelmingly consisted of white Americans originating from the Midwest and East, by 1930 Yuma County had also attracted a significant number of German families.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Like all plains counties in Colorado, Yuma County suffered during the Great Depression and <a href="/article/dust-bowl"><strong>Dust Bowl</strong></a> of the 1930s. But unlike most other counties, it was able to keep its population stable, sustaining just an 11 percent drop in residents between 1930 and 1940. After the Dust Bowl, which was caused by a combination of drought and excessive plowing of the prairie over the past several decades, the US government created Soil Conservation Districts that were charged with monitoring agricultural practices. Today, Yuma County’s Conservation District, which monitors land and water use and educates county residents about responsible use practices, is the descendant of the districts established in the 1930s.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Agricultural Changes</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The decades following World War II saw innovations in agriculture, including machinery that allowed for larger yields and diesel and natural gas-powered pumps that allowed farmers to tap additional water supplies in the underlying Ogallala Aquifer. The aquifer stretches some 174,000 square miles underneath the Great Plains from South Dakota to Texas and is hundreds of feet deep in some places. Yuma County was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the new water source, as it put a remarkable 991,096 irrigated acres into cultivation between 1950 and 1982. With a steady supply of water from the aquifer, Yuma County farmers were able to ramp up corn production. The water-intensive crop covered 198,545 acres in 1982, up from 117,078 acres in 1950.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Mechanization, meanwhile, allowed for larger farms and encouraged the consolidation of farmland by those who could afford to invest in the new machinery. In Yuma County the average farm size increased by more than 400 acres between 1950 and 1982. Even though the amount of farmland remained more or less the same over that period, the number of farms dropped from 1,436 to 996.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Today</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Today, Yuma County is the largest grower of corn in Colorado, with a crop worth some $206 million in 2012. That value places it in the top fifty corn-producing counties in the nation. Yuma County is also Colorado’s top supplier of hogs and pigs and ranks second in cattle and calf raising. Additionally, Yuma County farms produce significant amounts of poultry and eggs, winter wheat, hay, potatoes, melons, and sweet potatoes.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The county’s agricultural prowess, now and in the future, depends on the Ogallala Aquifer, a resource that is vast but finite. A 2013 study by the US Geological Survey reported that total water levels in the aquifer, which supplies eight states, had declined by 8 percent since 1950. But the future of Ogallala water use in eastern Colorado (or in any other region) depends on the depth of the underlying portion of the aquifer and how quickly that portion takes to recharge. A 2016 study by civil engineers at Kansas State University showed that water draws from the aquifer under eastern Colorado have outpaced the regional recharge rate since 1999 or 2000. However, the study projects that Colorado’s annual depletion of the aquifer will peak in 2023 and then decline, on account of a growing public awareness and efforts to reduce water use.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Under guidance from the Yuma County Conservation District, water conservation efforts are already under way in Yuma County. The district offers a variety of workshops on <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/irrigation-colorado"><strong>irrigation</strong></a> water management, hosts an annual Youth Water Fest to emphasize the importance of responsible water use, and sells monitoring equipment to help farmers use water with maximum efficiency.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Additionally, beginning in 2011, the Republican River Water Conservation District, in partnership with the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service, has provided incentives each year to farmers who implement water conservation measures, including the removal of some acreage from irrigated cultivation entirely. These efforts appear to be succeeding, as the <a href="/article/colorado-foundation-water-education"><strong>Colorado Foundation for Water Education</strong></a> (CFWE) currently reports that rates of withdrawal from the aquifer “appear to have stabilized.”</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The CFWE’s assessment, along with current scientific studies, suggests that Yuma County will have enough water to support its agricultural economy in the near future. Future droughts, however, may place increased pressure on the aquifer and alter current projections. It seems likely that Yuma County residents will need to continue monitoring and managing consumption of their most precious resource.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Beyond agriculture, Yuma County is notable as the home county of current US Senator <strong>Cory Gardner</strong> (R-CO). Although the county remains mostly white, its Latino population has increased since the 1990s, when work on new hog and dairy farms began drawing Latino families to Yuma and other towns. Today, Latinos make up 12.8 percent of the county population.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/encyclopedia-staff" hreflang="und">Encyclopedia Staff</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/yuma-county" hreflang="en">yuma county</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/yuma-county-history" hreflang="en">yuma county history</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/wray" hreflang="en">wray</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/great-plains" hreflang="en">Great Plains</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/ogallala-aquifer" hreflang="en">ogallala aquifer</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/agriculture" hreflang="en">agriculture</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/farming" hreflang="en">farming</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/yuma" hreflang="en">yuma</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/yuma-county-colorado" hreflang="en">yuma county colorado</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/arikaree-river" hreflang="en">arikaree river</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>“<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/19/in-colorado-gop-senate-candidate-cory-gardner-straddles-fence-on-immigration.html">Colorado’s growing Hispanic population shaping view on immigration for GOP Senate candidate</a>,” Associated Press via <em>Fox News Latino</em>, October 19, 2014.</p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/cgi-bin/colorado?a=d&amp;d=YPI19130509.2.44">Classifieds</a>, <em>Yuma Pioneer</em>, May 9, 1913 (Denver: Colorado State Library, Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>V.L. McGuire, “<a href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2012/5291/sir2012-5291.pdf">Water-Level and Storage Changes in the High Plains Aquifer, Predevelopment to 2011 and 2009-11</a>,” US Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5291 (Reston, VA: US Geological Survey, 2013).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Chas J. Nelson, “Agricultural Possibilities of Eastern Colorado” (Yuma, CO: Chas J. Nelson, c. 1908[?]).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Republican River Water Conservation District, “<a href="https://republicanriver.com/Programs/AWEP/tabid/173/Default.aspx">Agricultural Water Enhancement Program</a>,” n.d.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Shirley Starnes, ed., <em>West Yuma County, Colorado: A History of West Yuma County, 1886-1986 </em>(Dallas, TX: Taylor, 1985).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>David R. Steward and Andrew J. Allen, “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377415301220">Peak groundwater depletion in the High Plains Aquifer, projections from 1930 to 2110</a>,” <em>Agricultural Water Management </em>170 (May 2016).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Census Bureau, “Yuma County, CO,” US Census, 1930.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Department of Agriculture, “<a href="https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2012/Online_Resources/County_Profiles/">2012 Census of Agriculture County Profile: Yuma County Colorado</a>,” National Agricultural Statistics Service.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Department of Agriculture, “<a href="https://usda.library.cornell.edu/">Colorado-Arizona</a>,” US Census of Agriculture, Vol. 2, Part 3 (1930).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Department of Agriculture, “<a href="https://usda.library.cornell.edu/">Colorado-Wyoming: Chapter B – Statistics for Counties</a>,” US Census of Agriculture, Vol. 1, Part 29 (1950).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Department of Agriculture, “<a href="http://agcensus.mannlib.cornell.edu/AgCensus/getVolumeOnePart.do?year=1982&amp;part_id=6&amp;number=6&amp;title=Colorado">Colorado</a>,” US Census of Agriculture, Vol. 1, Part 6 (1982).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Cathy Walp, “<a href="https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/files/OAHP/NRSR/5YM290.pdf">Cliff Theater</a>,” US Department of the Interior, National Park Service Form 10-900b (Denver: History Colorado, 2012).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Elliot West, <em>Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado </em>(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Yuma County Conservation District, “<a href="https://www.ycconservation.com/about.html">About</a>,” n.d.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Yuma County Conservation District, “<a href="https://www.ycconservation.com/programs.html">Programs</a>,” n.d.</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p>History Colorado, “<a href="https://www.historycolorado.org/oahp/yuma-county">Yuma County</a>,” n.d.</p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="https://republicanriver.com/">Republican River Water Conservation District</a></p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="http://www.wrayco.net/index.html">Wray</a></p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="http://www.wrayco.net/museum_display.html">Wray Museum</a></p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/cityofyuma">Yuma</a></p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="http://yumacounty.net/">Yuma County</a></p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Fri, 30 Sep 2016 18:30:55 +0000 yongli 1911 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org Washington County http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/washington-county <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Washington County</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-article-image.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-article-image.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div id="carouselEncyclopediaArticle" class="carousel slide" data-bs-ride="true"> <div class="carousel-inner"> <div class="carousel-item active"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--1906--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--1906.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/washington-county"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Washington_County_0.png?itok=fR6MpZ7y" width="1024" height="741" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/washington-county" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Washington County</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Washington County, named for the first US president, is a county of 2,524 square miles on Colorado’s eastern <a><strong>Great Plains</strong></a>.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> <div class="carousel-item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--1907--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--1907.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/washington-county-google-map"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Washington_County_0.jpg?itok=SQGXeNIB" width="747" height="665" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/washington-county-google-map" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Washington County on Google Map</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p><span>The county seat is Akron. The county was named in honor of the United States President George Washington.</span></p> <div class="_eFb"> <div class="_mr kno-fb-ctx" data-ved="0ahUKEwiL3taEzLfPAhVB0oMKHVdAB2EQyxMIeigAMA4"><span class="_xdb"><a class="fl" data-ved="0ahUKEwiL3taEzLfPAhVB0oMKHVdAB2EQ6BMIeygAMA4" href="https://www.google.com/search?biw=1315&amp;bih=641&amp;q=washington+county,+colorado+area&amp;stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAOPgE-LQz9U3yIsvNNGSyk620s_JT04syczPgzOsEotSEwESa780KAAAAA&amp;sa=X&amp;sqi=2&amp;ved=0ahUKEwiL3taEzLfPAhVB0oMKHVdAB2EQ6BMIeygAMA4">Area</a>: </span><span class="_Xbe kno-fv">2,524&nbsp;mi²</span></div> </div> <div class="_eFb"> <div class="_mr kno-fb-ctx" data-ved="0ahUKEwiL3taEzLfPAhVB0oMKHVdAB2EQyxMIfSgAMA8"><span class="_xdb"><a class="fl" data-ved="0ahUKEwiL3taEzLfPAhVB0oMKHVdAB2EQ6BMIfigAMA8" href="https://www.google.com/search?biw=1315&amp;bih=641&amp;q=washington+county,+colorado+founded&amp;stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAOPgE-LQz9U3yIsvNNFSzk620s_JT04syczP009JLElNiYdxrdLyS_NSUlMAeyyhCzEAAAA&amp;sa=X&amp;sqi=2&amp;ved=0ahUKEwiL3taEzLfPAhVB0oMKHVdAB2EQ6BMIfigAMA8">Founded</a>: February 9, </span><span class="_Xbe kno-fv">1887</span></div> </div> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> </div> <button class="carousel-control-prev" type="button" data-bs-target="#carouselEncyclopediaArticle" data-bs-slide="prev"> <span class="carousel-control-prev-icon" aria-hidden="true"></span> <span class="visually-hidden">Previous</span> </button> <button class="carousel-control-next" type="button" data-bs-target="#carouselEncyclopediaArticle" data-bs-slide="next"> <span class="carousel-control-next-icon" aria-hidden="true"></span> <span class="visually-hidden">Next</span> </button> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2016-09-30T11:23:05-06:00" title="Friday, September 30, 2016 - 11:23" class="datetime">Fri, 09/30/2016 - 11:23</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/washington-county" data-a2a-title="Washington County"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fwashington-county&amp;title=Washington%20County"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>Washington County, named for the first US president, is a county of 2,524 square miles on Colorado’s eastern <a href="/article/colorado%E2%80%99s-great-plains"><strong>Great Plains</strong></a>. It is bordered to the north by <a href="/article/logan-county"><strong>Logan County</strong></a>, to the east by <a href="/article/yuma-county"><strong>Yuma County</strong></a>, to the south by <a href="/article/kit-carson-county"><strong>Kit Carson</strong></a> and <strong><a href="/article/lincoln-county">Lincoln</a> </strong>Counties, and to the west by <a href="/article/arapahoe-county"><strong>Arapahoe</strong></a>, <a href="/article/adams-county"><strong>Adams</strong></a>, and <a href="/article/morgan-county"><strong>Morgan</strong></a> Counties.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Washington County was formed in 1887 when the state legislature broke up a larger <a href="/article/weld-county"><strong>Weld County</strong></a>. Washington then ceded its eastern half to the formation of Yuma County in 1889 and assumed its current size by acquiring part of eastern Arapahoe County in 1903. Today the county has a population of 4,864. <strong>Akron</strong>, with a population of 1,702, is the county seat. Otis, with a population of 534, is the only other incorporated area in Washington County, as most of its residents live on the county’s 824 farms.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Highways 34 and 36 are the major east-west thoroughfares: Highway 34 runs through Akron and Otis in the northern part of the county, and Highway 36 runs through the small communities of Last Chance, Lindon, Anton, Arickaree, and Cope to the south. State Highway 63 bisects the county running north-south through Anton and Akron, while State Highway 71 (County Road G) meets US 36 at Last Chance, continuing north to Morgan County and south to Lincoln County. A portion of <a href="/article/interstate-76"><strong>Interstate 76</strong></a> runs through the northwestern corner of Washington County, near the small farm community of Messex.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Water resources include a number of small tributaries to the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/south-platte-river"><strong>South Platte</strong></a>, but the county generally lacks the major water sources of its neighbors, such as the South Platte River in Morgan County or the Ogallala Aquifer underneath Yuma County. To cope with the county’s aridity, Washington County farmers have long relied on the cultivation of dryland crops, especially winter wheat, of which it is one of the state’s top producers.