Messex, Colorado

Messex, Colorado
Unincorporated community
Messex, Colorado Location within the state of Colorado
Coordinates: 40°25′45″N103°26′11″W / 40.42917°N 103.43639°W / 40.42917; -103.43639 [1]
Country	United States
State	State of Colorado
County	Washington County
Elevation	4,088 ft (1,246 m)
Population  (2010)
• Total	2
Time zone	UTC-7 (MST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC-6 (MDT)

Messex, Colorado is a virtual ghost town in Washington County, Colorado. Its population in the 2010 census was 2, but has been several hundred in the past. Settled in the 1860s as a "Wild West" town, it became for a time a place where German immigrants grew sugar beets. In the 1990s, the population was about a dozen people, but it had declined to just 2 people by 2010. ^[2]

The community was named for Joe Messex, a railroad official. ^[3]

References

1. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Messex, Colorado
2. "A One-Horse Town Down to Two People".
3. Dawson, John Frank (1954). Place names in Colorado: why 700 communities were so named, 150 of Spanish or Indian origin. Denver, CO: The J. Frank Dawson Publishing Co. p. 35.