Greeley

The American Guides Project

Bus Station: 8th Ave. and 11th St. for Union Pacific Trailways and Colorado Motorways.

Accommodations: Five hotels; boarding houses and trailer camps. Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, 8th Ave. and 8th St.

Tennis: Municipal courts, W. of library, 915 7th St.; free. Swimming: Warnoco Park, 1407 and St.; free.

GREELEY (4,652 alt., 12,203 pop.), seat of Weld County and center of one of the richest agricultural districts in the State, lies in the low flatlands between the Cache la Poudre and South Platte Rivers. Its economic life is based on the fertile soils of these river valleys, and its temper is that of the patient men and women who developed their farms through long arduous years. The town is quiet and orderly, a heritage from its founders. The business district looks across a landscaped park laid out on originally barren cactus plain to provide a recreational area as well as a site for the more essential reservoir. Surrounding it are pleasant residential sections with well-kept lawns and attractive houses shaded by trees.

Saturday finds the town thronged with families in from the countryside for their weekly trading, amusements, and exchange of neighborly gossip. Farmers and their hired hands, descendants of English, Scottish, and Irish settlers, together with many German-Russians and Spanish-Americans, gather along the broad streets and talk in a common lingo of the run of irrigation water, the growth of sugar beets and potatoes, and the progress of lamb feeding.

Greeley is the outgrowth of the Union Colony, a cooperative enterprise conceived by and named for Horace Greeley, noted editor and publisher of the New York Tribune, and was founded by his agricultural editor, Nathan C. Meeker. It was one of several agricultural colonies started about the same time, and perhaps owed some of its inspiration to the success of the Mormons in Utah. Cooperative effort was necessary in order to provide large-scale irrigation. Greeley, who popularized but did not coin the phrase, "Go West, young man !" was so impressed with the agricultural possibilities of the region on a visit in 1859 that he began a spirited campaign to interest "proper persons in establishing a colony in the Colorado Territory." Perhaps no settlement of its size was ever more widely advertised, thanks to the powerful New York Tribune and the reputation of Meeker. A group of New Englanders sent a committee, headed by Meeker, to inspect several sites in 1869. Meeker was fascinated by the mountains and had almost decided to establish the colony in South Park (see Tour 15a), when he conferred with William N. Byers, editor of the Rocky Mountain News, who had first-hand knowledge of the entire country; he persuaded Meeker that South Park was no place for an agricultural community and prevailed upon him to settle along the Cache la Poudre in the South Platte Valley. The area had been settled several years before by Peter Winne, David Barnes, and others; Byers urged Meeker to let them remain on their lands so that he might profit from their agricultural experience. Meeker, however, insisted on settling the site entirely with his own colonists and bought out the original settlers, purchasing 12,000 acres for $60,000; provisional title was taken to an additional 60,000 acres.

The following year 50 families, headed by Meeker, who was determined to be no mere armchair colonist, arrived here on the newly constructed Denver Pacific Railroad from Cheyenne. "On the future town site," a contemporary chronicler wrote, "not a house, shanty, nor even a bush or twig was in sight excepting a fringe of trees bordering the Platte River. Besides these, nothing was to be seen between the river and the foothills, twenty miles away, but a vast rolling prairie covered with cactus and the short grama grass of the region."

Members of the organization paid a $5 entrance fee and $150 for their land ; no one was permitted to own more than 160 acres. Each colonist was given a town lot, 100 by 150 feet, and his choice of a 5-acre tract near by or an 80-acre farm at a greater distance. Later, those who accepted the 5-acre tracts were given the opportunity to obtain 80 additional acres at $3 an acre, the actual cost of the land to the colony.

Within two weeks 25 houses and numerous tents were erected. Building was retarded by the scarcity and high price of lumber, but by mid-year more than zoo houses and small business structures, the majority of adobe, had been constructed. Colonists were faced with difficulties in bringing water to their lands and combating insect pests that ruined crops for several years. Irrigation projects were begun at once. Tomatoes, potatoes, melons, and cucumbers were raised ; fruit and shade trees were planted. A successful attempt to grow wheat induced the colony to spend what money it had in improving its irrigation ditches rather than in establishing industrial plants.

Before the colony was two weeks old a Sunday school had been organized and church services were being held. Many settlers were college graduates; lyceums, debates, and readings from poets were sources of entertainment. Occasionally a traveling reader came through the town to recite from Shakespeare, Browning, and Poe; "The Raven" was a favorite.

