The Broomcorn Express, Quarterly Publication of the Broomfield Historical Society
Vol. 4, No. 4, Oct–Dec 2024
By Gail Elias, Broomfield Genealogy Society
On April 6, 2024, Broomfield (and much of the Front Range) was treated to 100 mph winds. On March 13, Broomfield got 14-22 inches of snow. Not news to us today—and not news to anyone who was living in what became the City and County of Broomfield a hundred years ago. In 1915, fourteen electric poles blew over between Broomfield and Westminster.1 In April of 1920, as described in the adjacent article, Joe Bonnell had quite an experience trying to walk from Broomfield to Lafayette.2 Joe’s experience was topped by the 1,800 Boulder-Denver autos who ran into trouble in July 1920 in two predictable trouble spots—Zang Hill (near the Depot) and Goodhue Hill (just north of Miramonte Boulevard—which wasn’t there yet).
Today, we have snow tires (studded or not) and chains. Tires today are typically about 8” wide; in the early 1900’s tires were about 3” wide3—the same size as today’s e-bike tires. Snow tires weren’t invented until 1934.4 While the snowplow was invented in 1913,5 it was designed for city—particularly New York City—use. Travel was a different experience—and that doesn’t even take into account the roads.
The Movement to Pave Roads
Something we might take for granted is the concept that roads are paved. The first road in the US was paved with asphalt in 1870—and it was in Newark, NJ.6 In 1915, the Colorado Department of Transportation reported that 196 miles of the 5,844 miles in the state system were paved.7 None of them appear to have been in Broomfield.
In 1912, an Indiana entrepreneur had the idea to build a paved highway from Times Square in NYC to Lincoln Park in San Francisco.8 The next year, when the Lincoln Highway was officially proclaimed, it included a loop through Colorado. The “Loop” left the main highway at Big Springs NE, with a diagonal to Denver and then straight north to Cheyenne WY. Today Highways I-76 and I-25 parallel the suggested route. It was included (allegedly) because Colorado had protested the decision to go straight across Wyoming after Colorado had supported the Hoosier tour.9 The Lincoln Highway Association “dropped” the Colorado Loop in 1915, but Colorado didn’t stop promoting the Colorado Loop. This was only the first of considerable “wheeling and dealing” around the Lincoln Highway.10
The only problem for Colorado was that none of these roads were paved and at least one, Highway 287, did not exist. In October 1913, State Primary Road No 2 was designated the Lincoln Highway and was marked with broad red, white and blue stripes. This highway ran (mostly) straight south from Longmont to Lafayette and then straight south to Broomfield. The Boulder Commissioners planned to gravel (not pave) this road in the spring.11
Navigating the gravel road appears to have been challenging at times—and the Historic Newspapers Collection includes numerous incidents of “people driving badly.” Clearly, that hasn’t changed. One more thing that hasn’t changed—the political fall-out. In January 1919, Boulder County Commissioner, S.A. Greenwood, wrote a letter to the editor of the Daily Camera complaining that “not all gravel is alike.” He noted that the stretch of road that Boulder had paved with gravel frequently experienced high winds—and the gravel simply blew away —and it wasn’t really gravel, just common dirt. This stretch was christened “the poorest stretch of road on the Lincoln Highway.”12
And there may be some good evidence for that. In June 1921, southbound motorists were advised to avoid the Lincoln Highway and to use the Marshall-Superior-Eversman Road detour. Northbound motorists were advised to go through Louisville—because the bridge over Coal Creek had been seriously damaged—and remember these were wooden bridges.13 And all of this after the State Highway Commission (CDOT’s parent) had appropriated $200 per mile to maintain the Lincoln Highway through this area and had acquired a new piece of equipment, a road scraper, to do the work.14 The following year, plans were made to pave the Lincoln Highway from Denver to the top of Zang Hill—and to address Goodhue Hill and the Railway Crossing as well.15 And just when you think that things couldn’t get any stranger—and that “politics” had taken a back seat to practicality, I have news for you. But you’ll have to wait for our next quarterly newsletter in August to find out what happened next.
Endnotes
1. Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection. Rocky Mountain News, Vol 56, Number 362, December 28, 1915.
2. Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection, the Lafayette Leader, Volume XVII, Number 16, April 23, 1920.
3. “Tire Size 101,” Coker Tire, https://www.cokertire.com/tire-size.
4. “Winter Tires,” TireCraft, https://tirecraft.com/resources/winter-tires-invented/.
5. “Snowplow,” Wikipedia, Rev. 20 August, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowplow.
6. “The American Roadway,” Gerken Companies, https://gerkencompanies.com/the-american-roadway-history-of-asphalt-pavement-and-our-countrys-highway-infrastructure.
7. “Historic Timeline,” Colorado Department of Transportation, https://www.codot.gov/about/CDOTHistory/centennial/timeline.
8. “Lincoln Highway,” Wikipedia, Rev. 10 September, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Highway.
9. “Origins of the Lincoln Highway,” A Brief History of the Lincoln Highway, https://www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/history/.
10. “Route of the Lincoln Highway,” Wikipedia, Rev. 12 September, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Highway.
11. Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection, Longmont Ledger, Volume XXXV, Number 8, October 13, 1913.
12. Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection, Boulder Daily Camera, Volume 28, Number 254, January 31, 1919.
13. Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection, Boulder Daily Camera, Number 72, June 10, 1921.
14. Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection, Boulder Daily Camera, Number 297, February 24, 1921.
15. Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection, Boulder Daily Camera, Number 285, February 10, 1922
Previously published in the quarterly publication of the Broomfield Genealogy Society.
