RR Stop ... Kipling Colorado

Kipling, Colorado

          Kipling was a wannabe RR town, where not much happened.  When the Chicago Rock Island and Pacific built to the Rocky Mountain goldfields, it was also building towns along the way.  These little villages would become customers of the railroad and also provide a place for maintenance crews. 

          When Kipling was platted out, that was the purpose.  A section crew and control point.  A siding was put in along with a depot and control signals.  There probably was also a couple of house built for the RR crews to live in. 

          Kipling is located on the eastern banks of the Republican River, overlooking the valley.  There was a trading post down in the valley that wanted the railroad to stop there but stopping at the bottom of a hill is not what they want to do.  So the Rock Island put their stop on top of the hill.

          With the passing siding at Kipling, EB trains could build up extra steam for their run across the valley, Highball down hill and have enough momentum to easily climb up to the other side.  WB trains could pull into the siding and await the high flying EB. 

Today, there are not much of any reminders that there had been a little spot on the rails.  The signal lights lay in the weeds along side the rails and there is a country grade crossing of the rails. Traffic noise from the nearby Interstate rolls over the land, blending with the prairie breezes. 

Markers from the dirty 30’s still remain alongside the RR ROW.  The snow fence that had been built to protect the tracks is now buried under drifts of blow dirt.   Posts partially peering out of the drifted dirt. 

Besides the railroad going through the area, the Indians lived in the valley for generations.  Later the French would show up and begin trading with the Indians.  This area was part of the Louisiana Purchase.  The Spanish also traveled along the river, spying or checking on their neighbors. 

Next was the wagon road to the gold in the Rockies and then the Leavenworth Stage line, traveled the valley, with a stage station just below the ridge.  It had been a busy area, with a wide assortment of travelers.  Today the train still trundles down the rails, four a week and the occasional local passes thru. 

Add caption

 

Carlisle Colorado PO

Carlisle Colorado

Carlisle was a small country Post Office, in operation during the early 1900’s.  On the map it is shown to be less than a mile from the RR community of Peconic. 

Operated out of a private residence, this little Post Office served the railroad workers and the few homesteaders in the area.  With a short spyglass, one can watch the jayhawkers floating on the far horizon in Kansas.

The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific RR built through this area in 1888.   The RR designated the stop Peconic, but not much happened there.  The Post Office was located nearby since there were no homes in Peconic.  A grain elevator was eventually built, still no homes showed up. 

Down the rails to the East was the Post Office and more than likely it was a RR section house.  Keeping the RR operating was a labor intensive and sections were close together to keep the rails maintained. 

Today where the map shows where Carlisle was located is a grove of evergreens surrounded to by ag equipment.  There is an AG dealer located at the Peconic siding and a variety of cars are spotted there.  The grain elevator sits dormant. 

The cars and trucks whiz by on the Interstate as life in the farmland moves on.  Carlisle is pretty well forgotten and but a dot on an old history map. 

Joliet, CO

Arlington, Colorado

           

            Arlington, began its life as a railroad camp on the Missouri Pacific RR, in Eastern Colorado.  The trains have stopped running and the rails collect rust.  No longer is there the clicking of wheels flashing over the tracks.  Cars and trucks can be heard rumbling along the highway that followed the rails to Pueblo. 

            There a couple of hardy ranchers that still call this little prairie burg home.  The Post Office closed and moved to Hasewell a few years back.  The roadside businesses are gone and the few store fronts are now silent.  The roadside park has a caretaker and the occasional traveler will stop for a moment.  Silence is the main companion for the few that pause.

            The main feature of the town is the schoolhouse that sits in far corner of the town.  The two story building dominates the land, yet years of neglect is showing.  Number of years ago some locals wanted to buy the school but the scrapper that owned it would not sell.  Today the junk that had littered the yard is gone except the tires left in the weeds.  The winds whistle through broken windows, the bell tower is sliest for the few birds and it appears that the school may be doomed. 

