East on Hwy 36

Lindon Colorado

            Located in Eastern Colorado along US Route 36, Lindon is not as well known as its neighbor, Last Chance.  Lindon is a small country town that has almost disappeared.  All the businesses are gone.  There are enough people in the area to keep the post office open and it appears an old gas station is now operated as a garage. 

            The railroad never reached this far west, an omen of impending failure for the little community.  The droughts and unstable commodity prices for Ag products did not bode well for the settlers in the area.  Then the drought of the 30’s hit and the little towns began to blow away, including Lindon.  The school was closed and consolidated with a neighboring town. 

            There are a few who still call Lindon home, they are either ranchers, farmers or the hired hand.  There is the junk collector so common in small towns across the plains.  Along the highway, can be seen a few remains of where the various stores and shops had been.  The memorial to one of the local leaders is now boarded up, possibly due to vandalism.  There is the occasional car that whizzes by and the trucks that want to avoid the stops’ on the main byways.  Silence is the dominant feature of the little village. 

            On the map, the early Lindon post office is shown in five other locations and a variation of the spelling, Linden.  Two of the first post offices were located north of the neighboring town of Anton.  How the post office selected the contractors and why they changed is a good curiosity.  Two of the early mail stops were north of town and another was just south of the present town. 

            There are oil pumps in various spots in the area.  Lindon is on the southern end of the Julesburg basin and some good sized oil pockets have been found in the area.  This has helped to keep some life in the area, yet it has also contributed to the consolidation of farms and ranches in the area. 

            The nearest town for supplies is Anton, which is probably smaller then Lindon, both have a population of less then 50 souls, but Anton has the gas station/bulk plant, grocery store and elevator and a few other businesses.  With no rail service, everything is trucked out to the little towns along Hwy 36.  

Dust Bowl Survivor

Campo Colorado

            Out along the prairie line approaching Oklahoma, is the little town of Campo.  The business district is mostly vacant and sitting collecting the dust of times gone past.  The corner café keeps Main Street from being completely empty.  It is a little town that probably will never perish because of its location.  It is a gateway to the Comanche Grasslands and on the busy Ports to Plains highway. 

            There is still a village government and the local constables keep the coffers from going empty.  Some people just don’t want to slow down passing through until they see the flashing lights.  Campo was also in the center of the dust bowl and a few reminders of those days are present.  There are a variety of pictures of the town and its neighbors from those dirty days.  Today the traffic flies by and the dust does not stop, it keeps on going someplace. 

            The empty store fronts on the road way harkens back to a day, when small towns were the heart of America.  Now the few ghosts sit under the canopy watching traffic pass.  The corner coffee shop has the local town news.  Pause for breakfast, listen to the locals cuss and discuss the weather or prices of crops.  The waitress hustles the coffee pot around, the cook yells, order up, and conversation goes on.

            Outside the trucks rumble by, shaking the ground as the press onward to their destination.  Nearby the rails sit silently, awaiting the next coal train to go south or returning empties.  The grain elevator sits in slow status of natural destruction.  A lone sentential next to the rails, a reminder of when business was on the railroad. 

            Over 100 hardy souls call the little prairie village home.  Working on farms or maybe one of the government jobs.  The grasslands are nearby and are operated under the Nation Forest Service.  Picnic grounds and trails dot the lands.  It is a land of mystery and surprises.  Petroglyphs have been found in some caves that some suspect may have been Viking.  There are the Indian artifacts spread around the areas, fossils, millions of years old and a herd of Big Horn Sheep call the grasslands home. 

            Campo will be a little wide spot on the road from here to there for years to come.  

Prairie Question.

Buchannan, Colorado

           

Situated along a wagon road, is the dot marking Buchanan.  The map did not indicate that there had been a Post Office there.  Other information about this little dot on the map is slim and none.  It was in the area where I was driving, looking for ghost towns on the prairie.  So I bounced over a few ruts and went to see if there was anything at Buchannan. 

Up and over the hill I saw an old farm house and some out buildings, long abandoned.  The homestead sat on the banks of a small creek and it appeared there may have been some springs there also.  The house was small but functional.  Behind it was poles for a clothesline, a chicken coop.  Further down the bank was the barn and some posts for a corral and on the other side was the windmill and stock tank. 

It looked like any other homestead on the prairie that got blown out during the dirty thirties.  But here it was a dot on the wagon road.  So now I am speculating.  Was this a transfer point, way station for travelers, had there been a store here, what importance was the Buchannan place to the early day settlers.  I’ll probably never know, but I found the place.

Driving across the creek and looking back, I could see a faint trace of the old wagon road.  It was a change in the vegetation across the way on the banks of the small creek.  Straight as an arrow it headed for the Buchannan place. 

Nearby on the map, there were other places marked as having Post Offices.  Abbott was few miles south on the road and further south was the Abbott church.  Yet, here the road showed up, having its beginnings at Deertrail, CO. 

When I go searching for these prairie ghosts I usually have 4-8 targets marked out on the map.  Places like Buchannan are usually and after thought but being on the wagon road, intrigued me.