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Native Americans</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>From around AD 1000 to 1400, members of the <a href="/article/upper-republican-and-itskari-cultures"><strong>Upper Republican and Itskari</strong></a> cultures occupied parts of northeast Colorado, including present-day Washington County. These semi-sedentary people fished, farmed, and hunted<strong> bison</strong>, living in earthen lodges and crafting distinctive ceramic pots. While they were apparently able to thrive in eastern Colorado for nearly three centuries, it appears that environmental pressures—most likely drought—caused them to gradually abandon the region. There is little evidence of their presence in the area by the mid-fifteenth century.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the rapid expansion of the <strong>Lakota</strong> displaced a number of other nations from the northern plains, including the <strong>Arapaho</strong>, <strong>Cheyenne</strong>, and <strong>Kiowa</strong>. These groups filtered south onto the plains of Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado. The Pawnee also made occasional visits to eastern Colorado, although they mostly frequented present-day Kansas and Nebraska.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>By 1790 the Kiowa had moved onto the plains from the mountains of Montana. The Cheyenne and Arapaho, meanwhile, had been migrating westward from their homelands in the upper Midwest since the early eighteenth century. By 1800 the Lakota had forced both the Cheyenne and Arapaho out of present-day South Dakota. The Cheyenne and Arapaho followed the buffalo herds across the plains, living in portable, cone-shaped dwellings called <a href="/article/tipi-0"><strong>tipis</strong></a>. During the notoriously harsh plains winters, they found shelter near bluffs and in <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/cottonwood-trees"><strong>cottonwood</strong></a> groves along the river bottoms. While the Cheyenne rarely left the plains, the Arapaho made a habit of venturing into the mountains during the spring to hunt game in the high country.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Anglo-American traffic across the Colorado plains increased during the 1840s with the organization of the Oregon Territory and the California Gold Rush of 1849. In response to this incursion, Indigenous people sometimes harassed or stole from wagon trains, and many whites began to fear these attacks as they crossed the plains. In 1851 the federal government sought to make the westward journey safer for white travelers with the <a href="/article/treaty-fort-laramie"><strong>Treaty of Fort Laramie</strong></a>, signed by leaders of the Cheyenne, Lakota, Arapaho, and other Indigenous nations. The treaty acknowledged Native American sovereignty across the plains, and each group would receive annual payments in exchange for guaranteeing safe passage for whites and allowing the government to build forts in their territory.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Relations between Colorado’s Native Americans and the US government deteriorated after the <a href="/article/colorado-gold-rush"><strong>Colorado Gold Rush</strong></a> in 1858–59, with the latter pursuing an agenda that sought to strip away Native Americans’ rights to the land. In 1861 the <a href="/article/treaty-fort-wise"><strong>Treaty of Fort Wise</strong></a> relegated the Cheyenne and Arapaho to a small reservation in eastern Colorado between the <a href="/article/arkansas-river"><strong>Arkansas River</strong></a> and the Smoky Hill Trail. It was on that reservation, along <a href="/article/sand-creek-massacre"><strong>Sand Creek</strong></a> in present-day <a href="/article/kiowa-county"><strong>Kiowa County</strong></a>, that Col. <strong>John Chivington</strong> and the Third Colorado Volunteers slaughtered some 150 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho—mostly women, children, and the elderly—in 1864.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Enraged by the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/sand-creek-massacre"><strong>massacre</strong></a>, groups of Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors, such as the Cheyenne <strong>Dog Soldiers</strong>, fought a bloody war of resistance against the US Army. The last major engagement of the so-called Indian Wars in Colorado occurred in 1869 at <a href="/article/battle-summit-springs"><strong>Summit Springs</strong></a> in present-day Washington County, where the Dog Soldier leader <strong>Tall Bull</strong> was killed. After 1867, with the exception of the Dog Soldiers, most of the remaining Cheyenne and Arapaho in the Washington County area had been relocated to Oklahoma per the <a href="/article/medicine-lodge-treaties"><strong>Medicine Lodge Treaty</strong></a>.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>County Development</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>With the exception of a few ranchers, in the 1870s the area that would become Washington County was uninhabited. In the early 1880s the Chicago, Burlington &amp; Quincy Railroad (CB&amp;Q) began building a line across the Colorado plains toward Denver, and land along the route became more valuable.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1882 A. B. Smith of the Lincoln Land Company, a subsidiary of the railroad, surveyed the current town site of Akron, and the town of Otis began as a railroad camp. With the exception of a store operated by Patrick Dougherty, the Akron town site remained empty until 1886, when the first additions were platted. Akron is the Greek word for “summit,” and in the context of the plains the name is appropriate, as the town sits at 4,669 feet, the highest point east of Denver.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Washington County was created the following year, split from a larger Weld County. Akron quickly became an important railroad depot, and by 1890 it featured not just a railroad roundhouse and depot but also a general store, two newspapers, four hotels, four blacksmiths, five doctors’ offices, a Presbyterian church, and a library.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In the early twentieth century, boosters in newly settled towns across Colorado published promotional pamphlets touting favorable features of the area, such as <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado-climate"><strong>climate</strong></a> or soil fertility. In one of these pamphlets published around 1908–9, Yuma merchant Chas J. Nelson promised “wonderful opportunities for the homeseeker or investor” in Yuma and Washington Counties. He proclaimed eastern Colorado to be “the healthiest country in the world” and provided numerous tables on rainfall and prices for farm goods as evidence of the bountiful opportunities that awaited settlers of both counties.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>A lack of major water sources may have made Washington County a tougher sell for prospective farmers. But dryland crops and techniques helped make up for a lack of water. Winter wheat, for instance, requires little moisture and became a staple crop of Washington County in its early days, while precipitation and the South Platte tributaries apparently provided enough water to allow growth of corn; by 1930 the county had 133,754 acres of corn compared to 89,331 acres of winter wheat. County farmers also took part in the expansive <a href="/article/sugar-beet-industry"><strong>sugar beet industry</strong></a> of the early twentieth century, planting nearly 1,400 acres of beets by 1930. Although Washington County lagged behind neighboring Yuma County in agricultural production, it had nonetheless established itself as a key part of the eastern Colorado breadbasket.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Like other counties on the Colorado plains, Washington County was hit hard by the Great Depression and <a href="/article/dust-bowl"><strong>Dust Bowl</strong></a> of the 1930s. Farms folded and banks failed, and the county lost 1,255 residents between 1930 and 1940. To control the excessive plowing that helped cause the Dust Bowl, the federal government set up soil conservation districts in many counties across the country, including Washington County. With funds from the Works Progress Administration, one of President Franklin Roosevelt’s <a href="/article/new-deal-colorado"><strong>New Deal</strong></a> initiatives, high schools in Akron and Otis received new <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/akron-gymnasium"><strong>gymnasiums</strong></a>.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Agricultural Changes</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The decades following World War II saw innovations in agriculture, including machinery that allowed for larger yields and diesel and natural gas-powered pumps that allowed farmers to tap additional water supplies in the underlying Ogallala Aquifer. The Ogallala formation stretches some 174,000 square miles underneath the Great Plains from South Dakota to Texas and is hundreds of feet deep in some places. However, the aquifer underlies only a small slice of northeastern Washington County, so many of its residents were unable to capitalize on the new water source in the same way that farmers in neighboring Yuma County could.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Mechanization, meanwhile, allowed for larger farms and encouraged the consolidation of farmland by those who could afford to invest in the new machinery, as well as other inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides. In Washington County the average farm size increased by 489 acres between 1950 and 1982. Even though the amount of farmland remained more or less the same over that period, the number of farms dropped from 1,263 to 854.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Today</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Today, Washington County is one of the top wheat producers in Colorado, as its 219,819 acres ranks second among the state’s forty-six wheat-growing counties. The county is also ranked sixth in corn production and raises more than 74,000 head of cattle.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/encyclopedia-staff" hreflang="und">Encyclopedia Staff</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/washington-county-colorado" hreflang="en">washington county colorado</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/washington-county" hreflang="en">washington county</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/washington-county-history" hreflang="en">washington county history</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/akron-colorado" hreflang="en">akron colorado</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/akron-history" hreflang="en">akron history</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/akron" hreflang="en">Akron</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/great-plains" hreflang="en">Great Plains</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/agriculture" hreflang="en">agriculture</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/farming" hreflang="en">farming</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/winter-wheat" hreflang="en">winter wheat</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/sugar-beets" hreflang="en">sugar beets</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>Abbey Christman, “<a href="https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/files/OAHP/NRSR/5WN198.pdf">Akron Gymnasium</a>,” US Department of the Interior, National Park Service Form 10-900b (Denver: History Colorado, 2007).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>History Colorado, “<a href="https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/files/Researchers/Mss.00005.pdf">Akron, Colorado Collection</a>,” Stephen G. Hart Research Library Finding Aid (Denver: History Colorado, 2013).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Department of Agriculture, “<a href="https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2012/Online_Resources/County_Profiles/">2012 Census of Agriculture County Profile: Washington County Colorado</a>,” National Agricultural Statistics Service.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Department of Agriculture, “<a href="http://agcensus.mannlib.cornell.edu/AgCensus/censusParts.do?year=1890">Colorado, Contd.</a>,” US Census of Agriculture (1890).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Department of Agriculture, “<a href="https://usda.library.cornell.edu/">Colorado-Arizona</a>,” US Census of Agriculture, Vol. 2, Part 3 (1930).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Department of Agriculture, “<a href="https://usda.library.cornell.edu/">Colorado-Wyoming: Chapter B – Statistics for Counties</a>,” US Census of Agriculture, Vol. 1, Part 29 (1950).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Department of Agriculture, “<a href="http://agcensus.mannlib.cornell.edu/AgCensus/getVolumeOnePart.do?year=1982&amp;part_id=6&amp;number=6&amp;title=Colorado">Colorado</a>,” US Census of Agriculture, Vol. 1, Part 6 (1982).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Elliott West, <em>Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado </em>(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998).</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p><a href="http://www.townofakron.com/index.htm">Akron</a></p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="https://www.colorado.gov/washingtoncounty">Washington County</a></p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Fri, 30 Sep 2016 17:23:05 +0000 yongli 1908 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org Phillips County http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/phillips-county <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Phillips County</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-article-image.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-article-image.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div id="carouselEncyclopediaArticle" class="carousel slide" data-bs-ride="true"> <div class="carousel-inner"> <div class="carousel-item active"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--1903--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--1903.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/phillips-county"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/1024px-Map_of_Colorado_highlighting_Phillips_County.svg__0.png?itok=LWBVBYuU" width="1024" height="741" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/phillips-county" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Phillips County</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Phillips County covers 688 square miles on the <a href="/article/colorado%E2%80%99s-great-plains"><strong>Great Plains</strong></a> of northeastern Colorado. It has a population of 4,349, more than half of whom live in the county seat of <strong>Holyoke</strong>.<span> </span></p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> <div class="carousel-item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--1904--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--1904.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/phillips-county-google-map"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Phillips_County_0.jpg?itok=MuPlj0Qf" width="901" height="681" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/phillips-county-google-map" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Phillips County on Google Map</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p><span>The county seat is Holyoke. It is named after R.O. Phillips. </span></p> <div class="_eFb"> <div class="_mr kno-fb-ctx" data-ved="0ahUKEwjwv4jIyLfPAhVG64MKHRWAAa0QyxMIeCgAMA4"><span class="_xdb"><a class="fl" data-ved="0ahUKEwjwv4jIyLfPAhVG64MKHRWAAa0Q6BMIeSgAMA4" href="https://www.google.com/search?biw=1315&amp;bih=641&amp;q=phillips+county,+colorado+area&amp;stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAOPgE-LQz9U3yIsvz9OSyk620s_JT04syczPgzOsEotSEwEa5VclKAAAAA&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjwv4jIyLfPAhVG64MKHRWAAa0Q6BMIeSgAMA4">Area</a>: </span><span class="_Xbe kno-fv">688&nbsp;mi²</span></div> </div> <div class="_eFb"> <div class="_mr kno-fb-ctx" data-ved="0ahUKEwjwv4jIyLfPAhVG64MKHRWAAa0QyxMIeygAMA8"><span class="_xdb"><a class="fl" data-ved="0ahUKEwjwv4jIyLfPAhVG64MKHRWAAa0Q6BMIfCgAMA8" href="https://www.google.com/search?biw=1315&amp;bih=641&amp;q=phillips+county,+colorado+founded&amp;stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAOPgE-LQz9U3yIsvz9NSzk620s_JT04syczP009JLElNiYdxrdLyS_NSUlMAxSANDjEAAAA&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjwv4jIyLfPAhVG64MKHRWAAa0Q6BMIfCgAMA8">Founded</a>: </span><span class="_Xbe kno-fv">March 27, 1889</span></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> </div> <button class="carousel-control-prev" type="button" data-bs-target="#carouselEncyclopediaArticle" data-bs-slide="prev"> <span class="carousel-control-prev-icon" aria-hidden="true"></span> <span class="visually-hidden">Previous</span> </button> <button class="carousel-control-next" type="button" data-bs-target="#carouselEncyclopediaArticle" data-bs-slide="next"> <span class="carousel-control-next-icon" aria-hidden="true"></span> <span class="visually-hidden">Next</span> </button> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2016-09-30T11:11:33-06:00" title="Friday, September 30, 2016 - 11:11" class="datetime">Fri, 09/30/2016 - 11:11</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/phillips-county" data-a2a-title="Phillips County"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fphillips-county&amp;title=Phillips%20County"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>Phillips County covers 688 square miles on the <a href="/article/colorado%E2%80%99s-great-plains"><strong>Great Plains</strong></a> of northeastern Colorado. It has a population of 4,349, more than half of whom live in the county seat of <strong>Holyoke</strong>. Other communities include Haxton (pop. 946) and Amherst (58). Frenchman Creek is the only source of surface <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/water-colorado"><strong>water</strong></a> for the rural county. But by first farming dryland crops such as winter wheat, and later by pumping water from the <strong>Ogallala Aquifer</strong>, residents have managed to build a successful agricultural economy. Today, farms cover nearly all of the county’s land.