Holyoke, CO

From Colorado: A Guide to the Highest State (1937):

Founded by the Lincoln Land Company, Holyoke is the country seat of Phillips County, named for the son-in-law of the general superintendent of the Burlington Northern.

HOLYOKE, 13 miles (3,745 alt., 1,226 pop.), named for the city in Massachusetts, is the seat of Phillips County. Grain elevators and livestock and dairy products exchanges are an index to the character of business and home life of villages in this area.

Right from Holyoke on a dirt road to the RANCH OF OTTO FULSCHER (open daily), 16 miles, noteworthy for its herd of Hereford cattle, descended from the prize-winning bulls, Prince Domino and Beau Aster.

West of Holyoke the highway crosses a grain-growing section to PAOLI, 23 miles (3,873 alt., 143 pop.), a trading and supply center. Level broad prairies, interspersed with grain fields, border both sides of the route. This area, unprotected by hills or trees, with an average annual rainfall of 15 inches, embraces three-fourths of the 22 million acres of the potential dry-farming acreage in Colorado. To be a successful dry farmer, one must understand the principles of water movement in the soil and its conservation in order to take advantage of rains when they fall. Plowing must be deep; for fall crops it is performed in spring and early summer. Winter wheat is planted in September in ground plowed, disked, and harrowed in June and July. As high winds prevail, their force is lessened by leaving the ground rough and by planting crops in strips, alternating corn and sorghums with grains (see Farming).

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