Larimer County, Colorado

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Larimer County
County
Colorado State University Spruce Hall.jpg
Colorado State University Historic Spruce Hall
Map of Colorado highlighting Larimer County.svg
Location within the U.S. state of Colorado
Colorado in United States.svg
Colorado's location within the U.S.
Coordinates: 40°39′N105°28′W / 40.65°N 105.46°W / 40.65; -105.46
CountryFlag of the United States.svg United States
StateFlag of Colorado.svg  Colorado
FoundedNovember 1, 1861
Named for William Larimer, Jr.
Seat Fort Collins
Largest cityFort Collins
Area
 • Total2,634 sq mi (6,820 km2)
 • Land2,596 sq mi (6,720 km2)
 • Water38 sq mi (100 km2)  1.4%
Population
 (2020)
 • Total359,066
 • Density138/sq mi (53/km2)
Time zone UTC−7 (Mountain)
 • Summer (DST) UTC−6 (MDT)
Congressional districts 2nd, 4th, 8th
Website www.larimer.org

Larimer County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 359,066. [1] The county seat and most populous city is Fort Collins. [2] The county was named for William Larimer, Jr., [3] the founder of Denver.

Contents

Larimer County comprises the Fort Collins, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. 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.

History

Larimer County was created in 1861, and was named after General William Larimer.

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

Wagon trail pass near Fort Collins, Colorado, from a June 7, 1859, sketch Cherokee Pass2.jpg
Wagon trail pass near Fort Collins, Colorado, from a June 7, 1859, sketch

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, Mariano Medina established Fort 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 9 years 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 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

Fall colors, Poudre Canyon Fall colors, Poudre Canyon.jpg
Fall colors, Poudre Canyon

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 2,634 square miles (6,820 km2), of which 2,596 square miles (6,720 km2) is land and 38 square miles (98 km2) (1.4%) is water. [4]

Adjacent counties

Major highways

National protected areas

State protected areas

Demographics

Historical population
CensusPop.Note%±
1870 838—
1880 4,892483.8%
1890 9,71298.5%
1900 12,16825.3%
1910 25,270107.7%
1920 27,87210.3%
1930 33,13718.9%
1940 35,5397.2%
1950 43,55422.6%
1960 53,34322.5%
1970 89,90068.5%
1980 149,18465.9%
1990 186,13624.8%
2000 251,49435.1%
2010 299,63019.1%
2020 359,06619.8%
2023 (est.)370,771 [5] 3.3%
U.S. Decennial Census [6]
1790–1960 [7] 1900–1990 [8]
1990–2000 [9] 2010–2020 [1]

As of the census [10] 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 people/km2). There were 105,392 housing units at an average density of 40 units per square mile (15 units/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. Of all households 23.40% 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.

Communities

Cities

Towns

Census-designated places

Unincorporated communities

Ghost towns

Politics

Larimer was long a Republican stronghold. Between 1920 and 2004, the only Democratic presidential candidate to win a majority of votes in the county was Lyndon Johnson in 1964. However, increasing urbanization, as well as the influence of Colorado State University, caused the Republican margins to decline steadily in the 1990s and early 2000s. In 2008, Barack Obama became the first Democrat to carry the county with the majority of the vote since 1964, and in so doing recorded the best performance by a Democrat since the days of Woodrow Wilson and William Jennings Bryan. In 2020, Joe Biden's margin of victory was even greater.

Larimer County is a state-level bellwether county; as of the 2020 election, it has voted for the statewide winner in every election since 1948, when Harry Truman carried Colorado without it.

United States presidential election results for Larimer County, Colorado [11]
Year Republican Democratic Third party
No. %No. %No. %
2020 91,48940.78%126,12056.22%6,7293.00%
2016 83,43042.57%93,11347.51%19,4389.92%
2012 82,37645.72%92,74751.47%5,0572.81%
2008 73,64244.26%89,82353.99%2,9101.75%
2004 75,88451.82%68,26646.62%2,2861.56%
2000 62,42952.67%46,05538.85%10,0538.48%
1996 45,93547.14%40,96542.04%10,55010.83%
1992 35,99536.12%38,23238.36%25,43325.52%
1988 45,96755.34%35,70342.98%1,3961.68%
1984 49,88366.65%23,89631.93%1,0691.43%
1980 36,24056.51%17,07226.62%10,81716.87%
1976 32,16960.72%19,00535.87%1,8093.41%
1972 27,46265.02%13,73132.51%1,0412.46%
1968 18,43862.13%9,15230.84%2,0867.03%
1964 11,63647.33%12,77651.97%1730.70%
1960 15,67167.39%7,55032.47%340.15%
1956 14,36471.77%5,61228.04%390.19%
1952 14,48472.93%5,26626.52%1100.55%
1948 9,81357.63%7,06241.47%1540.90%
1944 9,91465.46%5,17234.15%580.38%
1940 10,72062.15%6,40237.12%1260.73%
1936 7,24347.59%7,52149.41%4573.00%
1932 7,04049.87%6,49446.00%5844.14%
1928 8,21370.94%3,20327.66%1621.40%
1924 6,53866.65%1,97020.08%1,30113.26%
1920 5,48764.34%2,70831.75%3333.90%
1916 2,79734.18%4,86859.49%5186.33%
1912 1,93226.98%2,59736.27%2,63236.75%
1908 4,48951.09%3,62941.30%6687.60%
1904 4,13862.64%2,07031.34%3986.02%
1900 2,34345.84%2,45648.05%3126.10%
1896 73418.11%3,19578.83%1243.06%
1892 97543.05%00.00%1,29056.95%
1888 1,32258.31%76933.92%1767.76%
1884 1,03854.01%64433.51%24012.49%
1880 64653.26%38831.99%17914.76%

Education

Fort Collins is home to Colorado State University.