            The town has set vacant for so many years that the weeds dominate.  The few streets are overgrown and the remains of houses and building rise above them.  Street signs mark where the roads had once been.  Rooflines are barely visible in the overgrown town. 

            Yet someday the tracks may hear the clicking of wheels again.  A group wants to buy the rails but the transaction is held up in court and government agencies.  Arlington has no farming, most of that is to the east.  Trains would just pass through the remains of what once was on their way to Pueblo. 

            Nearby is a WWII auxiliary airstrip and little further is Adobe reservoir.  The canals today carry dust of yesteryear when the sugar beet ruled the country.  

Stage Stop

Resolis Colorado

Resolis was a small town in Eastern Colorado, located on the banks of the Big Sandy Creek.  Today there is a road that winds through the area where the village once stood.  Its exact location is under debate and where the people say it was located is not a sure thing.  So Resolis may have been located there or maybe over there, one sure thing though, is, it did exist.

Resolis had its beginnings during the Colorado gold rush of the 1850’s.  A freight company in Leavenworth, Kansas was sending wagon trains of freight across the prairie to the gold fields.  In 1859 they formed the Leavenworth & Pike Peak Stage Line.  The stages used the route the freighters had been using to go to Denver.   In 1859 the LLP Stage line established a relay station at the crossing the Big Sandy.

Out in this pasture is where one of the locations for the town may of been.  

The stage line did not last long, in 1860 they were awarded the mail contract on the Overland route.  The route to Denver was abandoned but Resolis did not wither away.  The freight wagons were still rolling west and The Smoky Hill Trail passed through, keeping the trading post open.  During this time the population of Resolis had boomed to maybe 30 hardy souls. 

In 1870 there was another change to the area, the Kansas Pacific RR was pushing across Eastern Colorado.  The RR established a small RR town to the north of River Bend.  Many of the people of Resolis packed up and moved to the new railroad town. 

Here the road cross the former right of way, and is one of the places where the town was supposedly located. 

Resolis did not stay vacant for long because another railroad showed up in the area.  The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific was pushing westward to Colorado Springs and at the site of Resolis a small depot was established for the new railroad.  People returned to the little village along the river banks.  There were jobs working on the railroad and it was good ranch land.  The population boomed again to over 60 souls.

Resolis now rivaled River Bend, its neighbor in size.  There were saloons, stores, blacksmith and all the amenities of a country town.  The land was not good for farming and when the Homestead Act changed very few people moved in to the area to settle it.  The ranchers pretty much controlled the surrounding area.

With the changes in railroading, jobs in the little section towns began to disappear.  The drought of the 30’s arrived and many people flew with the wind to other places and Resolis became a forgotten place full of vacancies. 

Some of the trestles still stand, to mark where the tracks had been.

When the railroad ceased operations in the 1970’s, a local RR began operations of a diner train through the area.  The big cottonwoods provided nice shade and cool breezes for the evening train to pass through.  Resolis was no more but it was a mile marker and listed in the RR time tables.  The diner train did not last long and when it ceased operations, the railroad also became a ghost. 

The rails were removed and the ROW went to various land holders in the area.  There are a few bridges still standing, the RR Grade can still be seen and a few ranch houses have some sizable fences of RR ties.  Yet where the town had exactly existed is a question.  One spot is out in a pasture, the other is where Resolis road cross the old ROW.  Oh well, bouncing down the road looking at what may have been, for on far horizon is River Bend’s Boot Hill.  

Golden Belt Route .... Part IV

Aroya

            Traveling southeast from Boyero, one will end up the last little bit of the Old Golden State Route village, Aroya.  Just south of Boyero is the junction of the old Colorado state highways, SH 63 and SH 94.  From here to the junction with the new SH 94 there will be no other crossroads for the next dozen miles or so.  Being ranch land it is still like it was more then a 100 years ago. 

            Couple of dams have been built on some of the draws that are spring fed, creating a small oasis on the prairie. Here the local wildlife will meander in for a taste of water.  Wylie coyote watches looking for a meal as the other critters stop by.  A herd of pelicans can be seen occasionally at the watering hole.  It is a bustling area for wildlife.