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Phillips County’s two main thoroughfares, US Highways 385 and 6, meet at Holyoke and connect the county to its neighbors—<a href="/article/sedgwick-county"><strong>Sedgwick County</strong></a> to the north, the state of Nebraska to the east, <a href="/article/yuma-county"><strong>Yuma County</strong></a> to the south, and<strong> <a href="/article/logan-county">Logan County</a></strong> to the west. Phillips County was once traversed by many different groups of Plains Indians, including the <strong>Arapaho</strong>, <strong>Cheyenne</strong>, <strong>Comanche</strong>, <strong>Kiowa</strong>, <strong>Pawnee</strong>, and <strong>Lakota</strong>. After 1900 the county became home to thriving communities of Anglo-American farmers, which were hit hard by the <a href="/article/dust-bowl"><strong>Dust Bowl</strong></a> of the 1930s but bounced back in future decades. Today the county is one of the state’s top producers of corn, sheep, pigs, and cattle, thanks to water pumped from the vast Ogallala Aquifer.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Native Americans</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>From around AD 1000 to 1400, members of the <a href="/article/upper-republican-and-itskari-cultures"><strong>Upper Republican and Itskari</strong></a> cultures occupied parts of northeast Colorado, including present-day Phillips County. These semi-sedentary people fished, farmed, and hunted buffalo, living in earthen lodges and crafting distinctive ceramic pots. While they were apparently able to thrive in eastern Colorado for nearly three centuries, it appears that environmental pressures—most likely drought—caused them to gradually abandon the region. There is little evidence of their presence in the area by the mid-fifteenth century.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the rapid expansion of the Lakota displaced a number of other horse-mounted groups from the northern plains, including the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Kiowa. These groups filtered south onto the plains of Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado. The Pawnee also made occasional visits to eastern Colorado, although they mostly frequented present-day Kansas and Nebraska.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>By 1790 the Kiowa had moved onto the plains from the mountains of Montana. The Cheyenne and Arapaho, meanwhile, had been migrating westward from their homelands in the upper Midwest since the early eighteenth century. By 1800 the Lakota had forced both the Cheyenne and Arapaho out of present-day South Dakota. The Cheyenne and Arapaho followed the buffalo herds across the plains, living in portable, cone-shaped dwellings called <a href="/article/tipi-0"><strong>tipis</strong></a>. During the notoriously harsh plains winters, they found shelter near bluffs and in <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/cottonwood-trees"><strong>cottonwood</strong></a> groves along the river bottoms. While the Cheyenne rarely left the plains, the Arapaho made a habit of venturing into the mountains during the spring to hunt game in the high country.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Anglo-American traffic across the <a href="/article/colorado%E2%80%99s-great-plains"><strong>Colorado Plains</strong></a> increased during the 1840s with the organization of the Oregon Territory and the California Gold Rush of 1849. In response to this incursion, Plains Indians sometimes harassed or stole from wagon trains, and many whites began to fear these attacks as they crossed the plains. In 1851 the federal government sought to make the westward journey safer for white travelers with the <a href="/article/treaty-fort-laramie"><strong>Treaty of Fort Laramie</strong></a>, signed by leaders of the Cheyenne, Lakota, Arapaho, and other Plains Indians. The treaty acknowledged Native American sovereignty across the plains, and each group would receive annual payments in exchange for guaranteeing safe passage for whites and allowing the government to build forts in their territory.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>County Development</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Relations between Colorado’s Native Americans and the US government deteriorated after the <a href="/article/colorado-gold-rush"><strong>Colorado Gold Rush</strong></a> in 1858–59, with the latter pursuing an agenda that sought to strip away the former’s rights to the land. Native American presence in the Phillips County area dwindled in the late nineteenth century after the <a href="/article/medicine-lodge-treaties"><strong>Medicine Lodge Treaty</strong></a> of 1867 and the <a href="/article/battle-summit-springs"><strong>Battle of Summit Springs</strong></a> in 1869. The treaty and battle resulted in the relocation of the area’s Cheyenne and Arapaho inhabitants to a reservation in present-day Oklahoma.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>As part of the <a href="/article/colorado-territory"><strong>Colorado Territory</strong></a> (1861–76), present-day Phillips County was part of <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/weld-county"><strong>Weld County</strong></a>. After Colorado became a state in 1876, the area remained part of Weld County until 1887, when it became part of Logan County. In 1889 both Phillips and Sedgwick County were partitioned from eastern Logan County.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Phillips County was named for R. O. Phillips, secretary of the Lincoln Land Company, which sold <a href="/article/homestead"><strong>homesteads</strong></a> in the area during the late nineteenth century. One of the first homesteads in the area belonged to English immigrant Henry Hargreaves, who set up a farm and ranch in 1887. To help farmers conduct business, William E. Heginbotham and his father established the First National Bank of Holyoke around this time. Holyoke’s Sears Hotel (now the Sawyer House) was built in 1887, and the town incorporated in 1888.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Farming got off to a rough start in Phillips County on account of the lack of surface water and arid <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado-climate"><strong>climate</strong></a>. An economic downturn in 1893 and a harsh drought in 1894 led to many farmers losing their land due to the inability to pay taxes. Yet ranching increased during this time, as cattle could graze the abundant, drought-tolerant prairie grasses. Population and cattle counts between 1890 and 1900 illustrate the shift: the county population dropped from 2,642 to 1,583, while the number of cattle increased from 3,701 to 23,633.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The savior of agriculture in early Phillips County turned out to be winter wheat, a drought-resistant crop that required only minimal amounts of water and a cold period to produce grain. Winter wheat acreage and farming in general expanded greatly in Phillips County during the early twentieth century, causing the county population to increase to 5,499 by 1920.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>New Deal, New Courthouse</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>By 1924 it was clear that the county had outgrown its second courthouse, built in 1904, and needed a new one. By 1931 the county had set aside $27,000 for the building. However, like most other counties on Colorado’s eastern plains, Phillips County suffered during the Great Depression and <a href="/article/dust-bowl"><strong>Dust Bowl </strong></a>of the 1930s, and the county ceased collecting funds for the new courthouse. The population dropped from an all-time high of 5,797 in 1930 to 4,948 in 1940.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Despite the hard times, in 1933 the Greater Holyoke Club circulated petitions asking county commissioners to build the courthouse. The federal Public Works Administration (PWA), one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s <a href="/article/new-deal-colorado"><strong>New Deal</strong></a> initiatives, provided the county with a $23,000 grant and additional loans for the building. Construction began following voter approval in 1934, and the new courthouse was completed in 1936. The PWA grant came even as the administration was pulling funds from dozens of other projects, suggesting that it considered the new Phillips County courthouse to be an important project.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Agricultural Transformation</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>American agriculture became increasingly mechanized after 1940, allowing farmers to plant considerably more acreage and harvest it with minimal labor costs. Farms in Phillips County reflected this trend, as farmers invested in combines and other machinery and began building on-site grain storage and drying systems to store larger harvests. For example, the Hargreaves farm—now managed by Henry Hargreaves’s son George and his children—built a new garage and granary in the 1940s and added five metal grain bins in the 1950s.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>When the Hargreaves installed a new <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/irrigation-colorado"><strong>irrigation</strong></a> system in 1964, their farm illustrated another fundamental transformation in Phillips County agriculture—the shift from dryland crops such as winter wheat to thirstier crops such as corn, made possible by mechanized access to water in the Ogallala Aquifer. The aquifer stretches some 174,000 square miles underneath the Great Plains from South Dakota to Texas and is hundreds of feet deep in some places. Using pumps powered by diesel or natural gas, farmers could bring up more than 2,000 gallons per minute to flood trenches between rows of crops.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>By 1974 the Hargreaves and 142 other farmers in Phillips County were using the new irrigation technique, called flood irrigation. Although county farmers still planted more wheat, irrigation prompted corn acreage to expand from 35,773 in 1950 to 64,492 in 1984. Although <strong>center-pivot irrigation </strong>has since replaced flood irrigation, Phillips County farmers still rely on the Ogallala Aquifer for water.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Today</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Agriculture in Phillips County remains strong today, with the market value of the county’s crops increasing by 45 percent between 2007 and 2012. The average crop value per farm saw an even greater increase over that period, growing 52 percent. Phillips County ranks eighth out of sixty-four Colorado counties in the value of its agricultural products and is the third-largest producer of both corn and hogs in the state.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The county’s agricultural prowess, now and in the future, depends on the Ogallala Aquifer. A 2013 study by the US Geological Survey reported that total water levels in the aquifer, which supplies eight states, had declined by 8 percent since 1950. But the future of Ogallala water use in eastern Colorado (or in any other region) depends on the depth of the underlying portion of the aquifer and how quickly that portion takes to recharge. A 2016 study by civil engineers at Kansas State University showed that water draws from the aquifer under eastern Colorado have outpaced the regional recharge rate since 1999 or 2000. However, the study projects that Colorado’s annual depletion of the aquifer will peak in 2023 and then decline, on account of a growing public awareness and efforts to reduce water use.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Conservation efforts are already under way in eastern Colorado. Beginning in 2011, the Republican River Water Conservation District—in partnership with the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service—has provided incentives each year to farmers who implement water conservation measures. These efforts appear to be succeeding, as the <a href="/article/colorado-foundation-water-education"><strong>Colorado Foundation for Water Education</strong></a> (CFWE) currently reports that rates of withdrawal from the aquifer “appear to have stabilized.”</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The CFWE’s assessment, along with current scientific studies, suggests that Phillips County will have enough water to support its agricultural economy in the near future. Future droughts, however, may place increased pressure on the aquifer and alter current projections. Phillips County residents will need to continue monitoring and managing consumption of their most precious and finite resource.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/encyclopedia-staff" hreflang="und">Encyclopedia Staff</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/phillips-county" hreflang="en">Phillips County</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/phillips-county-history" hreflang="en">phillips county history</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/holyoke" hreflang="en">Holyoke</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/great-plains" hreflang="en">Great Plains</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/farming" hreflang="en">farming</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/agriculture" hreflang="en">agriculture</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/ogallala-aquifer" hreflang="en">ogallala aquifer</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>Abigail Christman, “<a href="https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/files/OAHP/NRSR/5PL24.pdf">Hargreaves Homestead Rural Historic Landscape</a>,” US Department of the Interior, National Park Service Form 10-900b (Denver: History Colorado, 2013).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Abigail Christman, “<a href="https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/files/OAHP/NRSR/5PL19.pdf">Phillips County Courthouse</a>,” US Department of the Interior, National Park Service Form 10-900b (Denver: History Colorado, 2007).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Colorado Foundation for Water Education, “<a href="https://www.watereducationcolorado.org/cfwe-education/water-is/climate-and-drought/2-uncategorised/617-colorado-s-four-major-aquifers">Colorado’s Four Major Aquifers</a>,” n.d.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>History Colorado, “Phillips County,” n.d.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>V.L. McGuire, “<a href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2012/5291/sir2012-5291.pdf">Water-Level and Storage Changes in the High Plains Aquifer, Predevelopment to 2011 and 2009-11</a>,” US Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2012-5291 (Reston, VA: US Geological Survey, 2013).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>David R. Steward and Andrew J. Allen, “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377415301220">Peak groundwater depletion in the High Plains Aquifer, projections from 1930 to 2110</a>,” <em>Agricultural Water Management </em>170 (May 2016).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Department of Agriculture, “<a href="https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2012/Online_Resources/County_Profiles/">2012 Census of Agriculture County Profile: Phillips County Colorado</a>,” National Agricultural Statistics Service.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Department of Agriculture, “<a href="https://usda.library.cornell.edu/">Colorado-Wyoming: Chapter B – Statistics for Counties</a>,” US Census of Agriculture, Vol. 1, Part 29 (1950).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Department of Agriculture, “<a href="http://agcensus.mannlib.cornell.edu/AgCensus/getVolumeOnePart.do?year=1987&amp;part_id=68&amp;number=6&amp;title=Colorado">Colorado,”</a> US Census of Agriculture, Vol. 1, Part 6 (1987).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Elliot West, <em>Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado </em>(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Deon Wolfenbarger, “<a href="https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/files/OAHP/crforms_edumat/pdfs/649.pdf">New Deal Resources on Colorado’s Eastern Plains</a>,” US Department of the Interior, National Park Service Form 10-900b (Denver: History Colorado, 2005).