Weld County celebrates 150th birthday

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Weld County.
    To commemorate the life of one of the 17 original counties in the Colorado territory, Weld County will feature a year-long series of historical stories, artifacts and photographs. The website launched Tuesday at www.weldcounty150.org.

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This quilt, which hangs in the Dacono Library, was created by Mary Gavin and other local seniors to commemorate Dacono’s centennial. Weld County is looking for historical items to help celebrate the county’s 150th birthday.

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    Each month, the site will feature a different topic of the county’s history – along with articles about the formation of the county and tidbits of historical notes about life in Weld County 150 years ago.
    Though the county has historical information on each province in its region, staff is also asking longstanding residents to share their own connections to the area’s past.
    The stories representing Weld County’s past 150 years will feature factual accounts and images of people, places, events and things – including animals, vegetables and minerals.
    Currently, the county is looking for records of agriculture, businesses, cities and towns, education, natural resources, transportation and law enforcement, including courts and sheriffs.
    Residents are able to share their stories on the “Your Stories” page of the website.
    This month, the site features a two-page handwritten letter dated 1861 – the year that Abraham Lincoln became President.
    According to Nancy Lynch, with the city of Greeley Museums, in 1861, Lincoln appointed Lewis Ledyard Weld, whom Weld County was named after, as the Territorial Secretary of Colorado.
    Weld was a lawyer who left Colorado to join the Union Army during the Civil War. He died during his service.
    Also in 1861, the U.S. Congress formed Weld county using parts of the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas.
    Lynch helped compile historical information and data on the forming of Weld County and its development over the years, which she recounts on the site in “Old Weld County 1859-1887.”
    The two-page letter, which was randomly e-mailed to Weld County staff in December, was also signed by Weld.
    According to the site, Alan Deutsch inherited the letter from his father, Ben M. Deutsch, who inherited the letter from his father who owned a bookstore in Washington, D.C. in the 1920s. The letter was found in an old book in the store.
    Planning for the 150th Anniversary was a project that took more than a year. Volunteers from across the county participated in committees, boards, research and organizing events.
    In Dacono, Mary Gavin is acting as a liaison and local historian for the city. Her stories, and a few that she has collected from some of the city’s oldest residents, will be featured next month on the Weld County 150th Anniversary website.
    Frederick, Firestone and Dacono were incorporated in 1908 and were primary underground mining areas.
    Dacono was settled in 1901 and incorporated in 1908 by Arthur P. Church, Marion W. Church and Charles Lockhard Baum. Baum named the town “Dacono” using the first two letters of three women’s names: Daisy, Cora and Nora.
    Gavin, a 30-year resident of Dacono, began collecting historical accounts of the city when she was appointed to City Council in 1995. In preparation of Dacono’s Centennial celebration, Gavin talked with seniors in the area and did some digging in the city’s minutes to come up with old photographs, newspaper clippings and stories.
    According to Gavin, Weld County will use two historical accounts that she put together from the Robinson family and the Bachy family.
    “I’m interested in the actual accounts of people who lived here,” she said. “It’s history in their own words.”
    Her stories range from one about a flood in Dacono that affected all three of the Tri-Towns, the first two Dacono police cars – a Ford Pinto and a Rambler –  to a hotel in Dacono that was one of the first in the area in the early 1900’s.
    Gavin talked about miners who would sometimes freeze in the winter just walking home from the mines.
    During World War II, when nylons for women were hard to get, the Dacono general store had the only supply of nylons for a long way, said Gavin. Women from all around Denver would come up to get their nylons.
    When a movie house was built in Fort Lupton, Gavin said kids from the city would walk there to catch a film.
    “These memories are precious to the people that originally lived here,” she said. “Losing the people that started Dacono has been one of the saddest things I can remember.”
    Gavin hopes the city will eventually be able to build a new city hall and use the present one as the city’s museum.
    From merchants who have always seemed to know their patrons by name, Gavin said Dacono has been an exceptionally nice place to live.
Her most exciting memory of the city was when Dacono became a Home Rule city.
The 150th Anniversary Celebration will come to a close Nov. 21, with an open house at the new Weld County Administration Building.
    A traveling road show will run throughout 2011 and feature a series of educational displays highlighting the county’s history and the history of some of Weld County’s 31 incorporated towns.
    The first show will take place at the Weld County Farm show Jan. 25-27 at Island Grove Regional Park in Greeley.
    To read more stories and history about Weld County, visit www.weldcounty150.org.
    For information about Weld County’s 150th Anniversary, contact Glen Czaplewski, 970-356-4000 ext. 4238, or Jennifer Finch, 970-356-4000 ext. 4702.