            There is one ranch house along the road between Boyero and Aroya.  Just to the east is where the Aroya stage station had been.  It was short lived, a few months until the RR showed up putting the stop out of business.  Bounding on down the road, one crosses a ridge.  To the east can be seen the Aroya schoolhouse on a knoll.  The crossing gates of the railroad stand at attention, waiting for the occasional train.  Traffic zips by on the blacktop.

            Cross the highway and one is on the last stretch of the old wagon road.  The few buildings of what remains of Aroya come into view.  Out on the roadway, there is an information board, giving a brief history of the town and the area.  The JOD Ranch is on down the road a bit.  It is one of the oldest continuous used ranch brands in the state, 1870.

            The remains of the service station still reside next to the highway, beside it a mercantile, then the Aroya store.  There are a few houses that still stand, most are overgrown with weeds, making for snake haven.  The population had been zero for years.  A family hauled a trailer to the town and the population quadrupled overnight.  The following year another trailer was drug out back next to the other one.  They did not last long, the following year they were vacant.  Somebody hauled one of the trailers off but the other one still sits back in the trees, empty. 

            A welder had lived in the town and he would scrounge all types of metal and weld the pieces together is a variety of things, gates, mailbox stands…. Etc.  After he passed on, vandals were scrounging around his property stealing many of his creations.  Some of the locals got a few of his things and gave them to the museum in Kit Carson.  His lighthouse dominates the machinery display.  Today people still go through things picking to see if they can find that treasure.  Otherwise the little prairie burg is quiet. 

            Aroya was built by the railroad in 1870 as a place to service their engines and maybe find some customers.  A well was drilled in Aroya gulch for water and the town was underway.  On the south side of the road can be seen where some of the railroad structures had been.  There is a bridge that crosses the gulch.  Today the railroad uses the siding as a storage lot for surplus rolling stock or maintenance of way equipment. 

            On the knoll stands the country school, a little bigger then a one room schoolhouse.  It is very visible from highway 94 and is the subject of numerous pixels.  It looks down on the town it once served.  No longer are sounds of children present.  The houses down below sit silent, a memory of another time. 

            The cemetery is a boot hill, sitting on the hilltop on the other side of highway 94.  It is in a pasture for the JOD Ranch.  Most of the graves are the 1900 and later.  No headstones for earlier are there.  So my guess is, the burials before 1900 used wooden crosses or markers.  It is now fenced off to keep the cattle from knocking over the few markers still there.  Like many little railroad towns back then, there would be the saloons and the conflict that comes from the over consumption. 

            When Interstate 70 was built across the nation, the Golden Belt Route was diverted at Oakley Kansas for political reasons to follow I-70.  Across eastern Colorado this little section of history remains with its little ghost town and memories. 

Conclusion

-----30----

Golden Belt Route ..... Part III

Boyero

            Continuing along the Golden Belt Route, one travels over one of the old concrete bridges from the early 1900’s, crossing Coon Creek.  Bouncing over the country road, is bouncing along with the wagons that traveled next to the railroad tracks more than 100 years ago.  Very few vehicles roll along the road and fewer trains sing on the iron rails.  On the road to Boyero, the land is mostly unchanged, it is open range, cattle stand on the road looking at the interlopers, deer lounge in the shade of the few trees and birds serenade the traveler. 

            It is traveling back to another era, listen to the land as it sings.  Here one can gaze across the emptiness and hear the creak of the wagons, see the puffs of dust from the wheels.  It is now cattle that graze on the grasses, sharing with the wildlife.  The eagles feast on the prairie dogs, the prairie falcon has a dove for a meal, the song birds sit on the fence line and the antelope watches from far ridge.  A land as it was centuries ago. 

