county	Larimer County
state	Colorado
founded year	1861
founded date	November 1
seat wl	Fort Collins
largest city wl	Fort Collins
area total sq mi	2633.86
area land sq mi	2601.30
area water sq mi	32.56
area percentage	1.24%
census yr	2000
pop	251494
density sq mi	97
density km2	37
time zone	Mountain
utc offset	-7
dst offset	-6
footnotes	Seventh most populous Colorado county
web	www.co.larimer.co.us
named for	William Larimer, Jr. }}

Larimer County is the seventh most populous and the ninth most extensive of the 64 counties of the State of Colorado of the United States. The county is located at the northern end of the Front Range, at the edge of the Colorado Eastern Plains along the border with Wyoming. Larimer County was named for William Larimer, Jr., the founder of Denver, who is believed to have never have set foot in the county. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the county population was 276,253 in 2006, a 9.84% increase since U.S. Census 2000. The county seat and most populous city is Fort Collins. The Fort Collins-Loveland Metropolitan Statistical Area comprises Larimer County.

History

Larimer County was created in 1861 as one of seventeen original counties in the Colorado Territory; however, its western boundary was disputed. Controversy existed as to whether Larimer County ended at the Medicine Bow Range or at the Continental Divide thirty miles further west. An 1886 Colorado Supreme Court decision set the boundary at the Continental Divide, although the land between the Medicine Bow Range and the divide was made part of Jackson County in 1909.

Unlike that of much of Colorado, which was founded on the mining of gold and silver, the settlement of Larimer County was based almost entirely on agriculture, an industry that few thought possible in the region during the initial days of the Colorado Gold Rush. The mining boom almost entirely passed the county by. It would take the introduction of irrigation to the region in the 1860s to bring the first widespread settlement to the area.

Early history

At the time of the arrival of Europeans in the early 19th century, the present-day county was occupied by Native Americans, with the Utes occupying the mountainous areas and the Cheyenne and Arapaho living on the piedmont areas along the base of the foothills. French fur trappers infiltrated the area in the early decades of the 19th century, soon after the area became part of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase and was organized as part of the Missouri Territory. In 1828 William H. Ashley ascended the Cache la Poudre River on his way to the Green River in present-day Utah. The river itself received its name in the middle 1830s from an obscure incident in which French-speaking trappers hid gunpowder along its banks, somewhere near present-day Laporte or Bellvue. In 1848 a group of Cherokee crossed through the county following the North Fork of the Poudre to the Laramie Plains on their way to California along a route that became known as the Cherokee Trail.

The area of county was officially opened to white settlement following negotiations with the Cheyenne and Arapaho in the 1858 Treaty of Fort Laramie, by which time the area was part of the Nebraska Territory. The first U.S. settlers arrived that same year in a party led by Antoine Janis from Fort Laramie. Janis, who had visited the area near Bellvue in 1844 and proclaimed it "the most beautiful place on earth", returned to file his official claim and helped found the first U.S. settlement in present-day Colorado, called Colona, just west of Laporte. Nearly simultaneously, Mariana Medina established Namaqua along the Big Thompson River just west of present-day Loveland. The first irrigation canals were established along the Poudre in the 1860s.

In 1862 the settlement established by Janis became a stagecoach stop along the Overland Stage Route which was established because of threats of attacks from Native Americans on the northern trails in Wyoming. In 1861, Laporte was designated as the first county seat after the organization of the Colorado Territory. In 1862, the United States Army established an outpost near Laporte that was designated as Camp Collins. A devastating flood in June 1864 wiped out the outpost, forcing the Army to seek a better location. At the urging of Joseph Mason, who had settled along the Poudre in 1860, the Army relocated its post downstream adjacent to Mason's land along the Overland stage route. The site of the new post became the nucleus of the town of Fort Collins, incorporated in 1873 after the withdrawal of the Army. By that time, Mason and others had convinced the Colorado Territorial Legislature to designate the new town as the county seat. In 1870, the legislature designated Fort Collins as the location of the state agricultural college (later Colorado State University), although the institution would exist only on paper for another decade while local residents sought money to construct the first campus buildings. In 1873, Robert A. Cameron and other members of the Greeley Colony established the Fort Collins Agricultural Colony, which greatly expanded the grid plan and population of Fort Collins.

Railroads

One of the primary goals of the early citizens of the county was the courting of railroads. County residents were disappointed when the Denver Pacific Railroad bypassed the county in 1870 in favor of Greeley. The first railroad finally arrived in the county in 1877 when the Colorado Central Railroad extended a line north from Golden via Longmont to Cheyenne. The town council of Fort Collins designated right-of-way through the center of town (and through the campus of the unbuilt college) for the line, creating a contentious issue to this day.

