The Roots of Longmont
By James Skeen
Pioneer Enoch Coffman believed that a chance meeting and a wagonload of wheat was the reason the town of Longmont was established.
Coffman came to Colorado in l86l at age 24. Like many other young men, he hoped to strike it rich in the gold fields. But when that didn’t happen, he began farming southeast of what later became Longmont.
In l870 the Chicago-Colorado Colony sent a group of men to locate a suitable site for about 200 settlers to establish a community in Colorado. Years later, Coffman told what happened when he met the locating committee:
“One fall day in l870, I was taking a wagonload of wheat to Denver. I met the Chicago-Colorado committee looking for a site.
“They had traveled from Fort Collins to (Colorado Springs) searching for a site. We stopped to pass the time of day, then one asked what I had in my sacks.
“’Wheat,’ I replied.
“’Mind if we see some of it?’ one asked.
“I opened several sacks and the men examined the wheat closely. It was clean, plump and heavy. Each man declared it was fine wheat and asked where it was raised.
“I explained I had come to the area in l86l, had selected land and farmed it for several years. I had the experience to answer their questions concerning the products the St. Vrain Valley could produce...
“I fully believe that my load of wheat displayed at that chance meeting was one of the deciding factors in the location of Longmont on its present site.”
Coffman later became a member of the colony’s board of trustees and a state legislator. He died in l937 at age l00. He had witnessed the beginning of a pioneer Colorado town.
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