Anne Dyni Pastimes

As if the rigors of farming along the Front Range weren’t challenging enough, a locust
plague hit Boulder County in the summer of 1875.  After laying their eggs in the fall, they reappeared every spring for the next three years.

This contraption was designed to trap grasshoppers in tanks of oil or water as it was pulled through the fields. Colorado Historical Society photo collection

The species, Melanoplus spretus, is thought to have been a long-winged version of today’s common grasshopper, but is now extinct.  The Rocky Mountain Locust, as it became known, was capable of migrating great distances in huge swarms, devouring everything in its path.

In his diary, Ernest Pease recalled noticing the darkening sky one day as he played with his younger brother in their farm yard.   Looking up, he described a moving mass of dark specks, and as he watched, a few of them began darting to the ground.

“To Clarence and me playing in the yard, each one of those grasshoppers suggested to our minds the swift approach of a ball.  We grabbed our board bats and began striking at each as it came.”  But as the insects came faster and faster, they gave up and “gazed in astonishment at the wonderful sight.”

The Pease family, like so many others, experienced the full brunt of the attack.  When the swarms had moved on, they took stock of their crops.   “They ate the tops of potatoes, beets, turnips and the like, and left us the roots,” Ernest wrote.  “Their oily bodies were so thick on the rails that in places the steam engines could not pull their trains on the upgrade until sand was applied.”

Farmers tried many creative ways to rid their fields of the hoppers.  One Longmont farmer devised a horse-drawn burner with an open grate that could incinerate most of the locusts in a field.  But it proved impractical because it burned the crops as well.    Others released flocks of turkeys and chickens to eat them.  But there were just too many, and the putrid smell of decaying insects permeated the countryside for weeks.
Then in March 1877, the Rocky Mountain News reported on a new variety of ‘hopper-dozer’ invented by W.J. Graham and James A. King of Boulder County.   The two farmers claimed that their contraption, mounted on two wheels and dragged through the crop rows by a team of horses, could clear forty acres in one day.  Similar dozers, cobbled together from scrap metal and implement parts, consisted of old water heaters cut in two and filled with used oil.  As they were dragged along, the hoppers flew up, hit a tin sheet mounted over the tanks, and slid into the oil.   At the end of each pass, they were shoveled into oily piles and the horses turned to continue crisscrossing the field.

Anne Dyni has lived in Boulder County since 1978.  She is the author of four books and creator of three videos on Boulder County history.  She served as a cultural history volunteer with the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Department for 20 years.

Anne Dyni Pastimes

D orothy Dougherty used to say that it was turkeys that bankrolled the Dougherty Museum south of Longmont.

“When I say there are turkeys in this building,” she explained, “people say ‘I don’t see any feathers’.  But really, that’s what made it all possible.”

In the 1940s, her husband Ray Dougherty and his parents pioneered the turkey business in Colorado.  It was their success that allowed Ray to pursue a lifetime of collecting vintage cars and farm equipment.

The desire for irrigated farm land prompted Henry Dougherty to move his family from drought-stricken Oklahoma to the Longmont area in 1918.  Upon arrival in the St. Vrain Valley, Henry purchased land which straddled the Boulder-Weld County line southeast of town.

While her husband raised crops and tended livestock, Mrs. Dougherty augmented the family income by raising brooder hens, selling the eggs and poults in the springtime.

When she began raising classic bronze turkeys as well, she discovered that the two species had to be separated.   The turkeys were susceptible to diseases which didn’t impact her chickens at all.   With relatively small flocks numbering less than sixty birds apiece, it wasn’t difficult to keep them apart.   One year, however, her entire flock proved too easy for someone else to round up, and she lost them all to thieves in the dead of night.

Years later, when Henry and his son Ray launched their large turkey breeding operation on the farm, they incorporated the lessons learned by his wife with her small-scale poultry business.