</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p><a href="https://www.colorado.com/cities-and-towns/holyoke">Holyoke</a> (Colorado Tourism page)</p>&#13; &#13; <p>David E. Kromm, “<a href="http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Oc-Po/Ogallala-Aquifer.html">Ogallala Aquifer</a>,” <em>Water Encyclopedia</em>, n.d.</p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="https://www.colorado.gov/phillipscounty">Phillips County</a></p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="https://www.holyokeenterprise.com/"><em>The Holyoke Enterprise</em></a></p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Geological Survey, “<a href="https://ne.water.usgs.gov/ogw/hpwlms/tablewlpre.html">High Plains Aquifer Water-Level Monitoring Study Area-weighted average water-level change, predevelopment to 1980, 2000 through 2013</a>,” updated December 19, 2014.</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Fri, 30 Sep 2016 17:11:33 +0000 yongli 1905 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org “Great American Desert” http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/great-american-desert <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">“Great American Desert”</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2016-09-30T09:37:31-06:00" title="Friday, September 30, 2016 - 09:37" class="datetime">Fri, 09/30/2016 - 09:37</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/great-american-desert" data-a2a-title="“Great American Desert”"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fgreat-american-desert&amp;title=%E2%80%9CGreat%20American%20Desert%E2%80%9D"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>Early nineteenth century Army explorers <a href="/article/zebulon-montgomery-pike"><strong>Zebulon Pike</strong></a> and <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/stephen-h-long">Stephen H. Long</a> </strong>conceptualized the <a href="/article/colorado%E2%80%99s-great-plains"><strong>Great Plains</strong></a> east of the <a href="/article/rocky-mountains"><strong>Rocky Mountains</strong></a> as the “Great American Desert.” Long’s report called it “unfit for cultivation,” while Pike compared it to “the sandy deserts of Africa.” The myth of the Great American Desert deterred the settlement of the Great Plains, as migrants heading west typically passed through the uninviting region as quickly as possible. The myth also intensified antebellum sectional politics, as the North and the South struggled over congressional representation by seeking to control the admission of new states, such as Colorado, into the Union.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Birth of a Myth</h2>&#13; &#13; <p><strong>Edwin James</strong>, chronicler of Long’s 1820 expedition, established the image of the Great American Desert when he described the Great Plains as “uninhabitable by a people depending upon agriculture for their subsistence.” An 1823 map produced by Long labeled the region the Great American Desert, which permanently fixed the term in the minds of westward migrants, eastern and western boosters, and politicians.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Geographies published in New England from 1820 to 1835 perpetuated the myth. Elite New Englanders, fearing that new western states would diminish northeastern political power, pointed to the foreboding description of the area as a reason for halting westward expansion. During the middle third of the nineteenth century, the desert myth held little appeal among southerners or citizens in the interior, especially on the frontier and eastern margins of the Great Plains. The <strong>Mormons</strong> were an exception: from 1855 onward, the Great American Desert had become an invented tradition for a majority of their faithful. From the pulpit, Mormon leaders transformed the Mormon’s relatively easy crossing of the Great Plains into a neo-Mosaic traverse of an American Sinai. The Mormons’ crossing of the Great American Desert east of the Rockies proved to be the crucible of the Latter-day Saints, proof that Mormons were God’s chosen people.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Dispelling and Embracing the Myth</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>By the mid-nineteenth century, Great Plains boosters, writers for railroads, and chambers of commerce in Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas began publishing hundreds of pamphlets and books promoting the region. The 1890s discovery of the <strong>Ogallala Aquifer, </strong>one of the world’s largest freshwater aquifers, further eroded the desert myth.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In addition, the late nineteenth century brought higher-than-average rainfall to the Great Plains. Multiple theories emerged to explain the increased precipitation. Some attributed it to <strong>Manifest Destiny</strong>—a reward from a benevolent God for settling a promised land. Others held that “rain followed the plow”—that is, plowing the soil and planting trees brought desirable climatic changes. In promoting the Great Plains, boosters touted the “conquest” of the Great American Desert and challenged potential migrants to go west and further the change. The boosters, local historians, and Great Plains newspaper editors of the period between 1870 and 1900 effectively erased the memory of the arid land encountered by the pioneers.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>After 1880, Great Plains pioneers adopted the New England boosters’ concept of the desert in interviews for state historical societies and local history publications. Predominantly Midwesterners who had not read about the Great American Desert during the 1850s and 1860s, these pioneers nonetheless talked themselves into believing that they had either conquered or disproved the existence of a desert. In effect, by claiming to have conquered it, the pioneers revived the concept of the Great American Desert; thus, the romantic Great Plains historians, drawing confidently and uncritically from the pioneers’ embellished accounts, further propagated the concept in their work between 1885 and 1910.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In <em>The Great Plains</em> (1931), Walter Prescott Webb cites references to the Great American Desert in school geography texts from the 1840s and 1850s to argue that the idea of a Great American Desert did exist in the American mind from 1820 to 1870. Webb maintained that the idea was at the height of its popularity in the 1850s and that it halted the expansion of the American frontier. The nation’s textbooks and students followed Webb’s interpretation for decades. However, with the exception of the Mormons after 1855 and a well-educated minority in the northeast before 1855, practically nobody between 1820 and 1870 believed in the existence of a desert west of the Missouri River. Ironically, the only period that such a belief existed consensually in the American mind was between 1920 to 1970—courtesy of Webb.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>But while eastern Colorado is not technically a desert, it is prone to harsh droughts, such as the one during the 1930s that helped cause the <a href="/article/dust-bowl"><strong>Dust Bowl</strong></a>. More recently, recurring droughts in the 2010s have brought back some of the Dust Bowl–like conditions in parts of southeastern Colorado. Given the realities of episodic but searing drought and the difficulties humans have faced in forcing this semi-arid region to bloom, Pike, Long and their disciples perhaps chose an apt metaphor in comparing the region to a desert.</p>&#13; &#13; <p><strong>Adapted from Martyn J. Bowden, “Great American Desert,” <em>Encyclopedia of the Great Plains</em>, ed. David J. Wishart (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004).</strong></p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/great-american-desert" hreflang="en">great american desert</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/stephen-h-long-0" hreflang="en">stephen h long</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/great-plains" hreflang="en">Great Plains</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/zebulon-pike" hreflang="en">zebulon pike</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/farming" hreflang="en">farming</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/agriculture" hreflang="en">agriculture</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/explorers" hreflang="en">explorers</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/myths" hreflang="en">myths</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>Joey Bunch, “<a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2014/04/05/for-southeast-colorado-a-new-dust-bowl-is-blowing-in/">For Southeast Colorado, a New Dust Bowl is Blowing In</a>,” <em>The Denver Post</em>, April 5, 2014.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>George J. Goodman and Cheryl A. Lawson, eds., <em>Retracing Major Stephen H. Long’s 1820 Expedition: The Itinerary and Botany</em>, The American Exploration and Travel Series (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Edwin James, <em>Account of an Expedition From Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains</em>, ed. Edwin James, vol. 2, <em>March of America Facsimiles Series, no. 65</em> (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Microfilms, 1966).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Jesse Paul, “<a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2016/04/08/drought-returns-to-southeast-colorado-counties-abnormal-dryness-spreads/">Drought Returns to Southeast Colorado Counties, Abnormal Dryness Spreads</a>,” <em>The Denver Post</em>, April 8, 2016.</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p>Phil Carson, <em>Among the Eternal Snows: The First Recorded Ascent of Pike’s Peak, July 13–15, 1820 </em>(N.P.: First Ascent Press, 1995).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Howard Ensign Edwards, <em>The Natural History of the Long Expedition to the Rocky Mountains</em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Jean Gray, <em>Homesteading Haxtun and the High Plains: Northeastern Colorado History </em>(Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2013).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Kenneth Haltman, <em>Looking Close and Seeing Far: Samuel Seymour, Titian Ramsay Peale, and the Art of the Long Expedition, 1818–1823</em> (University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 2008).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Robert Lawrence, <em>Ethnology and Empire: Languages, Literature, and the Making of the North American Borderlands</em> (New York: New York University Press, 2015).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Elliott West, <em>The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado </em>(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Donald A. Wilhite, “<a href="http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.wat.008.xml">Drought</a>,” <em>Encyclopedia of the Great Plains</em>, ed. David J. Wishart (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011).</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-4th-grade--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-4th-grade.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-4th-grade.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-4th-grade field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-field-4th-grade"><p>Explorers Zebulon Pike and Stephen H. Long thought of the Great Plains east of the Rocky Mountains as the “Great American Desert.” Pike compared it to “the sandy deserts of Africa.” The myth of the Great American Desert deterred settlement of the Great Plains. Migrants heading west passed through the region as quickly as possible.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Birth of a Myth</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Edwin James, chronicler of Long’s 1820 expedition, created the image of the Great American Desert.  An 1823 map made by Long labeled the region the Great American Desert. This fixed the term in the minds of westward migrants and politicians.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Geographies published in New England from 1820 to 1835 continued the myth. New Englanders feared new western states would take away from their political power. They pointed to the description of the area as a reason for halting westward expansion.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Dispelling and Embracing the Myth</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>By the mid-nineteenth century, Great Plains boosters began publishing pamphlets and books promoting the region. The 1890s discovery of the Ogallala Aquifer further destroyed the desert myth.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The late nineteenth century brought higher-than-average rainfall to the Great Plains. There were several theories about the increase. Some thought was a reward from God for settling a promised land. Others held that “rain followed the plow.” That is, plowing the soil and planting trees brought climate changes. Boosters challenged migrants to go west and further the change. Between 1870 and 1900, the boosters erased the memory of the dry land.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In The Great Plains (1931), Walter Prescott Webb cites references to the Great American Desert in school geography texts from the 1840s and 1850s. He said that the idea of a Great American Desert did exist in the American mind from 1820 to 1870. Webb said the idea was its height in the 1850s. It halted the growth of the American frontier. The nation’s students followed Webb’s opinion for decades. However, the only time the idea was widely believed was between 1920 and 1970—because of Webb.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Eastern Colorado is not a desert. It is prone to droughts. Given the realities of drought, Pike and Long might have rightly compared the region to a desert.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-8th-grade--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-8th-grade.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-8th-grade.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-8th-grade field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-field-8th-grade"><p>Army explorers Zebulon Pike and Stephen H. Long thought of the Great Plains east of the Rocky Mountains as the “Great American Desert.” Long’s report called it “unfit for cultivation.” Pike compared it to “the sandy deserts of Africa.” The myth of the Great American Desert deterred settlement of the Great Plains. Migrants heading west passed through the region as quickly as possible.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Birth of a Myth</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Edwin James, chronicler of Long’s 1820 expedition, created the image of the Great American Desert. He described the Great Plains as “uninhabitable...” An 1823 map created by Long labeled the region the Great American Desert. This fixed the term in the minds of westward migrants and politicians.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Geographies published in New England from 1820 to 1835 continued the myth. New Englanders feared new western states would diminish their political power. They pointed to the description of the area as a reason for halting westward expansion. The desert myth held little appeal among southerners or citizens in the interior. The Mormons were an exception. From 1855 on, the Great American Desert had become an invented tradition for their faithful.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Dispelling and Embracing the Myth</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>By the mid-nineteenth century, Great Plains boosters in Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas began publishing pamphlets and books promoting the region. The 1890s discovery of the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the world’s largest freshwater aquifers, further destroyed the desert myth.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The late nineteenth century brought higher-than-average rainfall to the Great Plains. Multiple theories emerged to explain the increase. Some thought it was Manifest Destiny—a reward from God for settling a promised land. Others held that “rain followed the plow.” That is, plowing the soil and planting trees brought desirable climate changes. Boosters challenged migrants to go west and further the change. The boosters, local historians, and Great Plains newspaper editors between 1870 and 1900 erased the memory of the arid land.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In The Great Plains (1931), Walter Prescott Webb cites references to the Great American Desert in school geography texts from the 1840s and 1850s. He argued that the idea of a Great American Desert did exist in the American mind from 1820 to 1870. Webb said the idea was at the height of its acceptance in the 1850s. It halted the growth of the American frontier. The nation’s textbooks and students followed Webb’s opinion for decades. However, the only time the idea was widely believed was between 1920 to 1970—because of Webb.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Eastern Colorado is not a desert. However, it is prone to droughts, such as the one during the 1930s that helped cause the Dust Bowl. Droughts in the 2010s have brought back some of the Dust Bowl–like conditions in parts of southeastern Colorado. Given the realities of drought, Pike and Long might have rightly compared the region to a desert.