Along the new railroad sprung up the new platted towns of Loveland and Berthoud, named respectively after the president and chief surveyor of the Colorado Central. Likewise Wellington (founded in 1903) was named for a railroad employee. The Greeley, Salt Lake and Pacific Railroad arrived three years later as a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad, with the intention of creating a transcontinental line over Cameron Pass. Although the line was never extended over the mountains, it opened up the quarrying of stone for the railroad at Stout, furnishing another industry for the region. The brief attempt at the mining of gold in the region centered at the now ghost town of Manhattan in the Poudre Canyon.

Agriculture

The early growth of agriculture, which depended highly on direct river irrigation, experienced a second boom in 1902 with the introduction of the cultivation of sugar beets, accompanied by the construction of the large processing plant of the Great Western Sugar Co. in Loveland. In the following decade, the sugar beet industry brought large numbers of German emigrants from the Russian Empire to the county. The neighborhoods of Fort Collins northeast of the Poudre were constructed largely to house these new families.

A significant increase in the agricultural productivity of the region came in the 1930s with the construction of the Colorado Big Thompson Project following the Great Depression, sort of a third boom for the agricultural industry around Fort Collins. This project collected and captured Western Slope water, and carried it over to the Front Range Colorado counties of Boulder, Larimer and Weld, along with an extensive water storage and distribution system, which significantly extended the irrigable growing season and brought substantial additional land under irrigation for the first time.

Geography

According to the 2000 census, the county has a total area of , of which (or 98.76%) is land and (or 1.24%) is water.

Adjacent counties

Laramie County, Wyoming - northeast

Weld County, Colorado - east

Boulder County, Colorado - south

Grand County, Colorado - southwest

Jackson County, Colorado - west

Albany County, Wyoming - northwest

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 251,494 people, 97,164 households, and 63,156 families residing in the county. The population density was 97 people per square mile (37/km²). There were 105,392 housing units at an average density of 40 per square mile (16/km²). The racial makeup of the county was 91.44% White, 0.66% Black or African American, 0.66% Native American, 1.56% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, 3.41% from other races, and 2.19% from two or more races. 8.27% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 97,164 households out of which 31.70% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 53.60% were married couples living together, 7.90% had a female householder with no husband present, and 35.00% were non-families. 23.40% of all households were made up of individuals and 6.30% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.52 and the average family size was 2.99.

In the county the population was spread out with 23.80% under the age of 18, 14.20% from 18 to 24, 30.70% from 25 to 44, 21.80% from 45 to 64, and 9.60% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. For every 100 females there were 99.90 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 98.20 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $48,655, and the median income for a family was $58,866. Males had a median income of $40,829 versus $27,859 for females. The per capita income for the county was $23,689. About 4.30% of families and 9.20% of the population were below the poverty line, including 6.80% of those under age 18 and 4.40% of those age 65 or over.

School districts

Park R3 (Estes Park)

Poudre R1 (Fort Collins & Surrounding Area)

Thompson R2-J (Berthoud & Loveland)

Cities and towns

Incorporated communities

Berthoud (town)

Estes Park (town)

Fort Collins (city)

Johnstown (town)

Loveland (city)

Timnath (town)

Wellington (town)

Windsor (town, historically in Weld County, but expanded into Larimer County in the 1990s).

Unincorporated communities

Bellvue

Buckeye

Campion

Cherokee Park

Drake

Glendevey

Glen Haven

LaPorte

Livermore

Kinikinik

Manhattan (ghost town)

Masonville

Old Roach (ghost town)

Pinewood Springs

Pingree Park

Poudre Park

Red Feather Lakes

Rustic

Teds Place

Virginia Dale

Waverly

National park

Rocky Mountain National Park is headquartered in Estes Park

National forest and wilderness

Roosevelt National Forest

Cache La Poudre Wilderness

Comanche Peak Wilderness

Neota Wilderness

Rawah Wilderness

State parks

Boyd Lake State Park

Lory State Park

Prehistoric site

Lindenmeier Site National Historic Landmark

National trails

Continental Divide National Scenic Trail

Greyrock Mountain National Recreation Trail

Mount McConnel National Recreation Trail

Round Mountain National Recreation Trail

Bicycle route

Great Parks Bicycle Route

Poudre River Trail

Scenic byways

Cache La Poudre-North Park Scenic and Historic Byway

Peak to Peak Scenic and Historic Byway

Trail Ridge Road/Beaver Meadow National Scenic Byway

Other features and attractions

Poudre Canyon

Virginia Dale

Colorado State University

Horsetooth Mountain

Medicine Bow Mountains

Front Range

See also

Heele County, Jefferson Territory

Colorado census statistical areas

Colorado counties

Colorado metropolitan areas

Colorado municipalities

Fort Collins-Loveland Metropolitan Statistical Area

Front Range Urban Corridor

National Register of Historic Places listings in Larimer County, Colorado

References

External links

Larimer County Government website

Rocky Mountain National Park website

Colorado County Evolution by Don Stanwyck

Colorado Historical Society

Community website for Larimer County specifically Fort Collins and the surrounding areas.

Category:Colorado counties Category:1861 establishments

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