The potential for highly contagious diseases decimating their entire flock was ever present. How could they keep the birds free from such clinical sounding viral diseases as avian encephalomyelitis, viral hepatitis, and hemorrhagic enteritis?

Their solution — moveable poultry sheds which were large enough to house about 1,000 turkeys each.  They were equipped with wire mesh floors so that droppings settled below, out of contact with the birds themselves.   The portable “houses” were set up temporarily in the alfalfa fields, then moved every week or so to a new location.  This not only left contaminated droppings behind … it allowed the freshly fertilized alfalfa to recover enough for harvest later in the season.

As Ray continued to collect farm equipment, the turkeys had to share space with vintage tractors and implements.    Only while the turkeys were hatching did he have to move his artifacts outside.
Anne Dyni has lived in Boulder County since 1978.  She is the author of four books and creator of three videos on Boulder County history.  She served as a cultural history volunteer with the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Department for 20 years.

Anne Dyni Pastimes

As those of you who commute between Longmont and Boulder already know, most of your journey parallels the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe railroad tracks. Although both corridors trace the “shortest distance between two points,” their construction dates span almost a century.

In contrast to the few months required to lay track for the Colorado Central Railroad in 1873, the Diagonal Highway took more than two decades to complete.  Securing rights-of-way along the route was much simpler in the 1870s when the St. Vrain Valley was only partially settled.

The town of Niwot was impacted by construction of the Diagonal. All the buildings west of the tracks were razed, including the old elementary school. Niwot Historical Society collection

Farmer William Caywood, like his neighbors, welcomed the coming of the railroad because it provided a means of transporting his farm products to market. Railroad officials assured landowners along the route that they would build and maintain all necessary cattle guards, water crossings and road crossings as they laid the track.

However, when construction crews neglected to install a cattle guard on his property and his herd wandered off, Caywood stretched a fence across the track and dragged a thirty-foot section of rail to one side with his ox team.    Although no derailment occurred, the train was delayed for an hour and Caywood was charged with obstructing the U.S. mail.  Only a deadlocked jury of his peers saved him from prosecution.

In 1957, news of IBM’s purchase of 640 acres for a manufacturing plant near Niwot hastened plans for a divided highway between Longmont and Boulder. Land values in the Left Hand Valley increased dramatically as farmland on Gunbarrel Hill began sprouting subdivisions to house all the families relocating from the east.

Construction of the northbound lanes of the Diagonal was divided into three phases - the four-mile stretch between Boulder and Niwot - a seven-mile section extending on to the alfalfa dehydrator southwest of Longmont – then a connecting link along the tracks to downtown Longmont.

Acquisition of land went fairly smoothly.  Only a few landowners near Boulder held out until they were served with condemnation papers.  The biggest obstacle occurred when Longmont business factions argued over where the road would ultimately connect to Highway 287. Plans to follow the railroad tracks to Second Avenue angered merchants along South Main Street who wanted the highway to branch off and connect further south along Pike Road.   A compromise finally placed the intersection halfway between the two sites.

The southbound lanes of the Diagonal were completed in 1975, almost one hundred years after the coming of the railroad.

Anne Dyni has lived in Boulder County since 1978.  She is the author of four books and creator of three videos on Boulder County history.  She served as a cultural history volunteer with the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Department for 20 years.

Anne Dyni Pastimes

S adly, one of the best ways to learn about a person is to read what is said about them by those they leave behind. For historians and families alike, hometown newspaper obituaries offer a concise history of the deceased, from their vital statistics to their lifetime achievements.

In the early part of the 20th century, a lack of morticians and funeral homes in Longmont forced some families to prepare their own loved ones for burial, with viewing in the living room or parlor. Anne Dyni collection, courtesy photo

Throughout the early 1900s, obituaries printed in the Longmont Times read like a Boulder County history book. Many of the departed had come west during the Pikes Peak gold rush of 1858. Others settled in the St.Vrain valley when the west opened up for homesteading in 1862. Still others were pioneers who helped to establish the settlements of Burlington and the Chicago-Colorado Colony, both of which preceded the town of Longmont.