            Rolling SE from Clifford, the Golden Belt Route passes through Boyero.  Situated on a bend of the creek and the tracks, the livery stable dominates.  Built by the railroad in 1870, Boyero’s purpose was to serve the railroad and keep it running.  The water in the area is ample but very alkali, not suitable for steam engines.  So a cistern was built and the RR brought in tank cars of water to fill the cistern.  Since most of the people that lived there worked for the railroad, they were allowed to get water from the cistern. 

            Over time the RR village grew into a prosperous ranching community and rail town.  Schools were built, there were churches, stores, shops and the saloons.  It was at the junction of a state highway and US road making it a good place for early day travelers to stop.  Then the government realigned the US highway and later the state highway was rerouted.  The decline of Boyero began.  Today there is one family that still lives in the remains.  Years ago they had an antique store there and a sign directing customers down the road to their shop. 

            Many of the town lots are still owned by former residents or their families.  Most of the streets have faded and are overgrown with grass.  North of the livery stable there is a stack of RR ties, it is this pasture where the schoolhouse used to be and there were some homes there also.  Along the old highway is the remains of a gas station/post office, the general store collapsed a few years ago and was cleared to a vacant lot.    A couple of streets can be seen going east and there are a few more buildings down them.  Mixed in with them are a few cattle, always watching the people that pass by. 

            Across the tracks sit a few more buildings, there is a street along the frontage with small side streets into the other places.  The large building had many lives, store, boarding house and home.  The drummer boys used the trains a lot for pedaling their wares and rooming houses were as popular as hotels were back then.  Let the mind wander, warm summer eve, on the porch.  The dim glow of a cigarette as the travelers wait for the cool of the evening to settle in.  Conversation floats off the veranda, it is a scene for the imagination to conjure up. 

            Before the auto, ranchers would ride their horses into town.  Put their horse up at the livery and walk down to the train.  They would ride the train to the county seat, take care of business.  Catch the train back to Boyero, walk over to the livery and pick up their horse for the return trip home.  Life had a different pace back then.

            There are ranches in the area that can trace their beginnings back to the late 1800’s.  Walking the cemetery, there are a few pioneers there born in the mid 1800’s.  Alongside are the railroad workers that built the little town.  Here the Spirit of the West lingers. 

First Harvey Houses

Fred Harvey

Harvey Houses

            Fred Harvey worked for the railroad in the 1860’s, traveling to various places, where work took him.  For Fred the food service in most eateries back then was less than adequate.  When he would return to his office there were complaints of being on the road and having bad food.  So Fred took it upon himself to change that, with a partner.  Two restaurants were opened at main railroad stops out west.  The very first Harvey Restaurants were built in hotels at Wallace Kansas and Hugo Colorado on the Kansas Pacific Railroad, 1872. 

            A Harvey House and the Harvey Girls tend to be synonymous with the Santa Fe Railroad.   After the early success with other restaurants along various rail lines, The Santa Fe RR offered a contract to Harvey to build restaurants along their rail line.   By this time the partnership had broken up and Fred Harvey was no long employed by a railroad.  He was now opening a chain of restaurants across the country that would bear his name.

            The restaurants were situated in Hotels and soon these would be replaced by new hotels and some bore his name.  The Harvey houses dotted the southwest at other places besides the railroad.  Some were at other railroads and a few were in National Parks.  Today a few of the old Harvey Houses still stand and some are museums or refurbished into new uses. 

            The first two restaurants of Fred Harvey met their demise when railroading policy changed.  Crew change points were shifted and much of the railroad business the first hotels and restaurants relied on was gone.  Wallace had been a town of over 4000 souls, with changes on the Smoky Hill Trail and the railroad, the workers of Wallace moved on to the next railhead and soon it was a shell of what had been.  Today Wallace has a population of less than 100 souls and the Wallace hotel is long gone.  The Kansas Pacific office building still stands; otherwise it is ghosts that wander through the now empty town. 

            The nearby museum of Ft Wallace has new display in a back warehouse that has recreated the town of Wallace using store fronts.  The Wallace Hotel that housed the first Fred Harvey in Kansas is one of the fronts that has been built.  It is like walking down the streets of the old railroad town with all the different stores and shops from that era. 