In the matter of temperance the colony's attitude was unswerving. In his circulars to prospective members and in his speeches, Meeker stated that the idle, immoral, intemperate, or inefficient need not apply; they would not be received, nor would they feel at home. One of the "commandments" was: "Thou shalt not sell liquid damnation within the lines of Union Colony." The first saloon, opened in a sod hut at the edge of town, was brought to the attention of the community during a Sunday service, and the congregation moved in a body to confer with the proprietor. During the argument a fire started in the establishment and destroyed it. Despite restrictions, numerous "pa¬lors" opened in hotels, business buildings, and private residences, and flourished until "the law" discovered them. Later, several small settlements flourished just over the city line for no other purpose than to dispense liquid refreshment.

There were complainers, of course. Some were dissatisfied with the division of lands; some grumbled because shelter was not provided and because they were prohibited from speculating in land ; still others were averse to hard work. Many of these soon departed, "spreading evil tidings as they went." One disgruntled editor who visited the settlement wrote : "Whatever you do, don't go to Greeley. It is a baker's dozen of shanties, tool chests, a great ditch, and acres of prickly pears on a barren, sandy plain between prairie dog towns and poverty-stricken ranches. . . . The plucking of prickly pear spines from the parts of their babies' corporeal frames to which in old times the punitive shoe was wont to be applied, gives Greeley mothers constant, if not pleasant, employment."

Contradicting the rumors that the cooperative venture was a "delusion, a snare, and a swindle," a settler wrote that "the Union Colony has succeeded beyond the expectations of the most hopeful. . . . When saloons are opened and drunkards are seen around here, then perhaps I will be ready to say we are a miserable failure." The New York Tribune continued to devote much space to refuting unfavorable edi¬torials that appeared regularly in midwestern papers. The dissidents made more noise than was justified, for the majority of the colonists settled down to hard work and made steady progress.

The Greeley Cooperative Stock and Dairy Association was organized in 1870, with 75 head of cattle, which made "a respectable show when stretched out across the prairie." Meeker wrote to the New York Tribune that "we mean to cover the unoccupied land in every direction with our cattle." The hard winters of 1871 and 1872, however, drove the cattle southward, and there was not enough hay to feed them. Independent cattlemen, maintaining that "the country was fit only for grazing," ranged their cattle on colony property. To keep livestock out of the fields, colonists erected a 50-mile fence around their lands. With posts at 250 each, and wire at 80 a pound, the undertaking cost $20,000. Much of the money raised by sale of town lots for civic improvements was spent on this venture.

The fence did not provide complete protection, for the settlers were denied the right to put gates across public roads leading into the colony and were forced to employ watchmen to guard these points. When a herder deserted his post one night to visit a saloon in a near-by community, the cattle swarmed into town to feast upon the gardens, and citizens were obliged to stay awake until the man returned and drove off his herd. The absence of saloons, dance halls, and brothels led ranchers to refer to the townfolk as "Greeley Saints" and averred that the fence had been erected to keep out "godless" cowmen. The fence was later sold to individual farmers.

Meeker established the Greeley Tribune, a weekly, in the first year of settlement and gave prominent display to the New York Tribune's editorials and articles dealing with the community, together with the many letters received from Horace Greeley. The town's first sizable industry was the tanning of buffalo hides, and the local newspaper reported in 1876 that the plant, the only successful one in the United States, was turning out 12 robes a day, with aggregate sales of $2,000 to $3,000 monthly.

After several warmly contested elections and court battles between 1872 and 1877, Greeley became the county seat and grew rapidly. The second electric light plant in the State was installed here in 1885, and at this time potato raising began on a considerable scale. Large storage warehouses were built; growers organized a Potato Exchange and initiated a marketing program, aided by extensive advertising, which increased the demand for Greeley "spuds." By 1890 more than 2,000 carloads were being shipped annually to eastern and southern markets. A Potato Experimental Station, established in 1915, was later taken over by the Bureau of Plant Industry of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Sugar beet culture was introduced in 1902 and almost immediately became one of the most important mainstays of the rapidly growing city. German-Russians were imported in large numbers to till the crops; later, Japanese became the largest racial group working the beet fields. They proved unsatisfactory because of their custom of underbidding native labor, and were replaced with Spanish-Americans, who make up a large proportion of the urban and rural population. With the rapid development of irrigation, a number of manufactories based on agriculture were established here, including a beet sugar factory, a vegetable canning plant, and four mills. Industrial growth has increased the city's population 303 per cent since 1900. In 1939 the city's 22 manufacturing enterprises had an annual payroll of $200,000.

