Milestones: City of Broomfield

The story of Broomfield is one of a community seeking to define itself and its destiny.

In the past 150 years, the community has gone from a way station on trails that led elsewhere to a bustling city of about 56,000 people.

Native American trails, stage coach lines and eventually railroads crisscrossed the land that would become Broomfield.

Settlers started moving to Broomfield and establishing homesteads in the 1860s. The community would retain its rural character for much of the next century.

The community would go unnamed until 1884, when the U.S. Postal Service began delivery to the area. The name is said to come from the type of corn grown in the area.

The most prominent figure in Broomfield’s early history was Adolph Josef Zang. The Zang family became one of Colorado’s richest through its mining claims and ownership of the Zang Brewing Company, which around the turn of the century was the largest brewery in the Rocky Mountain region.

Zang would eventually own 4,000 acres in what would become Broomfield. He used the property to raise horses and made several improvements, including building reservoirs and irrigation systems that served the community. The ranch became prominent enough that the Colorado Central Railroad built a spur to serve the ranch.

By the turn of the 20th century a small farming town had developed. What residents now know as “old Broomfield” grew up around the intersection of 120th Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard. The town had a bank, grocery and hotel. Silos that still stand were used to store grain, much headed to the Zang brewery. The community’s social and civic life got a boost in 1898, when residents organized the Crescent Grange, a cooperative society for farmers.

The city reached another milestone in 1909, when the Colorado and Southern Railway built a small brick depot.

Broomfield would remain a quiet farming town for several more decades, until another major transportation project changed its destiny.

In 1950, work started on the turnpike between Boulder and Denver.

The road, which was completed in 1952, had a single toll booth, which was built in Broomfield. The turnpike dramatically cut the time it took to drive from Boulder to Denver and opened up the area for residential and commercial development.

It was only a matter of time before people recognized Broomfield’s potential for growth. In 1955, the first planned residential subdivision, named Broomfield Heights, opened. The development, which is between U.S. Highway 287 and Main Street north of 120th Avenue, was planned, financed and built by the Turnpike Land Company.

The company had ambitious plans for the community it called Broomfield Heights, which it envisioned would grow to be one of the largest cities in Colorado. It never achieved that goal, but by the time Broomfield incorporated in 1961 it had about 6,000 residents.

Since then, Broomfield has seen steady population growth and economic expansion. Both have led to disagreements and occasional conflicts with neighboring communities, which reached a peak in the 1970s and 1980s during the so-called “annexation wars.”

Broomfield and neighboring cities like Westminster and Thornton competed against each other to expand their city limits and tax bases. In the 1980s, Broomfield would more than double its area, eventually expanding into parts of four counties – Boulder, Adams, Jefferson and Weld.

The annexations paid major dividends for Broomfield. Among the annexed lands are the Interlocken business park and the shopping centers around the FlatIron Crossing mall. The two commercial areas would become the driving forces in Broomfield’s economy, which flourished during the 1990s technology boom. Major companies such as Level 3 Communications Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc., Corporate Express and Ball Corp. would locate their headquarters or open large offices in Interlocken and neighboring office parks during the boom.

But Broomfield’s rapid growth would cause problems for its residents. Being split between four counties created problems for residents, who had to travel to Boulder, Brighton, Golden or Greeley to conduct county business such as filing property records or attending court proceedings. It also presented lawmakers and government officials with headaches, as the different jurisdictions had different goals.

The remedy for the problem came in 1998, when, after extensive lobbying in the Legislature, Broomfield succeeded in changing the Colorado Constitution. Colorado voters approved an amendment that allowed the city to secede from the four surrounding counties and create a hybrid city-county government. The City and County of Broomfield came into existence on Nov. 15, 2001.