            Hugo does not a display of any kind for where the first Harvey House was.  Roughly where the hotel had been, there is now an old empty gas station and the sign for Hugo.  Short distance east is where the Roundhouse had been, now a swimming pool occupies the land.  The depot is next block over and preserved as a community center.  The street one block north of this is lined with small old homes where the early rail workers and others lived.  Most of the homes on the north side date 1870-74 and that era.  The other side is the newer homes built where the railroad had their buildings.  Hugo has an original roundhouse on the SW side of town that is being restored and maybe there they will do something with the Hugo Harvey House. 

            Both little towns were connected by the railroad and then by the first Harvey house.  Both sit astride the Smoky Hill Trail and had stage stops.  Today the railroad still sends the occasional train down the rails.  No longer is it the whistle echoing across the high plains with a cloud of smoke overhead.  The air horns of the diesel have replaced the whistle of the steam engines but the lore still whispers across the land. 

            

Ruxton, Colorado

Railroad Town

            Ruxton, Colorado was a small town built for railroad service.  Here there would have been maintenance of way crews and equipment, A depot of some type and few homes for the workers to live in.  The local train would stop here, dropping off supplies and people and picking up.  It was a wide spot out on the mesas of eastern Colorado. 

            Ruxton is located in one of Colorado’s more unique landscapes.  It is a dry land of cacti, mesas, gullies and canyons.  Scrub trees dot the land and along the springs and small creeks, there are groves of trees.  There are small oasis’s that are scattered across the empty land.  Cattle roam over the land and the occasional ranch house next to a spring. 

            Cattle shipping would have been handled by the railroad or sheep.  Early 1900’s, lots of sheep roamed the land but the land could not sustain the sheep.  Today it is mostly cattle roaming the land in search of sparse tufts of grass. 

            Along the dusty road there are old railroad cars, marking where corrals and pens are.  Here the rancher could drive his cattle in for shipment on the rails.

            There is the old stone house, now is state of falling apart.  Yet years ago it would have been a family’s dream home.  The first room was built, with door and window.  Later years, rooms were added on to the house, probably as the family grew.  The little stone house is the only sign there had been a village here. 

            The trains still roar by and MOW crews still work on the rails.  It is a vast land that has a song of silence, one can listen, for those that pause.  It is broken by the occasional pick up or train.  The grasses sway with the few trees as an easy breeze whispers through.  Clouds roll across the horizon keeping their moisture.  In silence, Ruxton sits.  

Arapahoe Colorado

Arapahoe Colorado

            Arapahoe, CO, situated in far eastern part of the state, next to the Kansas border, is one of those little prairie villages that clings to life.  The surrounding farm and ranch land, provide some support to keep a couple of businesses going.  The Post Office is still open, there is a garage, grain elevator and on the highway is a gas station. 

            Otherwise, the other business buildings that had been along Main Street are no more.  There is a whole variety of vacant lots scattered around town.  Usually the little towns have a variety of old storefronts but not in Arapahoe.  A rock wall still stands where there had been a shop or maybe nice home.  Even the schoolhouse has been torn down.  For a declining town with maybe 25 residents, Arapahoe is unique.  No empty building hanging around.  Just a large collection of empty lots that are groomed of weeds. 

            Arapahoe had its beginnings in 1870 as a stop on the new railroad pushing west.  The Kansas Pacific Railway, named the whistle stop after the Indians that lived in the area.  There had also been a stop on the smoky Hill Trail nearby referred to as Arapahoe.  So the railroad was probably influenced by a little bit of both. 

Unlike its neighbor to the east, Chimung, Arapahoe survived when the rails were pushed further west.  During the late 1890’s, when the Homestead Act was changed, more settlers began to show up and Arapahoe grew some.  Yet like so many towns on the plains, the dust bowl chased many settlers off the land.  It is still farming and ranching in the area, there are some oil and gas wells also.  Yet where there had been a hundred people living on the land, there are now maybe 8-10 people.  The Post Office zip code census of 2010 shows a population of 238 people served. 