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-10th-grade--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-10th-grade.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-10th-grade.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-10th-grade field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-field-10th-grade"><p>Early nineteenth-century Army explorers Zebulon Pike and Stephen H. Long thought of the Great Plains east of the Rocky Mountains as the “Great American Desert.” Long’s report called it “unfit for cultivation.” Pike compared it to “the sandy deserts of Africa.” The myth of the Great American Desert deterred the settlement of the Great Plains. Migrants heading west passed through the region as quickly as possible.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Birth of a Myth</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Edwin James, chronicler of Long’s 1820 expedition, established the image of the Great American Desert. He described the Great Plains as “uninhabitable by a people depending upon agriculture for their subsistence.” An 1823 map produced by Long labeled the region the Great American Desert. This fixed the term in the minds of westward migrants and politicians.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Geographies published in New England from 1820 to 1835 continued the myth. New Englanders feared that new western states would diminish northeastern political power. They pointed to the description of the area as a reason for halting westward expansion. The desert myth held little appeal among southerners or citizens in the interior. The Mormons were an exception. From 1855 on, the Great American Desert had become an invented tradition for their faithful. From the pulpit, Mormon leaders turned the Mormon’s relatively easy crossing of the Great Plains into a neo-Mosaic traverse of an American Sinai.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Dispelling and Embracing the Myth</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>By the mid-nineteenth century, Great Plains boosters and chambers of commerce in Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas began publishing hundreds of pamphlets and books promoting the region. The 1890s discovery of the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the world’s largest freshwater aquifers, further destroyed the desert myth.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In addition, the late nineteenth century brought higher-than-average rainfall to the Great Plains. Multiple theories emerged to explain the increased rainfall. Some thought it was Manifest Destiny—a reward from God for settling a promised land. Others held that “rain followed the plow.” That is, plowing the soil and planting trees brought desirable climatic changes. Boosters touted the “conquest” of the Great American Desert. They challenged migrants to go west and further the change. The boosters, local historians, and Great Plains newspaper editors between 1870 and 1900 erased the memory of the arid land.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In The Great Plains (1931), Walter Prescott Webb cites references to the Great American Desert in school geography texts from the 1840s and 1850s to argue that the idea of a Great American Desert did exist in the American mind from 1820 to 1870. Webb maintained that the idea was at the height of its acceptance in the 1850s. It halted the expansion of the American frontier. The nation’s textbooks and students followed Webb’s opinion for decades. However, with the exception of the Mormons after 1855 and a well-educated minority in the northeast before 1855, practically nobody between 1820 and 1870 believed in the existence of a desert west of the Missouri River. The only period that such a belief existed in the American mind was between 1920 to 1970—courtesy of Webb.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>But while eastern Colorado is not a desert, it is prone to harsh droughts, such as the one during the 1930s that helped cause the Dust Bowl. Recurring droughts in the 2010s have brought back some of the Dust Bowl–like conditions in parts of southeastern Colorado. Given the realities of drought and the difficulties humans have faced in forcing this semi-arid region to bloom, Pike, Long and their disciples perhaps chose an appropriate metaphor in comparing the region to a desert.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Fri, 30 Sep 2016 15:37:31 +0000 yongli 1900 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org Oliver Toussaint Jackson http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/oliver-toussaint-jackson <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Oliver Toussaint Jackson</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2016-09-29T14:47:20-06:00" title="Thursday, September 29, 2016 - 14:47" class="datetime">Thu, 09/29/2016 - 14:47</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/oliver-toussaint-jackson" data-a2a-title="Oliver Toussaint Jackson"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Foliver-toussaint-jackson&amp;title=Oliver%20Toussaint%20Jackson"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>Oliver Toussaint “O. T.” Jackson (1862–1948) was an entrepreneur and prominent member of black communities in <a href="/article/denver"><strong>Denver</strong></a> and <a href="/article/boulder"><strong>Boulder</strong></a> during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1910 he founded <a href="/article/dearfield"><strong>Dearfield</strong></a>, an-all black agricultural settlement some twenty-five miles southeast of <a href="/article/greeley"><strong>Greeley</strong></a>. Jackson firmly believed that successful blacks should work to help poorer blacks and that land ownership and agriculture were keys to a prosperous future for African Americans. Although Dearfield is a ghost town today, the community’s success from 1915 through the 1930s was a testament to Jackson’s leadership and solidified his place among Colorado’s notable visionaries of the twentieth century.</p> <h2>Early Life</h2> <p>Oliver Toussaint Jackson was born on April 6, 1862, in Oxford, Ohio, the son of former slaves Hezekiah and Caroline Jackson. They named him after Toussaint L’Ouverture, the maroon slave who successfully overthrew the French in Haiti in 1804. In 1887 O. T. Jackson moved from the Midwest to the Denver area, where he worked as a caterer.</p> <p>In 1889 he married Sarah “Sadie” Cook, aunt&nbsp;of the famous composer Will Marion Cook. By 1894 Jackson had made enough money to buy a farm outside Boulder, which he owned for sixteen years. He lived at 2228 Pine Street in Boulder and, in addition to his farm, he began operating the Stillman Café and Ice Cream Parlor on Thirteenth Street. In 1898 he became a staff manager at the<a href="/article/colorado-chautauqua"><strong> Chautauqua</strong></a> Dining Hall, supervising seventy people (and possibly owning the food concession). Jackson also owned and operated a restaurant at Fifty-fifth and Arapahoe Streets that became famous for its seafood. The eatery remained popular until it closed when Boulder went dry in 1907.</p> <p>Confusion exists about whether Jackson and his first wife divorced or if she died. In either case, he married Minerva J. Matlock, a schoolteacher from Missouri, on July 14, 1905. In 1908 Jackson returned to Denver, where he began a twenty-year career as a messenger for Colorado governors.</p> <h2>Dearfield</h2> <p>In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, some 20 percent of blacks in the United States worked in agriculture, but few owned the land they worked on. Inspired by Booker T. Washington’s <em>Up From Slavery </em>(1901), Jackson believed that farming their own fields would empower black Coloradans, and he tried to start an all-black agricultural colony. The state land office, however, often ignored his requests because he was black. Jackson eventually secured the help of Governor <strong>John F. Shafroth</strong>, for whom he worked as a messenger, and obtained land for his colony. In 1909, after considering three tracts of <a href="/article/homestead"><strong>homestead</strong></a> land in <a href="/article/larimer-county"><strong>Larimer</strong></a>, <a href="/article/elbert-county"><strong>Elbert</strong></a>, and <a href="/article/weld-county"><strong>Weld</strong></a> Counties, Jackson selected a 320-acre tract in Weld County near present-day Orchard. Like other agricultural communities along the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/front-range"><strong>Front Range</strong></a>, Jackson’s would be modeled after the <strong>Union Colony</strong>, founded in 1870. But unlike the Union Colony, which was backed by wealthy newspaperman Horace Greeley, Jackson’s colony did not garner financial support from prominent black organizations, so he was left to realize his dream on his own.</p> <p>In December 1909, Jackson formed the Negro Townsite and Land Company to develop the colony. That year, Dr. Joseph H.P. Westbrook of Denver, one of the colony’s first settlers and most ardent supporters, remarked that the colony “will be very dear to us,” thus bestowing a name, Dearfield, on the new community. Dearfield was officially established in 1910.</p> <p>Jackson’s family and the rest of Dearfield’s early settlers had many problems. Some were so poor they could not afford to ship their possessions from Denver, so they walked part of the distance. Among this group only two families could afford to erect a twelve-by-fourteen-foot building with a fence. The other five families had to live in tents or in holes dug in a hillside. Sometimes the men had to work on other farms to earn spending money while their wives and children worked the land. There were also continual shortages of fuel—many residents burned buffalo chips to keep warm—and water.</p> <p>Over time, however, the colony prospered. Residents raised a variety of crops and livestock, including corn, melons, squash, hay, sugar beets, alfalfa, ducks, chickens, and turkey. A surge in prices for agricultural products during World War I helped the community, and by 1921 Dearfield’s land was valued at $750,000 and supported a population of 700. But despite the determination of Jackson and the rest of Dearfield’s residents, the <strong>Great Depression</strong> and <a href="/article/dust-bowl"><strong>Dust Bowl</strong></a> of the 1930s decimated the colony. By 1940 only twelve residents remained.</p> <p>As people left, Jackson sold Dearfield’s buildings for lumber because it was so scarce. Some folks in the 1930s sold out for five dollars a house. Even before he became ill in 1946, Jackson had been searching for a young black man to keep his dream alive. He told a returning World War II serviceman who had lived with the Jacksons as a boy that “he could have the whole thing” if he would come out to Dearfield and run the place for him. The young man’s new bride did not want any part of it, so he declined.</p> <h2>Later Life</h2> <p>Jackson’s wife Minerva died in 1942. When he could not find any willing buyers for the property, in 1943 he asked his nieces, Jenny Jackson and Daisy Edwards, to come to Dearfield. Daisy came for a short time, while Jenny stayed to nurse her uncle in his last years.</p> <p>Illness and age had overtaken Jackson’s messianic zeal. In 1946, at the age of eighty-four, he again tried to sell Dearfield with an advertisement in the <em>Greeley Tribune</em>. He had no takers. The land remained in Jackson’s possession until his death in a Greeley hospital on February 8, 1948. He had lived in Dearfield for thirty-eight years. His dutiful niece Jenny, who had cared for him the last five years of his life, remained alone in Dearfield for more than twenty years until her death in 1973.</p> <p>The Dearfield site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. Today, several preservation organizations, including Denver’s <strong>Black American West Museum</strong>, are working to restore the site’s six original buildings and develop Dearfield into an interpretive historical site.</p> <p><strong>Adapted from Karen Waddell, “Dearfield . . . A Dream Deferred,” <em>Colorado Heritage</em> no. 2 (1988).</strong></p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/ot-jackson" hreflang="en">o.t. jackson</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/oliver-toussaint-jackson" hreflang="en">Oliver Toussaint Jackson</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/dearfield" hreflang="en">Dearfield</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/african-american-history" hreflang="en">african american history</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/black-history" hreflang="en">black history</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/all-black-settlements" hreflang="en">all-black settlements</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/agriculture" hreflang="en">agriculture</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/farming" hreflang="en">farming</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/agricultural-colony" hreflang="en">agricultural colony</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/dearfield-colorado" hreflang="en">dearfield colorado</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/dearfield-history" hreflang="en">dearfield history</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/boulder" hreflang="en">boulder</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/stillman-cafe" hreflang="en">stillman cafe</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/sadie-cook" hreflang="en">sadie cook</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/john-f-shafroth" hreflang="en">john f. shafroth</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/weld-county" hreflang="en">weld county</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/negro-townsite-and-land-company" hreflang="en">negro townsite and land company</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/black-american-west-museum" hreflang="en">Black American West Museum</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p>George Junne, Jr., Ostia Ofoaku, Rhonda Corman, and Rob Reinsvold, “Dearfield, Colorado: Black Farming Success in the Jim Crow Era,” in <em>Enduring Legacies: Ethnic Histories and Cultures of Colorado</em>, ed. Arturo Aldama (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2011).</p> <p>William Loren Katz, <em>The Black West: A Documentary and Pictorial History of the African American Role in the Westward Expansion of the United States</em> (New York: Broadway Books, 2005).</p> <p>Melvin Edward Norris, Jr., <em>Dearfield, Colorado—The Evolution of a Rural Black Settlement: An Historical Geography of Black Colonization on the Great Plains</em> (PhD dissertation, University of Colorado–Boulder, 1980).</p> <p>Quintard Taylor, <em>In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528-1990 </em>(New York: W.W. Norton, 1998).</p> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Thu, 29 Sep 2016 20:47:20 +0000 yongli 1887 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org Colorado’s Great Plains http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorados-great-plains <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Colorado’s Great Plains</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-article-image.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-article-image.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div id="carouselEncyclopediaArticle" class="carousel slide" data-bs-ride="true"> <div class="carousel-inner"> <div class="carousel-item active"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--935--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--935.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/great-plains-thunderstorm-colorado"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Great-Plains-Thunderstorm-Colorado-John-Fielder_0.jpg?itok=cuLetpO9" width="1090" height="851" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/great-plains-thunderstorm-colorado" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Great Plains Thunderstorm, Colorado</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2016-03-04T10:12:53-07:00" title="Friday, March 4, 2016 - 10:12" class="datetime">Fri, 03/04/2016 - 10:12</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorados-great-plains" data-a2a-title="Colorado’s Great Plains"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fcolorados-great-plains&amp;title=Colorado%E2%80%99s%20Great%20Plains"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>Eastern Colorado, bordered by the foothills of the <a href="/article/rocky-mountains"><strong>Rocky Mountains</strong></a> on the west, Kansas on the east, and the corners of Nebraska and Oklahoma, constitutes a portion of the Great Plains. It is the agricultural heartland of Colorado. This semiarid region is characterized by silty and sandy loam soils, twelve to eighteen inches of annual precipitation, and wind velocities averaging from twelve to fourteen miles per hour. Temperatures plunge below zero degrees Fahrenheit in the winter and rise above 100 degrees in the summer. Drought-resistant grama and buffalo grasses, generally known as short grasses, are the predominant natural vegetation.