Longmont, Colorado is the 13th largest city in Colorado. It is located 31 miles northwest of Denver. The name comes from Longs Peak, which is a mountain located in Colorado and mont from the French word meaning mountain.
Today, it is said to be more of a residential and a very quiet area than what you would find in most city neighborhoods. Longmont has a total area of 21.8 square miles, and only .05% of this land is covered by water.
The city is an exurb of Denver. By 2016, it is said that the city will be the endpoint for the FasTracks commuter rail in Colorado. In June of 2006, Longmont was named the All-America City by the National Civic League. Money Magazine also ranked it number 61 out of 100 of the best places to live in the US. Longmont is also a sister city of Chino, Japan and Guzman, Mexico. The city was founded in 1871 by a group of people from Chicago.
This group had traveled and decided to find a new town in Colorado. Founded in 1871, the city was first known as the Chicago-Colorado Colony. Membership to enter the town was required and many sold and purchased land in order to live in the town. The town became the first planned in Boulder County. The town was one of the firsts to use ditches as a way of irrigation.
The ditches were used to bring water from the rivers to the fields of the farmers. The town's streets were created in a grid plan, and soon the city began to grow very rapidly. The town flourished agriculturally and the community grew even more when the Colorado Central Railroad was built. During the 1940s, the city became too populated and grew outside of its limits.
In 1941, over 2,000 soldiers from Longmont served in WWII. With the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans, many of them came to Longmont to work in the sugar beet fields. In 1950, the estimated population of Longmont was around 8,000 people. This was while the economy still solely relied on agriculture. However, crucial changes soon came. In the 1960s, the government built an air traffic control station.
Afterwards, IBM created a facility right outside of the town. Between 1960 and 1970, the population of Longmont doubled. With the economy based on agriculture ending in the early 1970s, Longmont's economy became based on all of the technology and businesses that were coming to be known.
In 2000, the population of Longmont was at 71,093 people.
Jeff Glenn is the author of numerous articles on Longmont Colorado, such as Longmont Colorado Jobs and Longmont Colorado Real Estate.