The sign for a Bay Gas Station over the garage has went to someplace unknown.  

To the north of town flows the Smoky Hill River.  A well was built for the early day gold seekers headed for the Rocky Mtns.  In this area, numerous relics have been found from the early day travelers.   The well has collapsed and the markers of it being there are almost gone.  The rancher that owns the land knows about it and goes poking around on occasion, hunting for remains. 

Sitting back off the highway, the traveler of today whizzes past, blinking twice and missing the little settlement, unless their vehicle is thirsty then they stop for a drink out on the highway.  

Helltown

Kit Carson, Colorado

         Situated on the eastern plains of Colorado, Kit Carson is one of those semi ghost towns.  Named after mountain man, trapper, guide and General Kit Carson, the village today boasts a population of over 300 people.  Yet during the 1870’s, Kit Carson was one of the biggest cities in Colorado, boasting of a population over 5000 souls.  The newly formed railroad town on the eastern plains had become a transportation hub. 

         The Santa Fe Trail turned north in the vicinity of Ft Lyon to make connections with the railroad and ship freight east.  Wagons were being loaded off the railcars to go west to the gold rush.  The Smoky Hill Trail was passing through with freighters and more fortune seekers.  The new railroad had moved its headquarters to Kit Carson and with that, came the camp followers and rail workers.  Kit Carson was a booming hell town on the prairie.  General Palmer had over 500 wagons hauling RR ties to help build the railroad. 

         The bustling, bawdy town rolled out over the prairie, tents and shacks dotting the land.  Saloons and red light district kept the western frontiersmen entertained. 

         There had been a small Army garrison assigned to Kit Carson.  Then when the Indians launched a series of raids on the railroad, General Custer and his troops showed up to protect the railroad workers. 

         The mixture of all these different people led to some wild times on the plains. 

         When the railroad was completed to Denver, the Kansas Pacific RR began preparations to continue the route to the Pacific Ocean by following the Arkansas River into the mountains and over the passes.  Track was being laid south from Kit Carson towards the Arkansas River and Ft Lyon.  This gave impetus for 

speculators to begin forming new towns in the area of now days Las Animas. 

         With this new work at Kit Carson, the town became wilder.  A gang of outlaws, thieves and rogues had become well organized.  They had become efficient enough to make the freight from a train disappear in a few hours.  The local gendarmes had little success in dealing with the outlaws.  The Colorado State Police were sent to Kit Carson to Investigate.  After a few years if investigating and gathering evidence, the State Police began making arrests. 

         There was an assortment of people rounded up and charged.  Among them were; railroad police, sheriff deputies and marshals’ and key railroad figures. 

         The arrest of key members of the outlaw gang also signaled the beginning of the end to Kit Carson’s heyday.  The Kansas Pacific RR was going broke and was in receivership.  The branch line to Las Animas was pulled up, making it the first rail line in Colorado to be abandoned.  No longer was there booty to be had.  The freight was gone, the jobs were gone, the Army was gone and dreams had faded, saloons closed, taking the red light district with them. 

         A fire swept through the old town area, burning up the shacks and most of the old helltown.  Today out in an overgrown pasture can be seen the remains of a few of the buildings.  Parts of the railroad grade can be seen places and from the air one can see the racetrack.  Nothing has been done with area, it sits there, nature slowly reclaiming. 

         The Kit Carson that exists today is a slow paced county town.  Main Street is a couple of blocks long.  Out on the highway are a few businesses that come and go.  Truckers fly through town and if one of the restaurants has good food, the parking lot is full of semis.  There are some neat classic old buildings still standing, gas stations, motels, lumber yard… etc. 

