Introducing Fort Morgan, Colorado

Fort Morgan, Colorado lies on I-76, 80 miles east of Denver in the northeast corner of the state. Thousands of travelers pass through, stopping for gas or sustenance, heading for the ski resorts or campgrounds of the mountains or adventures further west. And this has been Fort Morgan for hundreds of years, a place of rest and respite, on a journey elsewhere. Settlers moving west in the nineteenth century passed through this junction camping, hunting buffalo, grazing their horses on the grass along the South Platte River. For a road has always been here, a natural road used by Indian tribes on their journeys and it was used by the early explorers of the New World even before a country was formed.

To the casual traveler, the corner of northeastern Colorado looks very much like the flat plains of Nebraska; an empty place, devoid of landmarks, the land stretching out west with a maddening sameness, where a century ago a lone tree served as a landmark. It is a harsh land, where man and animal could die of thirst just miles from the river and the heat of summer or the cold of winter could snap a man. This was not a land of interesting rock formations or refreshing lakes, it was a desert prairie. Landmarks are few and far between along the South Platte River Road, but just at Fort Morgan, there is truly important landmark. At this point, observant travelers of today, just as the travelers of a century past, look west on a clear day and gain their first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains rising from the desert, the distant peaks glistening with snow. After trekking mile upon mile through the same desert, the weary traveler sees a glimmer of hope on the horizon – the beginning to the end of a journey:

"…towards night, the clouds which had been lowering around the western horizon cleared away, and discovered to us a beautiful bird’s eye view of the Rocky mountains. This sight was hailed with joy.... We saw the end of the march – the long-wished-for object of all our hopes. They at first resembled white conical clouds lying along the edge of the horizon. The rays of a setting sun upon their snow-clad summits gave to them a beautiful and splendid appearance."

The above quote is from a 1835 report submitted by Colonel Henry Dodge describing the progress of his company of soldiers across the plains. The view has changed little in the 165 years since Dodge’s expedition, the mountains still rise from the horizon, teasing the senses; the traveler questioning whether the sight is snowy peaks or cloud formations and much of the land.

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Painting of Long's Peak 1820 by Samuel Seymour, the painter on Stephen H. Long’s expedition west. Source: Longs Peak: The Story of Colorado's Favorite Fourteener. p. 40.

Source: Henry Dodge, “Dragoon Expedition – Indian Talks,” The Military and Naval Magazine of the United States, 6, 5, 1836, p. 325.