</p> <h2>Indigenous People</h2> <p>Human habitation of Colorado's Great Plains stretches back some 13,000 years to the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/clovis"><strong>Clovis</strong></a> and <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/folsom-people"><strong>Folsom</strong></a> periods, where people left tools and artifacts at sites such as the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/lindenmeier-folsom-site"><strong>Lindenmeier Folsom site</strong></a> near present-day <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/fort-collins"><strong>Fort Collins</strong></a>. Much later, around 1100 CE, people from the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/upper-republican-and-itskari-cultures"><strong>Upper Republican and Itskari</strong></a> cultures lived in eastern Colorado and along the <a href="/article/south-platte-river"><strong>South Platte River</strong></a>. Around 1400 CE, people of the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/apishapa-phase"><strong>Apishapa culture</strong></a> lived in the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/arkansas-river"><strong>Arkansas River</strong></a> valley in southern Colorado. Later Indigenous nations, including the Pawnee, may have descended from some of these early plains occupants.</p> <p>During the eighteenth century, the <strong>Comanche </strong>followed the horse herds southward out of Wyoming and across the Colorado plains to the Arkansas River Valley. Spain laid claim to these lands as part of Nuevo México but had to contend with the formidable Comanche. As the United States fought for independence from Great Britain in the late eighteenth century, the Spanish secured several victories against the Comanche on the plains of Southern Colorado.</p> <p>During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Algonquian-speaking <strong>Arapaho</strong> and <strong>Cheyenne</strong> arrived on the Colorado plains. Both nations had reached the Platte River Valley from the north. The Arapaho ranged west to the foothills and <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/front-range"><strong>Front Range</strong></a> of the Rocky Mountains, while the Cheyenne mostly kept to the eastern plains. The grasslands nourished the huge <strong><a href="/article/bison">bison</a> </strong>herds that both native groups depended on for food, clothing, and shelter. By the 1840s, an uptick in the bison hide trade and westward Anglo-American expansion along the Oregon Trail led to a decline in the bison population, and the Indigenous way of life on the Plains began to change.</p> <p>Over the ensuing decades, especially after the <a href="/article/colorado-gold-rush"><strong>Colorado Gold Rush</strong></a> in 1858–59, a growing population of white invaders pressured Native Nations to give up their land to the United States. Many Cheyenne and Arapaho bands faced starvation during this time, and the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/sand-creek-massacre"><strong>Sand Creek Massacre</strong></a> of 1864 provoked open war between warrior factions of Cheyenne and Arapaho and the US government.</p> <p>Per the <a href="/article/medicine-lodge-treaties"><strong>Medicine Lodge Treaty</strong></a> of 1867, Cheyenne and Arapaho leaders agreed to give up their land in eastern Colorado and move to reservations. Federal treaties split the two nations into northern and southern bands. In 1869 President Ulysses S. Grant created a reservation for the Southern Cheyenne and Southern Arapaho in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). Today, the two nations are known simply as the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribe. In 1878 the Northern Arapaho settled on the Shoshone Reservation in Wyoming. After beginning a northward migration during the late 1870s, in 1900 the Northern Cheyenne received their own reservation in Montana by directive of President William McKinley.</p> <h2>Cattle Empire</h2> <p>As the Cheyenne and Arapaho moved to reservations, above-average precipitation in the 1860s encouraged white settlement. Ranchers, especially from Texas, occupied the Colorado plains before large-scale settlement by farmers. During the 1860s, cattle raisers selected ranch sites along the Arkansas and<strong> </strong><a href="/article/south-platte-river"><strong>South Platte</strong></a> Rivers, and they brought thousands of Texas longhorns to the Colorado plains on their way to northern ranges and miners’ dinner plates in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. By 1869, approximately 1 million cattle and 2 million sheep grazed the eastern plains, primarily between Denver and the Wyoming border. Eastern investors bought cattle and hired ranch managers and cowboys to graze cattle on the public domain.</p> <p>By 1872 two cattle associations, the <strong>Colorado Stockgrowers’ Association</strong> and the <strong>Southern Colorado Association</strong>, had organized to govern the use of the open range. But during the mid-1880s, overgrazing, abnormally hot, grass-scorching summers, and <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/great-die"><strong>severe winters</strong></a> ruined the open-range cattle industry. In its place, settlers were already breaking the grasslands up into farms.</p> <h2>Agricultural Settlement</h2> <p>In 1870, railroad lines such as the <strong>Denver Pacific,</strong> which connected with the <strong>Union Pacific</strong> in Cheyenne; the <strong>Kansas Pacific,</strong> which reached Denver; and the <strong>Rock Island,</strong> which reached <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado-springs"><strong>Colorado Springs</strong></a> in 1888, contributed to the rapid settlement of eastern Colorado. During the 1870s and 1880s editors, travelers, and businessmen reported that on Colorado’s high, dry plains farmers could raise crops sufficient to feed themselves and livestock as well as earn a profit. During the late 1880s more than 16,000 farmers filed <a href="/article/homestead"><strong>homestead</strong></a> applications. They also filed more than 15,000 claims under the Timber Culture Act of 1878. Farmers who claimed land under the <a href="/article/homestead"><strong>Homestead Act</strong></a> of 1862 and <strong>Timber Culture Acts</strong> of 1873 and 1878 believed the environment of eastern Colorado would support extensive agriculture, but compared to settlement in Nebraska and Kansas, few farmers requested land under these acts. Homesteading on the Colorado plains primarily occurred during the early twentieth century.</p> <p>During the 1870s many settlers established farm communities or colonies. The <strong>Union Colony</strong>, which founded <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/greeley"><strong>Greeley</strong></a> in 1870, helped encourage further settlement in <a href="/article/weld-county"><strong>Weld County</strong></a>. Settlement colonies purchased large blocks of land, often served by railroads. The immigrant colonies became compact settlements that supported communal efforts, such as the construction of <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/irrigation-colorado"><strong>irrigation</strong></a> systems. During the 1870s the Colorado plains primarily attracted settlers from the Old Northwest (present-day Midwest), New York, Missouri, and Iowa for irrigated farming.</p> <p>Abundant rainfall during the 1880s led many people to believe that eastern Colorado was situated in a “rain belt.” Farmers plowed the drought-resistant native grasses and planted corn, a traditional agricultural practice in the humid, tallgrass prairie to the east. Longtime farmers, however, cautioned that high annual precipitation rates eventually would return to normal or lower and plunge the region into drought conditions. When drought returned during the late 1880s and early 1890s, crops failed, and hundreds of destitute farmers left the Colorado plains. Many farmers who remained succeeded only because they were located in the Platte and Arkansas River Valleys where they could irrigate their crops. The environment of eastern Colorado, then, ruined agricultural practices learned in the humid east, and the agricultural boom collapsed.</p> <p>By the early 1890s many farm families who once believed they lived in a rain belt now depended on charity for their daily needs. In 1894, as the drought worsened, grasshoppers arrived and stripped the struggling grain fields and other vegetation. Many farm families left eastern Colorado because they could not pay their mortgages or maintain their livestock and machinery. <a href="/article/kit-carson-county"><strong>Kit Carson County</strong></a>, for example, lost 36 percent of its population between 1890 and 1900, while the population of <a href="/article/kiowa-county"><strong>Kiowa County</strong></a> dropped from 1,243 to 701 inhabitants. No longer would settlers on the eastern Colorado plains believe that they lived in a rain belt. Thereafter, they increasingly used farming techniques more suitable for agriculture in a semiarid environment.</p> <h2>Twentieth-Century Homesteading</h2> <p>The drought ended on the Colorado plains during the late 1890s, and the Homestead Act’s lure of free land once again attracted farmers. After 1900, approximately 75 percent of the settlers in northeastern Colorado filed homestead claims, an activity that peaked in 1910. Women constituted approximately 12 percent of the early twentieth-century homesteaders, and more than 40 percent of female filers gained title to their land claims, compared to 37 percent of men. Colorado’s women homesteaders were primarily native-born white women. The new settlers on the eastern plains soon emphasized wheat and cattle grazing and <a href="/article/sugar-beet-industry"><strong>sugar beets</strong></a> in irrigated areas.</p> <h2>Dust Bowl</h2> <p>When drought returned to the Colorado plains during the 1930s, it contributed to severe wind erosion that made the region a part of the <strong><a href="/article/dust-bowl">Dust Bowl</a> </strong>(1932–40). During the 1920s, extensive grassland had been plowed for wheat. When the drought killed the wheat plants, little vegetation remained to hold and protect loamy soil from prevailing winds that lifted it into the air, creating huge dust storms. Farming became difficult and often impossible. From 1927 to 1931, Colorado farmers harvested 1 million acres of wheat annually for an average of 13 million bushels; in 1935, the drought prevented them from harvesting more than 193,000 acres, or 2.2 million bushels.</p> <p>The US <strong>Soil Conservation Service</strong> provided technical advice and financial aid to help farmers apply the best conservation techniques to their land. In <a href="/article/baca-county"><strong>Baca County</strong></a> the Soil Conservation Service considered 96 percent of the land highly erodible. The agency encouraged strip cropping, contour plowing, and terracing to help keep down the blowing soil and conserve moisture. The Emergency Cattle Purchase program enabled farmers to sell livestock that they could not feed for lack of grass, forage, and grain. Between August 8, 1934 and June 15, 1935, the federal government purchased 116,580 cattle in eastern Colorado for more than $1.6 million. The program provided for slaughter and canning, and the meat was distributed to poor families during the Depression. The cattle-buying program helped livestock producers remain on the land until the rains returned and the grass began growing again.</p> <p>In addition to cattle, the federal government also purchased wind-eroded land from farmers. The <strong>Land Utilization Project</strong> bought land in Baca, <a href="/article/otero-county"><strong>Otero</strong></a>, and Weld Counties. In 1960, after considerable reseeding of grasses, extensive conservation work, and the return of average precipitation, these projects became the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/comanche-national-grassland"><strong>Comanche</strong></a> and<strong> <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/comanche-national-grassland">Pawnee National Grasslands</a></strong>. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration also paid farmers to plant less wheat and plant more drought-resistant grains, such as sorghum, as well as practice soil and water conservation techniques to protect their lands from wind and water erosion.</p> <h2>Late Twentieth Century</h2> <p>When near-average precipitation returned during the early 1940s, plains farmers continued to plow more native grassland and plant more wheat. As a result, when drought returned during the early 1950s, the sandy wheat lands once again had serious wind erosion problems. By the mid-1960s, improved irrigation technology enabled farmers to expand their crops of wheat, corn, and alfalfa by drawing water from the <strong>Ogallala Aquifer, </strong>a vast reserve of groundwater that underlies Colorado and other plains states. This enabled the relocation of the Midwestern livestock industry’s feedlots and packing plants to Colorado’s eastern plains in order to be closer to the source of supply and reduce operating costs. The packing plants attracted cheap, unskilled labor, often from Mexico and Latin America, although other ethnic groups also conducted the dangerous work by the late twentieth century. This new ethnic mix changed the demographic and social landscape and contributed to a complex social environment in Colorado’s eastern plains communities.</p> <p>Drought again returned during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, ruining wheat and other crops and leaving the ground bare. Strong prevailing winds lifted the soil into the air, just as they did during the Dust Bowl. By the early twenty-first century, the Ogallala Aquifer had declined precipitously due to high pumping rates for irrigation. The water table dropped to too deep a level to permit easy access, and some farmers found irrigation too expensive. Many farmers returned to dry-land agriculture, which meant raising crops such as wheat instead of corn, and with the aid of natural precipitation instead of relying on irrigation. The environment of Colorado’s eastern plains set parameters that required adaptation by all who lived in the region, particularly by those who practiced agriculture. These parameters continue to impose limits on agriculture on the Colorado plains today.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/hurt-r-douglas" hreflang="und">Hurt, R. Douglas </a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/great-plains" hreflang="en">Great Plains</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/high-plains" hreflang="en">high plains</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/colorado-plains" hreflang="en">colorado plains</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/plains-indians" hreflang="en">Plains Indians</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/buffalo" hreflang="en">buffalo</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/agriculture" hreflang="en">agriculture</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/ranching" hreflang="en">ranching</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/farming" hreflang="en">farming</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>Paul H. Carlson, <em>The Plains Indians</em> (College Station: Texas A&amp;M University Press, 1998).</p> <p>Geoff Cunfer, <em>On the Great Plains: Agriculture and Environment</em> (College Station: Texas A&amp;M University Press, 2005).</p> <p>Edward Everett Dale, <em>The Range Cattle Industry: Ranching on the Great Plains from 1865 to 1925</em> (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960).</p> <p>Gilbert C. Fite, <em>The Farmers’ Frontier, 1865–1900</em> (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966).</p> <p>Katherine Harris, <em>Long Vistas: Women and Families on Colorado Homesteads</em> (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1993).</p> <p>Leslie Hughes, <em>The Suitcase Farming Frontier </em>(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1973).</p> <p>R. Douglas Hurt, <em>The Big Empty: The Great Plains During the Twentieth Century</em> (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2011).</p> <p>R. Douglas Hurt, <em>The Dust Bowl: An Agricultural and Social History</em> (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1981).</p> <p>Ernest Staples Osgood, <em>The Day of the Cattleman</em> (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).</p> <p>Rodman W. Paul, <em>The Far West and the Great Plains in Transition, 1859–1900</em> &nbsp;(New York: Harper &amp; Row, 1988).</p> <p>David J. Wishart, ed., <a href="http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/"><em>Encyclopedia of the Great Plains</em></a> (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004).</p> <p>David J. Wishart, ed. <em>Encyclopedia of the Great Plains Indians </em>(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007).</p> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p>Ken Burns, <em>The Dust Bowl</em> (Public Broadcasting System, 2012).</p> <p>Colorado.com Staff, "<a href="https://www.colorado.com/articles/colorado-summer-bike-races">Pedal the Plains Colorado Bike Tour</a>," Colorado Tourism, 2017.</p> <p>Colorado Roots, "<a href="https://www.colorado.com/articles/highlights-high-plains">Highlights of the High Plains</a>," Colorado Tourism, 2017.</p> <p>Pekka Hämäläinen, <em>The Comanche Empire </em>(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009).</p> <p>Rocky Mountain PBS, <a href="https://video.rmpbs.org/video/2353370047/">"Keota,"</a>&nbsp;<em>Colorado Experience</em>, March 21, 2013.</p> <p>Elliot West, <em>Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado </em>(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998).