The term community encompasses a range of settlement types. Some were small towns with a collection of residential, community, and commercial buildings. More often a community was simply a grouping of small buildings that might include a store, school, and post office serving the surrounding agricultural community. And many were simply a dispersed community of homesteaders centered around a rural post office and perhaps a school. Rural communities could be spread across several square miles, but still provided a strong sense of identity for homesteaders. They relied on fellow community members to combat the isolation of living on widely dispersed farms. The community was also a support network and neighbors assisted each other with the harvest and other farming and ranching activities. Today many of the region’s communities are marked by little more than a vacant store or schoolhouse due to population decline and improved transportation to larger commercial centers. Three towns survive within the project: Branson, Hoehne, and Kim.
5LA.11901 Hoehne Blacksmith Shop .
5LA.11940 Branson Jail .
Historic Contexts
Dozens of communities were once scattered through the survey region. Their establishment coincided with population growth sparked by railroad promotion, agricultural speculation and homesteading booms. Although isolated on their individual homesteads, settlers on the plains of southeastern Colorado relied on local communities for their economic and social needs. Homesteaders traveled to nearby communities to purchase goods and services and to sell their crops and livestock as well as for church meetings or local dances. Entrepreneurs were often drawn to newly settled regions in search of underserved markets.
Cultural Resources Survey of the Purgatoire River Region
Commerce and Community
Site types: • • • •
Commercial buildings Post Offices Jails Active and Abandoned Communities
5LA.11844 Lone Oak Post Office
5LA.11899 Hoehne Store
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