 Prior to the 18th Century, the only known human inhabitants of the area that one day would become known as “Colorado's Central Plains” were nomadic tribes of Native American Indians. Juan de Ulibarri may have been the first white explorer to enter this region, in 1706, but Pedro de Villasur almost certainly passed through here in 1720, en route to the area now known as Nebraska.
In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson bought a huge tract of land west of the Mississippi River, known as “The Louisiana Purchase,” and thus the Central Plains region became part of the United States. The area to become Colorado was included in four new U. S. territories, and our Central Plains region was a part of Kansas Territory.
Native American residents of this area were primarily members of the Arapahoe and Cheyenne tribes. Treaties with the Indians generally kept the peace…until the discovery of gold in Colorado in 1859. The discovery of gold in the Pikes Peak region brought hopefuls by the thousands, and one of the primary routes used by gold-seekers was the Smoky Hill Trail. Large numbers of cattle were driven north from Texas to provide meat for the miners, and several large cattle ranches were established on the Plains east of Denver as a result.
In an effort to bring civilization to the mining camps, the Leavenworth & Pikes Peak Express stage line began service through this region in the spring of 1859. This operation continued only a short while, then the line was moved in 1860 to the Oregon Trail route north of here. In 1865, another stage line began operations through here with the organization of the Butterfield Overland Dispatch company.
These developments were not acceptable to the Native American residents. Conflicts between them and the white newcomers continued to escalate, reaching their peak in 1864 with the attack on an Indian village at Sand Creek in November 1864 by troops led by Major John M. Chivington. The Indians' last forceful opposition came in 1870, as they made a number of vain attempts to stop the construction of the Kansas Pacific Railroad (later the Union Pacific), and its accompanying telegraph wires, in 1870.
 With the coming of the railroad came the need for local government. In February 1870, the territorial legislature created a new county from Arapahoe County, and named it after the chief engineer in charge of the Kansas Pacific Railroad, Colonel William H. Greenwood. The town of Kit Carson, which was the “end of the line” for the next two months, became the county seat of Greenwood County, Kansas Territory.
By 1874, however, the population of Greenwood County was so sparse that it could not maintain court or a county organization. The territorial legislature divided its territory between Elbert and Bent counties, and Greenwood County became the only county in Colorado's history to be abolished entirely.
In 1876, Colorado was granted statehood, and 12 years later, in 1888, a new railroad…the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific…entered the state about 35 miles north of the Union Pacific Railroad, then crossed the U. P. some 90 miles to the west at a point later known as Limon Station. Embryonic towns sprung up about every 12 miles along both lines, wherever the railroad maintained water storage for its steam engines.
With the towns came entrepreneurs whose ambitions resulted in three new counties …Cheyenne, Kit Carson and Lincoln…being carved out of Elbert and Bent counties in 1889, an alignment that continues to this day.
For the next dozen years or so, the large ranches (raising both cattle and sheep) and the railroads were the driving forces behind the local economy in these counties. But all things change. After the turn of the 20th Century, homesteaders flooded these counties, claiming virtually every available quarter-section of land; some of the “sodbusters” mastered the art of dry land farming and remained to found pioneer families here.
The population and the boom times peaked around 1920. In the following years, there were bank failures, followed by the Great Depression, and then World War II. The railroads phased out passenger service, and technological advances permitted them to phase out local mechanic shops and to reduce the force of section maintenance men. More and more young people moved to other areas to seek their fortunes, while the fewer and fewer who stayed home used new technologies to farm larger and larger parcels of land.
Today, agriculture continues as the backbone of the economy in our counties, but new technologies are opening other doors to our future. As we embrace this future, with all of its glowing promise, we now are eager to share with you our past…the stories of our growing up…stories from the heritage of Colorado's Central Plains.
(Information for this article is based, in large part, on Tri-County History: A Centennial, by Karlene McKean, Roleta Teal, Betty Jacobs and Mary E. Owen, with Terry W. Blevins, Editor, 1989.)
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