</p> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Fri, 04 Mar 2016 17:12:53 +0000 yongli 1177 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org Boggsville http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/boggsville <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Boggsville</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-article-image.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-article-image.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div id="carouselEncyclopediaArticle" class="carousel slide" data-bs-ride="true"> <div class="carousel-inner"> <div class="carousel-item active"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--796--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--796.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/boggs-house"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Boggsville-Media-1_0.jpg?itok=s2lXOmNg" width="1000" height="568" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/boggs-house" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Boggs House</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Boggsville began when Thomas Boggs built his adobe house along the Purgatoire River in 1866.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> <div class="carousel-item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--797--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--797.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/prowers-house"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Boggsville-Media2_0.jpg?itok=XQWe5kuW" width="1000" height="702" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/prowers-house" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Prowers House</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>John W. Prowers arrived in Boggsville in 1867 and built a large two-story house that served at various times as a general store, stagecoach station, county office, and school. Only the south section of the house is still standing.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> <div class="carousel-item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--798--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--798.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/james-lees-san-patricio-ranch"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Boggsville-Media3_0.jpg?itok=WsRTcjJs" width="1000" height="661" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/james-lees-san-patricio-ranch" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">James Lee&#039;s San Patricio Ranch</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>The Boston bachelor James Lee acquired the Boggsville site in the late 1880s and established San Patricio Ranch there, with 800 hundred cattle and 1,000 horses.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> </div> <button class="carousel-control-prev" type="button" data-bs-target="#carouselEncyclopediaArticle" data-bs-slide="prev"> <span class="carousel-control-prev-icon" aria-hidden="true"></span> <span class="visually-hidden">Previous</span> </button> <button class="carousel-control-next" type="button" data-bs-target="#carouselEncyclopediaArticle" data-bs-slide="next"> <span class="carousel-control-next-icon" aria-hidden="true"></span> <span class="visually-hidden">Next</span> </button> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2015-11-05T13:48:59-07:00" title="Thursday, November 5, 2015 - 13:48" class="datetime">Thu, 11/05/2015 - 13:48</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/boggsville" data-a2a-title="Boggsville"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fboggsville&amp;title=Boggsville"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>Founded in 1866 near the confluence of the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/arkansas-river"><strong>Arkansas</strong></a> and<strong> Purgatoire</strong> Rivers, Boggsville became the first permanent settlement in southeastern Colorado. Its residents pioneered <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/irrigation-colorado"><strong>irrigation</strong></a> and large-scale farming and ranching in the Arkansas Valley. The town flourished for a few years. In the 1870s, Boggsville declined when the railroad arrived a few miles away in <strong>Las Animas</strong>, which became the county seat. After a restoration effort in the 1990s, Boggsville now operates seasonally as an interpretive museum and has been named a National Treasure by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.</p> <h2>Town Origins</h2> <p>About two miles southeast of present-day Las Animas, Boggsville was established in 1866 by <strong>Thomas O. Boggs</strong> (1824–94) on land he acquired through his well-connected wife, Rumalda Luna Bent. Boggs was the son of Missouri’s fifth governor, Lilburn W. Boggs. Thomas first arrived in the Arkansas Valley in 1844 to work for <a href="/article/william-bent"><strong>William Bent</strong></a> at <a href="/article/bents-forts"><strong>Bent’s Old Fort</strong></a>. Two years later, Thomas married into the Bent family. His wife was the stepdaughter of William Bent’s older brother, Charles, who served as the first territorial governor of New Mexico. She was also related by marriage to the mountain man <a href="/article/kit-carson"><strong>Kit Carson</strong></a>, and the Boggs and Carson families soon established ranches together east of Taos, New Mexico.</p> <p>After several years in California and Taos, Boggs started working with the large landowner Lucien Maxwell in the mid-1850s. Maxwell controlled a land grant of 1.7 million acres on the border between New Mexico and Colorado. They jointly owned some herds of cattle and sheep, which Boggs brought north to the Arkansas Valley for pasture in the summers.</p> <p>Boggs thought the Arkansas valley had a good location and <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado-climate"><strong>climate</strong></a> for settlement. Through his wife, in the early 1860s he secured a 2,040-acre land grant from the much larger Vigil and St. Vrain Land Grant. His property lay about three miles south of the confluence of the Arkansas and Purgatoire Rivers, with the Purgatoire running through the middle of the plot. In 1866, along with L. A. Allen, Charles Rite, and some Hispano laborers, Boggs built a large adobe house on his land and moved there with his family.</p> <h2>Growing Town</h2> <p>New residents arrived at Boggsville in 1867, when Fort Lyon moved to a new site just a few miles northeast of town. The opening of Fort Lyon promised a major market for agricultural produce and livestock, and as a result Boggsville soon developed the first large-scale farming and ranching operations in southeastern Colorado.</p> <p>The most influential arrival was the merchant and rancher <strong>John W. Prowers</strong> (1838–84). Born in Missouri, Prowers had moved to Colorado in 1856. He married a Cheyenne woman named Amache in 1861. They lived at Bent’s New Fort and then in Caddoa, a small town east of Boggsville, where Prowers and Amache managed the stagecoach station. Prowers moved to Boggsville in 1867 to do business with the relocated Fort Lyon.</p> <p>Prowers built a huge two-story, U-shaped house that eventually served as the town center in Boggsville. It provided the Prowers family with living quarters, but it also served at various times as stagecoach station, school, and political office. In addition, Prowers opened a general store in the house after his brother-in-law, John Hough, arrived with merchandise later in 1867.</p> <p>Perhaps Boggsville’s most famous resident was Kit Carson, who settled there in December 1867. Carson had a long-standing friendship with the Boggs family. Carson’s family settled into a small house near Boggs’s barn. In early 1868 Carson traveled to Washington, DC, to help negotiate a <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/ute-treaty-1868"><strong>treaty</strong></a> with the Ute Indians. By April, when he returned to Boggsville, he was seriously ill. He was moved to Fort Lyon, where he died in May 1868. His body was brought back to Boggsville and buried next to his wife, who had died a month earlier. The Carsons were later relocated to Taos for permanent burial. Boggs was named the executor of Carson’s will, and the Carson children became part of Boggs’s extended family.</p> <h2>Agricultural Center and County Seat</h2> <p>Already in 1867 Boggsville began to develop irrigation and large-scale agriculture and ranching operations. That year residents dug an irrigation canal called the Tarbox Ditch, which was seven miles long and irrigated more than 1,000 acres, including the farms of Boggs, Prowers, and Robert Bent (son of William). This successful project led to the first large-scale commercial agriculture in southeastern Colorado. Fort Lyon would buy nearly everything the farmers at Boggsville could produce.</p> <p>Boggs and Prowers also pioneered large-scale ranching in southeastern Colorado. They raised horses, cattle, and sheep. Prowers even crossbred his cattle to produce stock that could survive harsh climates. His herd started small in the 1860s, but eventually grew to about 10,000 head of cattle by the 1880s. The area’s sheep numbered about 17,000 in the mid-1870s.</p> <p>Boggsville became more important after 1870, as it developed into a center of civil society. Boggs became the town’s first sheriff in 1870, and he was elected to the territorial legislature the following year. When <a href="/article/bent-county"><strong>Bent County</strong></a> was established in 1870, Boggsville became the county seat, serving as the local administrative center for a vast area about six times as large as present-day Bent County. The county offices were located in the Prowers House. A public school district was organized the same year, and the first public school in southeast Colorado opened just north of the Prowers House.</p> <h2>From Town to Ranch</h2> <p>The railroad came to the Arkansas Valley in the early 1870s, but it did not come to Boggsville. The coming of the railroad meant easier access to eastern markets for shipping cattle and buying goods, but it also meant the end of Boggsville as a town of its own. In 1873 the Kansas Pacific Railroad established the town of West Las Animas (present-day Las Animas), where the railroad crossed the Arkansas River a few miles northwest of Boggsville. Bent County residents voted to move the county seat from Boggsville to Las Animas. That year John Prowers also relocated to Las Animas, where he built a new house and opened a general store. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad arrived in Las Animas two years later.</p> <p>Thomas Boggs remained in Boggsville until 1877, when he moved to New Mexico because his title to the land around the town was being contested. After his ownership was confirmed in 1883, he sold the ranch to John Lee for $1,200. Four years later, John Lee sold the land to James Lee, a bachelor and gentleman farmer from Boston, for $13,000. James Lee enlarged the farm to about 3,000 acres, on which he raised 800 cattle and 1,000 horses. Lee called his farm San Patricio Ranch and often held social gatherings there for friends from Las Animas.</p> <p>After Lee returned to Boston in 1898, the Boggsville site began to pass through many hands. Lee’s family leased it out to local farmers until 1926, when Lee’s widow died and the land was sold. In 1946 Boggsville received a monument along Highway 101 south of Las Animas, but the land and surviving structures remained privately owned by Ernest and Alta Page. Various renters occupied the Boggsville buildings over the years. The Prowers House remained occupied until the 1950s, the Boggs House until the 1970s.</p> <h2>Historic Site</h2> <p>By the 1980s, the original Boggs and Prowers Houses were the main structures still standing at the Boggsville site. They stood in the middle of the Page family’s 569-acre farm, with the area around them used for grazing and farming. Both houses were deteriorating. The Prowers House was in danger of crumbling. Only one section of the original U-shaped building remained, and many walls were leaning or already collapsed. The Boggs House was in better condition but still needed reinforcement and restoration in order to survive.</p> <p>In 1985 the Pages donated 110 acres encompassing the Boggsville site to the Pioneer Historical Society of Bent County. Using a grant from the State Historical Fund, the Pioneer Historical Society restored the Boggs and Prowers Houses over the next decade and opened them to the public as an interpretive museum.</p> <p>Boggsville operated seasonally in the early 2000s but faced budget shortfalls. In the fall of 2014, the National Trust for Historical Preservation named Boggsville a National Treasure and committed to helping the Pioneer Historical Society find an operating model that would make the site sustainable into the future. In 2015 Boggsville received a Partners in the Outdoors grant from<a href="/article/colorado-parks-and-wildlife"><strong> Colorado Parks and Wildlife</strong></a> to add new signs and landscape improvements. The site was also the subject of an episode of <em>Colorado Experience</em> that premiered on Rocky</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/encyclopedia-staff" hreflang="und">Encyclopedia Staff</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/farming" hreflang="en">farming</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/ranching" hreflang="en">ranching</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/irrigation" hreflang="en">irrigation</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/thomas-o-boggs" hreflang="en">Thomas O. Boggs</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/kit-carson" hreflang="en">kit carson</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/rumalda-luna-bent" hreflang="en">Rumalda Luna Bent</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/purgatoire-river" hreflang="en">Purgatoire River</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/john-w-prowers" hreflang="en">John W. Prowers</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/las-animas" hreflang="en">Las Animas</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/bent-county" hreflang="en">bent county</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>Vivien Boggs Cox, “Boggsville, Colorado, 1866,” An Historical Review for Centennial Ceremonies, September 24, 1966.</p> <p>C. W. Hurd, <em>Boggsville: Cradle of the Colorado Cattle Industry</em> (Boggsville, CO: Boggsville Committee, 1957).</p> <p>William McKenzie, “Boggsville,” National Register of Historic Places–Nomination Form (February 7, 1986).</p> <p>“<a href="https://savingplaces.org/places/boggsville#.VjKFVxCrSi4">Boggsville</a>,” National Trust for Historic Preservation.</p> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p>William E. Brown, <em>The Santa Fe Trail: National Park Service 1963 Historic Sites Survey</em> (St. Louis, MO: Patrice Press, 1988).</p> <p>Rocky Mountain PBS, <a href="https://video.rmpbs.org/video/2365573330/">"Boggsville,"</a>&nbsp;<em>Colorado Experience</em>, October 1, 2015.</p> <p>Albert W. Thompson, “Thomas O. Boggs, Early Scout and Plainsman,” <em>Colorado Magazine</em> 7, no. 4 (July 1930).</p> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-4th-grade--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-4th-grade.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-4th-grade.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-4th-grade field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-field-4th-grade"><p>Boggsville was the first town in southeastern Colorado. Its residents started farming and ranching in the Arkansas Valley. Boggsville now is living history museum. People can visit Boggsville to learn about life in Colorado in the 1860s.</p> <h2>Town Origins</h2> <p>Thomas Boggs moved west in the 1850s. He was the son of Missouri governor Lilburn W. Boggs. Thomas first arrived in the Arkansas Valley in 1844. He worked for William Bent at Bent’s Old Fort. Two years later, Thomas married Rumalda Luna Bent of the Bent family. Her aunt was married to Kit Carson, the famous mountain man.</p> <p>The Boggs and Carson families built a ranch near Taos, New Mexico. Boggs started working with Lucien Maxwell. Maxwell had a land grant of 1.7 million acres in New Mexico and Colorado. They had herds of cattle and sheep.</p> <p>Boggs thought the Arkansas Valley would be a good place to start a new ranch. Through his wife, he could get a 2,040-acre land grant. The property was near the Arkansas and Purgatoire Rivers. The Purgatoire ran through the middle of the plot. In 1866 Boggs built a large adobe house and moved there with his family. He named the place Boggsville.</p> <h2>Growing Town</h2> <p>The government moved Fort Lyon close to Boggsville. Fort Lyon needed produce and livestock. People started to move to Boggsville to find work at the Fort. They began the first large farming and ranching operations in southeastern Colorado.</p> <p>Businessman John W. Prowers moved to Boggsville in 1867. Like others, he planned to do business at Fort Lyon. He was married to a Cheyenne woman named Amache. They had lived at Bent’s Fort and had managed a stagecoach station.</p> <p>Prowers built a huge two-story, U-shaped house. It served as the town center in Boggsville. It also was the stagecoach station, school, government offices, and general store.</p> <p>Kit Carson, the famous mountain man, moved to Boggsville. His wife wanted to be near her niece. They settled into a small house near the Boggs’s home. In 1868 Carson became ill and died. He was buried in Boggsville next to his wife, who had died a month earlier.