Colorado history

Saturday, October 10, 2026

A senator gets a town, a Kansas man files papers after the Utes leave, and Denver goes from tank tops to single digits because October has range.

Crowley gets its papers, and a senator gets a town

1921 · Crowley, Crowley County

On Oct. 10, 1921, the Town of Crowley incorporated in Crowley County. The post office had opened in 1914. The town was named for State Senator John H. Crowley, who pushed for the county itself in 1911. Population in 2020: 166.

Crowley County split off from Otero in 1911 so people north of the Arkansas River could stop driving to Rocky Ford for county business. State Senator John H. Crowley of Rocky Ford did the lobbying. The town that took his name started as Bradbury around 1910, got renamed Crowley in 1913, and got a post office on Dec. 18, 1914. Incorporation waited until Oct. 10, 1921.

The ground underneath it was the Colorado Canal, started by T.C. Henry in 1888 and delivering water by 1891 to more than 50,000 acres. Sugar beets, melons, hay, and orchards made the place a shipping town on the Missouri Pacific. The school that is now the Crowley County Heritage Center went up in 1914 in Second Renaissance Revival, cupola and all. It is the only National Register property in the county.

The 1920 census already showed 224 people. The town peaked later, then the Depression, the Dust Bowl, and water sales to the Front Range took the bottom out. By 2020 the population was 166. Highway 96 runs through it between Ordway and Pueblo. The Heritage Center still keeps the cupola. The senator got the name. The canal did the rest.

The photograph is the old school from the southeast, taken in 2012. It was already a heritage center by then.

Sources: Wikipedia — Crowley, Colorado · Crowley County Heritage Center — history · Timeline of Colorado history — Wikipedia

Crawford files the Grand Junction Town Company, two weeks after the Utes leave

1881 · Grand Junction

On Oct. 10, 1881, George A. Crawford and partners incorporated the Grand Junction Town Company. The townsite had been staked Sept. 26 at the confluence of the Grand (now Colorado) and Gunnison rivers, weeks after the Utes were forced out of the valley.

The Utes were marched out of western Colorado in September 1881. On Sept. 26, George A. Crawford, Richard D. Mobley, M. Rush Warner, James W. Bucklin, Allison White, and H.E. Rood selected Section 14 at the junction of the Grand and Gunnison rivers. On Oct. 10 they incorporated the Grand Junction Town Company. Articles went to the Secretary of State on Nov. 19.

Crawford had already founded Fort Scott, Kansas. He named the place for the rivers. The municipal incorporation came later: voters said yes on June 22, 1882 (62 to 1), and the papers were finished July 19. The first train arrived that November. The river that was the Grand became the Colorado in 1921 by an act of Congress. The junction stayed.

For nearly three months after the papers were filed there was not a store or a saloon on the site. Provisions came from Gunnison or the Uncompahgre cantonment. The nearest post office was 75 miles away. A petition for one went out Nov. 5; the name Grand Junction was already in use. Crawford died in 1891 at the Hotel Brunswick on Main Street. The photograph is the confluence in 2020, Gunnison on the left of the tracks, Colorado coming in from the right. The town company is long gone. The rivers are still doing the job the name claimed.

The Ute removal is the part of the story that does not get a punchline.

Sources: City of Grand Junction — official data, Article XVIII · Colorado Encyclopedia — Grand Junction · Grand Junction Sentinel — what's in a name

Denver drops 70 degrees and sets a record low at 13

2019 · Denver

On Oct. 10, 2019, Denver set a record low of 13°F after reaching 83°F the day before. The 70-degree two-day swing was the largest ever recorded in October and tied for the second-largest in the city's history since 1872. First measurable snow of the season fell with it.

Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2019, topped out at 83 degrees. By midnight on the 10th the official station at Denver International Airport was at 13, a record low for the date (old mark 17 in 2009). The high that day never got out of the 20s. The 70-degree drop over two days was October's largest and tied for second place overall since records began in 1872. The biggest remains 76 degrees on Dec. 13–14, 2008.

A cold front had come through the previous evening with wind and dust. Temperatures fell 18 degrees in the first hour at the airport. Snow followed. DIA measured 1.0 inch on the 10th, the season's first measurable snow. The photograph is a later March snow on Republic Plaza, not this storm. The habit is the same: leaves still on the trees, a commute that was supposed to be ordinary, and a jacket that was in the closet because the forecast said 80s.

The next morning, Oct. 11, dropped to 9 degrees and broke that date's record by 13 degrees. October kept the joke going for the rest of the month. The date has also been 86, in 2020. Coat or T-shirt. October 10 has issued both, sometimes in the same 34 hours.

The other two stories on this calendar are about towns getting their papers. This one is about the weather getting the last word.

Sources: Denver Post — largest October temperature drop, Oct. 10, 2019 · Extreme Weather Watch — Denver Oct. 10 records · NWS Boulder — via ThorntonWeather Oct. 10 history