The Spud Rodeo, held annually on July Fourth, is a combination rodeo and agricultural show. Exhibits of potatoes grown in the county are shown and judged by agricultural experts; in the afternoons and evenings, the fair grounds are given over to riding, "bronc busting," bulldogging, and other typical rodeo events.

The COLORADO STATE COLLEGE OF EDUCATION (building open during school hours unless otherwise indicated), occupying a 65-acre campus on 16th St. between 8th and 10th Aves., extending to 19th St., was founded in 1890 in the face of almost insuperable difficulties. Because of the impossibility of finding adequately trained teachers during the 1880's, the superintendent of Greeley schools interested a group of local business men in a movement to establish a teachers' training school here. The legislature was unfriendly, and even after victory had been won, the State was unable to aid financially so that the entire burden fell upon the town. Nevertheless, the school was established and proved an immediate success. The 1938-39 enrollment was 1,570. The summer session usually has a larger enrollment than the winter term.

The institution consists of 17 buildings, surrounded by a landscaped campus planted with almost every species of tree and shrub indigenous to Colorado, as well as numerous specimens from Western Europe and Asia.

The red brick CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC, NW. corner of the campus, built in 1904, oldest of the college structures, was formerly the president's house. On the third floor of CRANFORD HALL, south of the conservatory, a NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM houses, among other exhibits, a large collection of mounted humming birds. Connecting with Cranford Hall on the east is the LIBRARY, a white brick building containing 97,000 volumes. In KEPNER HALL, east of the library, students are given practical training teaching classes from kindergarten through high school.

On the south campus are GUGGENHEIM HALL, a white brick building accommodating the arts division, and CRABBE HALL, of similar construction, housing the departments of literature, language, and home economics. West of Crabbe Hall, a red brick bungalow, known as the MODEL HOUSE, is used for home training and housekeeping studies. Adjoining on the west is the gray brick GUNTER HALL OF HEALTH, Collegiate Gothic in design, the largest building on the campus; it contains an auditorium seating 3,000, a gymnasium, and swimming pool.

The MEEKER MUSEUM (open 2-5 daily), 9th Ave. and 14th St., was the home of Nathan C. Meeker, who, after founding the colony, was appointed Indian Agent at the White River Agency and was slain there in the Ute uprising in 1879 (see Tour 17). The front of the building is the original house, a four-room, two-story structure of sod and adobe, with a wooden framework, erected in 1871. It is surmounted with a watch tower inclosed within a wooden railing. The brick addition at the rear and the veranda encircling the south and west sides of the adobe building were constructed later by Meeker. In the museum are Meeker's furniture, saddles, trappings, and papers. Here also is the plow that turned the first sod in the Union Colony, used by James Orr in running the furrows that marked out the streets of the town.

The OLD WELD COUNTY JAIL, a small stone structure at the rear of the courthouse, 9th Ave. and 9th St., was the scene in 1888 of the county's only lynching. After the sheriff had been bound, gagged, and dumped into a near-by chicken house, a prisoner awaiting trial for murder was dragged from the jail and hanged. On that day, it is said, a man dressed in woman's clothes and wearing a veil walked into a store to purchase 50 feet of rope; the storekeeper cut off the required length, remarking as he did so, "Take it and forget it, and if you need more, come and get it." It is also said that the limb of the tree from which the victim was hanged, withered and died.

LINCOLN PARK, 9th St. and 10th Ave., a landscaped square laid out during the founding of the city, contains recreational facilities and a small artificial lake. In the southwest corner is the PIONEERS MONUMENT, a stone fountain erected on the site of an artesian well that supplied water for early colonists.

The PUBLIC LIBRARY (open 9-9 weekdays, 2-6 Sun.), 915 7th St., a two-story brick structure erected in 1907 by popular subscription, contains 42,000 volumes.

The GREAT WESTERN BEET SUGAR FACTORY (open 9-4 weekdays on application), 1st Ave. and 13th St., Greeley's largest industrial establishment, has a daily beet-slicing capacity of 1,600 tons (see Tour 1a). The erection of the plant in 1902 was opposed by residents who feared the town would become an industrial center.

Site of Fort St. Vrain, 15.3 miles Reconstructed Fort Vasquez, 19.1 miles Cornish Archeological Field, 22.5 miles (see Tour 12a); Estes Park, 48 miles, Rocky Mountain National Park, 49 miles (see Tour 3 and Rocky Mountain National Park).