         Where the cemetery for the old town is…. Is a question?  One of the locals says they have a couple of graves in their front yard but where are the others.    

eastern colorado

Chimung, Colorado

Almost to the eastern end of Colorado, next to Kansas, is an empty spot.  This is where the railroad town of Chimung used to be.  Nearby is a cattle feed lot and the railroad has a siding there.  Oft times the railroad will use the name of the town but in this case, the siding was named Jim.  So question, was Chimung named after Jim Chimung?  Someday I may find out.

Chimung was a busy little town in the 1870’s.  There were numerous shops and stores, blacksmith, livery and bank.  When the railhead moved on west, the workers moved on and Chimung began to fade into the prairie. 

Today one can stand by the tracks, listen to the silence, hear the occasional bird chirp and watch the breezes wiggle the grasses.  Outside of the railroad siding, the area is void of life.  Even the rails get rusty between trains.  It is a place of empty solitude, that most people drive on past.  

Greenland, Colorado

 

The last great open lands between Denver and Colorado Springs is how the Greenland Ranch was referred to.  200,000 acres of grass stretched along the Palmer Divide.  Fertile tall grass waved in the meadows as cattle grazed along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.  The last Ice Age, 800 years ago had left the land rich and fertile.  Springs dotted the land, giving rise to small streams coursing down off the hills.  Here cattle could roam across a five course land. 

Yet Greenland did not have its start as a ranching community.  In the late 1870’s the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad was pushing southward.  They platted out a small town here on 20 acres.  There was ample water in the stream and a good stop before the last push up the hill to cross the Palmer Divide. 

Homes were built, there was a depot, section houses and shops were opening.  Soon the railroad would be shipping carloads of potatoes.  The area was the potato capital of Colorado.  Nearby was Palmer Lake, here the railroad would harvest ice from the lake to use as refrigeration to keep the produce cool. 

As the potato farming grew, so did the ranching.  The chutes for loading of cattle on to stock cars still stands in Greenland.  Cattle could be gathered in for shipment to market or other pastures.  It was a thriving little village into the early 1900’s. 

The highway route was shifted and longer did travelers go through the village.  Greenland was on its way to becoming a memory.  The railroads continued to pass through but that was changing.  Passengers were no longer and the potato farming had changed.  Then the Interstate was built, going on the edge of town.  An exit on I-25 was built and some developers discovered the area.  Soon the land was growing 2X4’s and there were ranchettes. 

The Greenland Ranch did not sell to developers and for years one could go flying down the Interstate on see a couple of cowboys driving cattle across the pasture. 

There was continued pressure by developers to sell.  People got together to try and preserve some of the ranch to prevent development.  Using Open Space tax money, the county was able to purchase portions of the ranch and some other parcels in the area. The newly acquired county land was developed into Open Space Parks.  Today there are trails and parking lots on the former ranch ;land.  Cattle still graze the pastures and share with wildlife. 

One of the largest hers of Elk in Colorado migrate through the area.  The mountain lion can be seen on the nearby rocky ledges, back bears wander the land searching out food, the coyotes shares his howl and the foxes bound over the grasses.  It is still a wild area, loaded with birds, the Eagle soars over head, along with hawks and vultures.  The ravens send out their racket as they pass by and the turkeys peck among the fields. The birds of the meadow sing out their melody. 

The little ghost town has shown some new life as a few people have bought some old properties and built new homes. The ranch homes are still there and some of the old buildings still stand.

 

It is the big red barn that is the icon for the exit.  As traffic flies by on the Interstate the massive old barn stands out very prominently.

Hard to imagine that all of this was under ice at one time.  The mesas in the area are called pediments by geologists, for the ice carved the hill off flat.  These mesas stretch from south Denver to the Palmer divide and go out east a number of miles.  It was this massive slab of ice that created a lush area of small streams and springs.  The ice boiled up rocks, ground them up leaving behind voids, nutriments and varied landscape. 

The winters are harsh, dumping snow by the foot, staying below freezing for weeks.  The spring brings the hail, stacking up into 2 n 3 foot drifts, collapsing roofs and tearing up buildings.  It takes a hardy person to deal with the harshness.  Yet the summer brings a warm green land.