Recreation

Greyrock Mountain trail Poudre Canyon, Greyrock trail.jpg
Greyrock Mountain trail

Prehistoric site

National trails

Bicycle route

Scenic byways

Other features and attractions

See also

Notes

    Related Research Articles

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Collins, Colorado</span> City in Colorado, United States

    Fort Collins is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Larimer County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 169,810 at the 2020 census, an increase of 17.94% since 2010. Fort Collins is the principal city of the Fort Collins, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area and is a major city of the Front Range Urban Corridor. The city is the fourth most populous city in Colorado. Situated on the Cache La Poudre River along the Colorado Front Range, Fort Collins is located 56 mi (90 km) north of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. Fort Collins is a midsize college town, home to Colorado State University and Front Range Community College's Larimer campus.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Weld County, Colorado</span> County in Colorado, United States

    Weld County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 328,981. The county seat is Greeley.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Berthoud, Colorado</span> Town in Colorado, United States

    Berthoud is a statutory town located in Larimer and Weld counties, Colorado, United States. The town population was 10,332 at the 2020 United States Census with 10,071 residing in Larimer County and 261 residing in Weld County. Berthoud is situated north of the Little Thompson River, 21 miles (34 km) south of Fort Collins and 43 miles (69 km) north of Denver in the Front Range Urban Corridor.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Campion, Colorado</span> Unincorporated community in State of Colorado, United States

    Campion is an unincorporated community located in southeastern Larimer County, Colorado, United States. A former census-designated place (CDP), the population was 1,832 at the United States Census 2000.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Laporte, Colorado</span> Census Designated Place in Colorado, United States

    Laporte is an unincorporated town, a post office, and a census-designated place (CDP) located in and governed by Larimer County, Colorado, United States. The CDP is a part of the Fort Collins, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. The Laporte post office has the ZIP Code 80535. At the United States Census 2020, the population of the Laporte CDP was 2,409.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Loveland, Colorado</span> City in Colorado, United States

    Loveland is the home rule municipality that is the second most populous municipality in Larimer County, Colorado, United States. Loveland is situated 46 miles (74 km) north of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver and is the 14th most populous city in Colorado. As of the 2020 census the population of Loveland was 76,378. The city forms part of the Fort Collins-Loveland Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Front Range Urban Corridor. The city's public schools are part of the Thompson R2-J School District.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Windsor, Colorado</span> Town in Colorado, United States

    Windsor is a home rule municipality in Larimer and Weld counties in the U.S. state of Colorado. According to the 2020 census, the population of the town was 32,716. Windsor is located in the Northern Colorado region.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Buckeye, Colorado</span> Unincorporated community in Colorado, U.S.

    Buckeye is a farming and ranching unincorporated community in north central Larimer County, Colorado, United States. Bounded on the west by the 16,500-acre (67 km2) Roberts Ranch, the area includes Red Mountain Open Space to the north, Rawhide flats to the east, and extends south to Owl Canyon.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Colorado State Highway 14</span> State highway in Colorado, United States

    State Highway 14 in the U.S. state of Colorado is an east–west state highway approximately 237 miles (381 km) long, making it the longest state highway in Colorado. It traverses four counties along the northern edge of the state, spanning a geography from the continental divide in the Rocky Mountains to the Great Plains, and including North Park, the Poudre Canyon, and the Pawnee National Grassland. It provides the most direct route from Fort Collins westward via Cameron Pass to Walden and Steamboat Springs, and eastward across the plains to Sterling.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Poudre Canyon</span>

    The Poudre Canyon is a narrow verdant canyon, approximately 40 miles (64 km) long, on the upper Cache la Poudre River in Larimer County, Colorado in the United States. The canyon is a glacier-formed valley through the foothills of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains northwest of Fort Collins.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Bellvue, Colorado</span> Unincorporated community in State of Colorado, United States

    Bellvue is an unincorporated community and U.S. Post Office in Larimer County, Colorado. It is a small agricultural community located in Pleasant Valley, a narrow valley just northwest of Fort Collins near the mouth of the Poudre Canyon between the Dakota Hogback ridge and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The ZIP Code of the Bellvue Post Office is 80512.

