Longmont Legacy

with Erik Mason,
Longmont Museum Director

Longmont began providing utility service to its residents in 1883 with the completion of a reservoir on Sunset hill and a network of underground pipes to provide fresh water to the town. In 1912, dissatisfaction with the private electric utility provider led to the construction of a hydroelectric power plant near Lyons and a municipally owned power system. The sanitary sewer system was built from 1904 to 1928, followed by trash collection starting in 1948. The most recent City utility, Nextlight high-speed internet, began operation in 2014. Very few cities provide all of these services to their residents.

Longmont modernized its government structure in 1961, when a community-based committee drafted a Home Rule Charter. The new charter provided for a City manager-Council form of government, which Longmont has had ever since.

In the Spotlight:

Longmont Utilities & History as a Home Rule Municipality

Captions:

1. Black and white photographic print of the Home Rule Charter Convention Delegates for the City of Longmont from 1961. Photograph shows twenty-one people, seventeen men and four women, posed behind a u-shaped table. Seven people are seated and fourteen are standing. The table is covered with notebooks, papers, ashtrays and a coffee cup. In the background is a blackboard and a bulletin board, with a small sign reading “Colorado State Chamber of Commerce.” The names of all present are typewritten at the bottom on the print.
2. The former Longmont Municipal Light & Power building, which remains well-known in Longmont today as the home of Cheese Importers, c. 1931, Hoffman Studio.
3. City Electrical worker Dean Wadle near 400 Main St. installing a new streetlight as the city moved into its final phase of putting street lights on a single, regulated circuit. Published in the Times-Call on March 7, 1975.
4. Longmont trash collectors empty a large trash container by hand in 1966.