</p> <p>Their children became part of the Boggs family.</p> <h2>County Seat</h2> <p>In 1867 the people in Boggsville built an irrigation system to water their crops. Residents dug a canal called the Tarbox Ditch. It was seven miles long and could irrigate 1,000 acres. This allowed them to produce crops on the dry land. Fort Lyon bought what the farmers at Boggsville produced.</p> <p>Boggs and Prowers also started ranching in southeastern Colorado. They raised horses, cattle, and sheep. Prowers had 10,000 head of cattle by the 1880s. The area also had 17,000 sheep by 1875.</p> <p>By 1870 Boggsville had become a town. Boggs was the town’s first sheriff. He was elected to the Territorial Legislature. Boggsville became the county seat in 1870. The county offices were in the Prowers House. A public school was started. It was the first public school in southeast Colorado.</p> <h2>From Town to Ranch</h2> <p>The railroad came to the Arkansas Valley in the early 1870s. But it did not come to Boggsville. The railroad was built a few miles north of Boggsville. Without the railroad, Boggsville could not continue as a town.</p> <p>The town of Las Animas was started near the railroad. The county seat was changed to Las Animas. John Prowers moved to Las Animas. He built a new house and opened a general store.</p> <p>Thomas Boggs stayed in Boggsville until 1877, then he moved to New Mexico. In 1883 he sold the ranch. Four years later, the ranch was sold again to James Lee. He enlarged the farm to about 3,000 acres. He raised 800 cattle and 1,000 horses. Lee named it San Patricio Ranch.</p> <p>Lee sold the ranch in 1898. Lee’s family leased it out to local farmers until 1926. Various renters lived in the Boggsville buildings. People lived in the Prowers House until the 1950s. The Boggs House was occupied until the 1970s.</p> <h2>Historic Site</h2> <p>By the 1980s, the Boggs and Prowers houses were in bad shape. No one had lived in them for years. The Prowers House was crumbling. The walls were leaning and some had collapsed. The Boggs House was in better condition but still needed to be fixed up. They were in the middle of the Page family’s farm.</p> <p>In 1985 the Page family gave the Boggsville site to the Pioneer Historical Society of Bent County. The Pioneer Historical Society fixed up the houses. They opened them as the Boggsville History Museum.</p> <p>In the fall of 2014, the National Trust for Historical Preservation named Boggsville a National Treasure. In 2015 Boggsville Historical added new signs and made improvements. People can visit Boggsville to learn about how people lived in Colorado in the 1860s.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-8th-grade--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-8th-grade.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-8th-grade.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-8th-grade field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-field-8th-grade"><p>Boggsville was the first settlement in southeastern Colorado. It was founded in 1866 near the Arkansas and Purgatoire Rivers. Its residents started farming and ranching in the Arkansas Valley. After restoration in the 1990s, Boggsville became a History Museum. People can visit the site to learn about how people lived in Colorado during the 1860s.</p> <h2>Town Origins</h2> <p>Thomas Boggs moved west in the 1840s. He was the son of Missouri’s fifth governor, Lilburn W. Boggs. Thomas first arrived in the Arkansas Valley in 1844 to work for William Bent at Bent’s Old Fort. Two years later, Thomas married Rumalda Luna Bent of the Bent family. Her stepfather had served as the first territorial governor of New Mexico. Her aunt was married to Kit Carson, the famous mountain man.</p> <p>The Boggs and Carson families established ranches together near Taos, New Mexico.</p> <p>After several years, Boggs started working with landowner Lucien Maxwell. Maxwell had a land grant of 1.7 million acres on the border between New Mexico and Colorado. Together they owned herds of cattle and sheep. Boggs brought the herds to the Arkansas Valley to pasture in the summers.</p> <p>Boggs decided the Arkansas Valley had a good location and climate for settlement. Through his wife, he could get a 2,040-acre land grant. The property lay about three miles south of the confluence of the Arkansas and Purgatoire Rivers. The Purgatoire ran through the middle of the property. In 1866 Boggs built a large adobe house on his land and moved there with his family.</p> <h2>Growing Town</h2> <p>The government moved Fort Lyon near to Boggsville in 1867. Fort Lyon needed produce and livestock. People moved to Boggsville to make a living at the Fort. Boggsville soon developed the first large-scale farming and ranching operations in southeastern Colorado.</p> <p>Businessman and rancher John W. Prowers moved to Boggsville in 1867. Like others, he planned to do business with the relocated Fort Lyon. He was married to a Cheyenne woman named Amache. They had lived at Bent’s New Fort and had later managed a stagecoach station.</p> <p>Prowers built a huge two-story, U-shaped house that served as the town center in Boggsville. It provided the Prowers family with living quarters. It also served as a stagecoach station, school, and political office. Prowers opened a general store with his brother-in-law, John Hough, in 1867.</p> <p>Boggsville’s most famous resident was Kit Carson, who settled there in December 1867. His wife wanted to be near her niece, Rumalda Luna Bent Boggs. Carson’s family settled into a small house near Boggs’s home. In early 1868, Carson traveled to Washington, DC, to help negotiate a treaty with the Ute Indians. When he returned to Boggsville, he was seriously ill. He was taken to Bents Fort where he died in May 1868. His body was brought back to Boggsville and buried next to his wife, who had died a month earlier. The Carsons were later reburied in Taos, New Mexico. Boggs was named the executor of Carson’s will and their children became part of Boggs’s family.</p> <h2>County Seat</h2> <p>In 1867 Boggsville began to develop irrigation and large-scale farming and ranching. Residents dug an irrigation canal called the Tarbox Ditch. It was seven miles long and irrigated 1,000 acres. The project was the first large-scale agriculture in the region. Fort Lyon would buy nearly everything the farmers at Boggsville could produce.</p> <p>Boggs and Prowers also pioneered large-scale ranching. They raised horses, cattle, and sheep. Prowers crossbred his cattle to produce stock that could survive harsh climates. His herd grew to about 10,000 head of cattle by the 1880s. The area’s sheep numbered about 17,000 in the mid-1870s.</p> <p>Boggsville developed into a town in 1870. Boggs became the town’s first sheriff in 1870. He was elected to the territorial legislature the following year. Boggsville became the county seat in 1870. The county offices were in the Prowers House. A public school district was organized the same year. The first public school in southeast Colorado opened just north of the Prowers House.</p> <h2>From Town to Ranch</h2> <p>The railroad came to the Arkansas Valley in the early 1870s, but it did not come to Boggsville. The Kansas Pacific Railroad was put in a few miles north of Boggsville. Without the railroad, Boggsville could not continue as a town of its own. The town of Las Animas was established where the railroad ran. The county seat was moved from Boggsville to Las Animas. John Prowers moved to Las Animas, where he built a new house and opened a general store. The Atchison, Topeka &amp; Santa Fe Railroad arrived in Las Animas two years later.</p> <p>Thomas Boggs remained in Boggsville until 1877, when he moved to New Mexico. In 1883 he sold the ranch to John Lee for $1,200. Four years later, John Lee sold the land to James Lee, a gentleman farmer from Boston, for $13,000. James Lee enlarged the farm to about 3,000 acres and raised 800 cattle and 1,000 horses. Lee named the property the San Patricio Ranch. He often held social gatherings there for friends from Las Animas.</p> <p>Lee returned to Boston in 1898. Lee’s family leased the ranch out to local farmers until 1926. Various renters occupied the Boggsville buildings over the years. The Prowers House remained occupied until the 1950s, the Boggs House until the 1970s.</p> <h2>Historic Site</h2> <p>In the 1980s, the original Boggs and Prowers houses were still standing at the Boggsville site. They stood in the middle of the Page family’s farm, with the area around them used for grazing and farming. Both houses were deteriorating. The Prowers House was in danger of crumbling. Only one section of the original U-shaped building remained, and many walls were leaning or had already collapsed. The Boggs House was in better condition but still needed restoration.</p> <p>In 1985 the Pages donated 110 acres of the Boggsville site to the Pioneer Historical Society of Bent County. Using a grant from the State Historical Fund, the Pioneer Historical Society restored the Boggs and Prowers Houses and opened them to the public as a History Museum.</p> <p>In the fall of 2014, the National Trust for Historical Preservation named Boggsville a National Treasure. In 2015 Boggsville received a Partners in the Outdoors grant from Colorado Parks and Wildlife to add new signs and landscape improvements. The site was the subject of an episode of Colorado Experience that premiered on Rocky Mountain PBS. People can visit the Boggsville Historic Site to learn about how people lived in Colorado in the 1860s.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-10th-grade--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-10th-grade.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-10th-grade.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-10th-grade field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-field-10th-grade"><p>Boggsville was the first permanent settlement in southeastern Colorado. It was founded in 1866 near the confluence of the Arkansas and Purgatoire Rivers. Its residents pioneered irrigation and large-scale farming and ranching in the Arkansas Valley. In the 1870s, the railroad arrived a few miles away in neighboring Las Animas. After a restoration effort in the 1990s, Boggsville is now a History Museum. It has been named a National Treasure by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.</p> <h2>Origins</h2> <p>Thomas Boggs moved west in the 1840s. He was the son of Missouri’s fifth governor, Lilburn W. Boggs. Thomas first arrived in the Arkansas Valley in 1844 to work for William Bent at Bent’s Old Fort. Two years later, Thomas married Rumalda Luna Bent of the Bent family. Her stepfather had served as the first territorial governor of New Mexico, and her aunt was married to Kit Carson, the famous mountain man.</p> <p>The Boggs and Carson families established a ranch east of Taos, New Mexico.</p> <p>After several years in Taos, Boggs started working with landowner Lucien Maxwell in the mid-1850s. Maxwell controlled a land grant of 1.7 million acres on the border between New Mexico and Colorado. Together they owned herds of cattle and sheep, which Boggs brought to the Arkansas Valley for pasture in the summers.</p> <p>Boggs decided the Arkansas Valley had a good location and climate for settlement. Through his wife, he could get a 2,040-acre land grant. This land was part of the larger Vigil and St. Vrain Land Grant. His property lay about three miles south of the confluence of the Arkansas and Purgatoire Rivers. The Purgatoire ran through the middle of the plot. In 1866 Boggs built a large adobe house on the land and moved there with his family.</p> <h2>Growing Town</h2> <p>New residents arrived at Boggsville in 1867, when Fort Lyon was moved nearby. Fort Lyon needed produce and livestock. To keep Fort Lyon supplied, Boggsville soon developed the first large-scale farming and ranching operations in southeastern Colorado.</p> <p>Businessman and rancher John W. Prowers moved to Boggsville in 1867. He planned to do business with the relocated Fort Lyon. He was married to a Cheyenne woman named Amache. They had lived at Bent’s Fort and had also managed a stagecoach station in a small town.</p> <p>Prowers built a huge two-story, U-shaped house that served as the town center of Boggsville. It provided the Prowers family with living quarters, but it also served at various times as stagecoach station, school, and political office. In addition, Prowers opened a general store in the house with his brother-in-law, John Hough, in 1867.</p> <p>Boggsville’s most famous resident was Kit Carson, who settled there in December 1867. Carson’s wife wanted to be near her niece, Rumalda Luna Bent Boggs. Carson’s family settled into a small house near Boggs’s home. In early 1868, Carson traveled to Washington, DC, to help negotiate a treaty with the Ute Indians. By April, when he returned to Boggsville, he was seriously ill. He was moved to Fort Lyon, where he died in May 1868. His body was brought back to Boggsville and buried next to his wife, who had died a month earlier. The Carsons were later reburied in Taos, New Mexico. Boggs was named the executor of Carson’s will and their children became part of the Boggs family.</p> <h2>County Seat</h2> <p>In 1867 Boggsville began to develop irrigation and large-scale agriculture and ranching. Residents dug an irrigation canal called the Tarbox Ditch, which was seven miles long and irrigated more than 1,000 acres. The ditch irrigated the Boggs, Prowers, and Robert Bent farms. The project was the first large-scale agriculture in the region. Fort Lyon would buy nearly everything the farmers at Boggsville could produce.</p> <p>Boggs and Prowers also pioneered large-scale ranching in southeastern Colorado. They raised horses, cattle, and sheep. Prowers crossbred his cattle to produce stock that could survive harsh climates. His herd started small in the 1860s, but eventually grew to about 10,000 head of cattle by the 1880s. The area’s sheep numbered about 17,000 in the mid-1870s.</p> <p>Boggsville became more important after 1870 as it developed into a town. Boggs became the town’s first sheriff in 1870. He was elected to the territorial legislature the following year. Boggsville became the county seat in 1870. It served as the government center for an area about six times larger than present-day Bent County. The county offices were in the Prowers House. A public school district was organized the same year, and the first public school in southeastern Colorado opened just north of the Prowers House.</p> <h2>From Town to Ranch</h2> <p>The railroad came to the Arkansas Valley in the early 1870s, but it did not come to Boggsville. The Kansas Pacific Railroad was laid a few miles north of Boggsville Without the railroad, Boggsville could not continue as a town of its own. The town of Las Animas was established where the railroad ran, and residents voted to move the county seat from Boggsville to Las Animas. That year John Prowers moved to Las Animas, where he built a new house and opened a general store. The Atchison, Topeka &amp; Santa Fe Railroad arrived in Las Animas two years later.</p> <p>Thomas Boggs remained in Boggsville until 1877, when he moved to New Mexico. In 1883 he sold the ranch to John Lee for $1,200. Four years later, John Lee sold the land to James Lee, a bachelor and gentleman farmer from Boston, for $13,000. James Lee enlarged the farm to about 3,000 acres, on which he raised 800 cattle and 1,000 horses. Lee called his farm San Patricio Ranch and often held social gatherings there for friends from Las Animas.</p> <p>Lee returned to Boston in 1898 and the Boggsville site passed through many hands. Lee’s family leased it out to local farmers until 1926 when it was sold. Various renters occupied the Boggsville buildings over the years. The Prowers House remained occupied until the 1950s, the Boggs House until the 1970s.</p> <h2>Historic Site</h2> <p>By the 1980s, the original Boggs and Prowers houses were still standing at the Boggsville site. Both houses were deteriorating. Neither house had been occupied for years. They stood in the middle of the Page family’s 569-acre farm, with the area around them used for grazing and farming. The Prowers House was in danger of crumbling. Only one section of the original U-shaped building remained, and many walls were leaning or had already collapsed. The Boggs House was in better condition but still needed reinforcement and restoration in order to survive.</p> <p>In 1985 the Pages donated 110 acres of the Boggsville site to the Pioneer Historical Society of Bent County. Using a grant from the State Historical Fund, the Pioneer Historical Society restored the Boggs and Prowers Houses and opened them to the public as an interpretive museum.</p> <p>The Historic Boggsville site operated until the early 2000s but faced budget shortfalls. In the fall of 2014, the National Trust for Historical Preservation named Boggsville a National Treasure and helped the Pioneer Historical Society make the site sustainable into the future. In 2015 Boggsville received a Partners in the Outdoors grant from Colorado Parks and Wildlife to add new signs and landscape improvements. The site was also the subject of an episode of Colorado Experience that premiered on Rocky Mountain PBS. People can visit the Boggsville Historic Site to learn about how people lived in Colorado in the 1860s.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Thu, 05 Nov 2015 20:48:59 +0000 yongli 794 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org