    Jacob Flowers was an early white 19th century settler in Larimer County, Colorado. He was the founder of the town of Bellvue northwest of Fort Collins.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Antoine Janis</span>

    Antoine Janis was a 19th-century French-American fur trader and the first white homesteader in Larimer County, Colorado, in the United States. The first recorded permanent white settler in northern Colorado, he founded the town of Laporte in 1858.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Camp Collins</span>

    Camp Collins was a 19th-century outpost of the United States Army in the Colorado Territory. The fort was commissioned in the summer of 1862 to protect the Overland Trail from attacks by Native Americans in a conflict that later became known as the Colorado War. Located along the Cache la Poudre River in Larimer County, it was relocated from its initial location near Laporte after a devastating flood. Its second location downstream on the Poudre was used until 1866 and became the nucleus around which the City of Fort Collins was founded.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">North Fork Cache la Poudre River</span> River

    The North Fork Cache la Poudre River is a tributary of the Cache la Poudre River, approximately 59.2 miles (95.3 km) long, in north central Colorado in the United States. It drains a mountainous area of north central Larimer County northwest of Fort Collins on the western side of the Laramie Foothills.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Colorado's 2nd congressional district</span> U.S. House district for Colorado

    Colorado's 2nd congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Colorado. The district is located in the north-central part of the state and encompasses the northwestern suburbs of Denver including Boulder and Fort Collins. The district also includes the mountain towns of Vail, Granby, Steamboat Springs, and Idaho Springs. Redistricting in 2011 moved Larimer County, including the cities of Fort Collins and Loveland, to the 2nd from the 4th district. Meanwhile, redistricting in 2021 moved Loveland back to the 4th district and Broomfield and western Jefferson County to the 7th district.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Collins – Loveland Metropolitan Statistical Area</span> Metropolitan Statistical Area in Colorado, United States

    The Fort Collins – Loveland Metropolitan Statistical Area is a United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) defined Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) located in the Fort Collins and Loveland area in the North Central region of the U.S. state of Colorado. The Fort Collins–Loveland MSA is defined as Larimer County, Colorado. The Census Bureau estimates that the population was 362,533 in 2021. The Fort Collins–Loveland MSA is the 150th most populous MSA in the United States.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">North Central Colorado Urban Area</span> Metropolitan area of Colorado

    The North Central Colorado Urban Area comprises the four contiguous metropolitan statistical areas in the north central region of the State of Colorado: the Denver–Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area, the Boulder Metropolitan Statistical Area, the Fort Collins-Loveland Metropolitan Statistical Area, and the Greeley Metropolitan Statistical Area. With the exception of southeastern Elbert County, southeastern Park County, and tiny portions of southern Douglas County, the entire North Central Colorado Urban Area is drained by the South Platte River and its tributaries. The North Central Colorado Urban Area is the central, and the most populous, of the three primary subregions of the Front Range Urban Corridor.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization</span>

    The North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization (NFRMPO) is an association of 15 local governments working together to improve regional transportation and air quality. The NFRMPO does long-range and short-range planning, and prioritizes which projects in those plans will receive state and federal funding. The goal of the NFRMPO is to enhance air quality and mobility among northern Colorado communities, and between the North Front Range and the Denver Metro area, by developing cooperative working relationships and financial partnerships among its member governments: Berthoud, Eaton, Evans, Fort Collins, Garden City, Greeley, Johnstown, Larimer County, LaSalle, Loveland, Milliken, Severance, Timnath, Weld County, and Windsor, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), and the private sector, giving local governments a voice in regional transportation planning.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Front Range urban corridor</span> Megaregion in Colorado and Wyoming, United States

    The Front Range Urban Corridor is an oblong region of urban population located along the eastern face of the Southern Rocky Mountains, encompassing 18 counties in the US states of Colorado and Wyoming. The corridor derives its name from the Front Range, the mountain range that defines the western boundary of the corridor which serves as a gateway to the Rocky Mountains. The region comprises the northern portion of the Southern Rocky Mountain Front geographic area, which in turn comprises the southern portion of the Rocky Mountain Front geographic area of Canada and the United States. The Front Range Urban Corridor had a population of 5,055,344 at the 2020 Census, an increase of +16.65% since the 2010 Census.

    References

    1. 1 2 "State & County QuickFacts". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved September 5, 2021.
    2. ↑ "Find a County". National Association of Counties. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
    3. ↑ Gannett, Henry (1905). The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States. U.S. Government Printing Office. p.  181.
    4. ↑ "US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990". United States Census Bureau. February 12, 2011. Retrieved April 23, 2011.
    5. ↑ "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Counties: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2023". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved March 31, 2024.
    6. ↑ "U.S. Decennial Census". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
    7. ↑ "Historical Census Browser". University of Virginia Library. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
    8. ↑ "Population of Counties by Decennial Census: 1900 to 1990". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
    9. ↑ "Census 2000 PHC-T-4. Ranking Tables for Counties: 1990 and 2000" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 27, 2010. Retrieved June 8, 2014.
    10. ↑ "U.S. Census website". United States Census Bureau . Retrieved May 14, 2011.
    11. ↑ Leip, David. "Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections". uselectionatlas.org. Retrieved November 27, 2020.
    12. ↑ Park R3
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