Longmont Legacy

with Erik Mason,
Longmont Museum Director

Transportation has been an important part of Longmont’s story since its beginning. What is now Hwy 287 began as the Cherokee Trail, linking routes from Arkansas and Oklahoma with the Oregon Trail through Wyoming. By the time Longmont was founded, the Denver Pacific railroad line had cut the travel time between northern Colorado and the East and West Coasts to less than a week.

The arrival of the Colorado Central Railroad in Longmont in 1873 was celebrated with champagne and helped to ensure Longmont’s economic success. Roads in Longmont began to be paved in the 1910s, and a paved highway to Denver opened in 1926. While small airstrips existed around Longmont since the 1920s, Longmont’s Municipal Airport, now Vance Brand Airport, opened in October of 1945.

In the Spotlight:

Transportation in Longmont 

Captions:

1. 1. 1. 1. Paving project in the area of 1st Ave and Main St circa 1920-1939.
         2. On September 25, 1900, Teddy Roosevelt makes a campaign speech from the back of a train at the 1st and Main Station.
         3. Locally-grown beets are dumped into a train car from a horse-drawn wagon on wooden bridge circa 1900-1920.
         4. A black and white print of a photo from 1920 marked “Gene Miller’s Plane, Longmont.”
         5. Randy Fisher, 15, executes a 180-degree, mid-air turn bicycle trick from a ramp he built at Mountain View Elementary School, 1983. (Greg Ebersole, Longmont Times-Call)