Daniel Coffman’s obituary appeared in a 1916 Longmont Times issue. It described his purchase of 80 acres along the St.Vrain River in the 1870s. He was soon approached by Chicago-Colony representatives searching for land to develop an “agriculturally productive community.” The parcel that he sold to the colonists in 1871 eventually became part of the original Longmont town site.

William Dickens’ obituary also appeared in 1916, and described his many commercial ventures in Longmont. A successful cattleman and entrepreneur, he helped to found Longmont’s Farmers Bank and Farmers Mill and built the Dickens Opera House, which still stands at Third and Main streets. His home remains standing at 136 South Main Street near the old Burlington town site.
The Times obituary of Morse Coffin was published in September 1913. He came west as a youth with two friends, three oxen teams, a shotgun and $40 in his pocket. Soon after his arrival in Boulder County, he took up 160 acres east of the future site of Longmont. Today, Coffin’s stately home serves as the visitor center for Sandstone Ranch Park just east of Weld County Road 1 and Colo. 119.

Anne Dyni has lived in Boulder County since 1978. She is the author of four books and creator ofthree videos on Boulder County history. She served as a cultural history volunteer with the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Department for 20 years. Email: adyni@earthlink.net

Anne Dyni Pastimes

Political Action Committees are not new to Colorado.  They’ve been around since the first Colorado Territorial Legislature convened in 1871. The most influential groups at that time represented the mining and agricultural sectors, both of which profoundly influenced the formation of Colorado’s early legislation. While the discovery of gold in Boulder and Clear Creek counties was considered the big news of the day, there was also interest in the less spectacular development of farming and ranching.

Realizing that they could best represent their positions as an informed and unified group, farmers from Larimer, Weld, Boulder, Jefferson and Arapahoe counties convened a farmers’ convention in Boulder in 1869, two years before Colorado became a territory. Their agenda included “all subjects pertinent to crop and livestock growers.”

This 1888 photograph of the Left Hand Grange members illustrates that the Patrons of Husbandry included men, women and children. It was one of the first national organizations to allow women to hold office. Niwot Historical Society photo collection

By the time Colorado became a territory, several agricultural groups had organized. They recognized the importance of lobbying legislators who were creating new laws which would greatly impact their livelihoods.

Their cause was greatly enhanced by the fledgling Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the grange movement. Organized nationally in 1867, there were soon hundreds of subordinate granges, which exerted more pressure on local governments than individual farmers could ever hope to apply.

Of the first nineteen granges organized in Colorado Territory in 1873, five were in Boulder County. The following year, three more were formed in the Longmont area; Longmont Grange #27, Lower St. Vrain Grange #29, and Burlington Grange #31.

William Byers, founding editor of the Rocky Mountain News, praised this young organization when he wrote, “The Granges … have spread themselves over entire states, and the order is today the rising political power of the land.”

Among the most far-reaching issues the Patrons of Husbandry supported over the years were the formation of the rural mail delivery system and abolishment of unfair shipping practices by the railroads.

Anne Dyni has lived in Boulder County since 1978.  She is the author of four books and creator of three videos on Boulder County history.  She served as a cultural history volunteer with the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Department for 20 years. Email: adyni@earthlink.net

Anne Dyni Pastimes

I magine Main Street in 1900 when traffic was limited to horses pulling carriages and wagons through town. Rural families had come to buy groceries or dry goods. Farmers hauled implements to the blacksmith shop for repairs, and grain wagons were headed to the flour mill.

In those days, Main Street easily accommodated two “lanes” of traffic in addition to “parking spaces” at hitching posts on both sides of the street.

