Milestones: City of Longmont

The city of Longmont was founded in 1871 by a group of men from Chicago, Illinois looking for a better life.

The settlement initially was called the Chicago-Colorado Colony, and later was named Longmont for the excellent view of Longs Peak, a 14,000-foot mountain peak discovered in the 1820s and named after explorer Stephen Long.

Chicago-Colorado Colony officials had sent Seth Terry to locate a site in the West to move its colony from Chicago. He went as far north as Loveland and Fort Collins and finally settled on the Old Burlington area. Terry was impressed with the possibilities of the available…