John Buckley, shown here with a 1916 Hollier touring car, was too incapacitated by asthma to farm his land outside Longmont. So in partnership with an auto dealer in Boulder, he displayed and sold individual cars from his front yard Lulu Buckley James photo collection

The first automobile to appear on Longmont streets was Thomas Callahan’s 1902 Locomobile steam car. With its fringed top, four upholstered seats and wagon spring undercarriage, it resembled every horse-drawn buggy in town. It truly deserved the nickname “horseless carriage”.

Callahan was a successful Longmont businessman, having expanded his small notions store, The Golden Rule, into a chain of similar stores in seven western states. This marketing innovation made him the first chain-store merchant in the Rocky Mountain West. One of his employees, James Cash Penney, later established his own merchandising empire, which expanded far beyond that of his former employer.

Not to be outdone by Callahan, local banker Frank Downer purchased a one-cylinder Cadillac in 1903. His partner Charles Day followed close behind with a White steamer, which he soon replaced with a White gasoline version. Examples of both a 1902 Mobile steamer and a 1903 Cadillac are on display at the Dougherty Museum just south of Longmont on Highway 287.

Arch Everly’s new 1910 Brush motor car delivered a more comfortable ride than did the Callahan’s Locomobile. The Brush Motor Car Company had replaced standard wagon springs with coil springs and shock absorbers. Intent on producing a low-priced car, they designed their lightweight two-seater with a hardwood frame, axles and wheels and equipped it with a folding top.

The Everly family enjoyed so many mountain excursions in their new car that Arch eventually established a touring service in 1914. His fleet of Model-T Fords came complete with personal drivers.

Anne Dyni has lived in Boulder County since 1978. She is the author of four books and creator of three videos on Boulder County history. She served as a cultural history volunteer with the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Department for 20 years.

Anne Dyni Pastimes

Searching for more early schools in northern Boulder County takes us west, then south of Longmont. At the corner of North 53^rd Street and U.S. Highway 36 stands the former Montgomery schoolhouse.  Now a residence, it was built in 1917 by Finnish stone contractor Ernest Loukenen. Loukenen’s nephews Leonard and Reino rode their family horse two miles to school on days they couldn’t hitch a ride with the milkman.

Quotes from oral history interviews with former students includes Marjorie Brackett (Cinnamon) who remembered a single classroom upstairs with two coat rooms in back, and a second classroom in the basement. Maude Moomaw (Beasley) recalled her teacher, Mr. Cordes, “who had a nasty habit of spitting tobacco on the floor then grinding it in with his heel.”   Parental pressure soon put a stop to that.

Continuing west, the Lyons school at 338 High Street was built in 1881, shortly after the Lyons school district was created.  Like many public buildings in town, it was constructed by stone masons employed at local sandstone quarries. Today, it still serves the public as the Lyons Historical Museum.

The second Burlington schoolhouse was moved in 1909 to the Leroy Rider farm east of Longmont where it was converted it to a barn. It was demolished in 1994 when the farm was sold and subdivided. Anne Dyni collection

On the southern edge of Longmont, at the corner of Highway 287 and Pike Road, stands another historic schoolhouse. Today, the former Burlington school houses the Longmont Buddhist Temple.  When it was built in 1909, however, it served families living near the town site of Burlington.

The first Burlington schoolhouse, circa 1864, was described as a small shanty where teacher Mary Kinney used a dinner bell to call her thirty pupils to class. Students sat on rough benches on either side of a center aisle.  Boys were on one side and girls on the other.  Drinking water was hauled in buckets from nearby Left Hand Creek.

In 1869, a second and more substantial school was built, complete with a huge belfry for the iron bell purchased from a Chicago foundry.   The huge bell was shipped by train from Illinois to Cheyenne, where it was loaded onto a wagon and hauled by ox team to Burlington.

Anne Dyni has lived in Boulder County since 1978.  She is the author of four books and creator of three videos on Boulder County history.  She served as a cultural history volunteer with the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Department for 20 years.