Louviers sits just west of Highway 85, about 12 ½ miles north of Castle Rock and 21 miles south of Denver.    Just as Dacono was known as a coal town and Pueblo a steel town, Louviers was known as a dynamite town.  The town was built in 1908 by the Dupont Company to house the workers for its dynamite production plant, which would manufacture explosives for mining, oil exploration and road building in Colorado.  Louviers was named for the wool-growing town in France that was the home of Dupont founder Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, a French-American chemist and industrialist.

Dupont built 85 houses for its workers on a hill, in three sections:  at the bottom of the hill were the 384-square-feet homes for the workers; further up the hill were the slightly bigger houses for foremen, and at the top of the hill; known as “Capitol Hill,” were the larger and more lavish homes built for the plant manager, assistant managers and company physician.  It appears that Dupont treated its employees well, providing electricity and coal and charging rent as low as $7.00 per month.  The company doctor was responsible for the health needs of the entire community.

The dynamite plant comprised 94 buildings on 1800 acres.  Because dynamite is built around nitroglycerin, a volatile, oily liquid, the buildings housing critical functions were built against a hill (certainly a different hill than the one the houses sat on!) and surrounded by retaining walls.  

There were accidents.  In July, 1911, three Dupont employees – Augustus Hoppie, William Humple and Hans Lervig — lost their lives when one of the plant’s buildings containing nitroglycerin blew up.  The force of the detonations so shook residents of nearby Littleton that some exited their homes, thinking they were experiencing an earthquake. 

In the 1960’s Dupont started cutting back on production and began selling its houses.  By the mid-80’s, the plant was shut down for good.   But quite a number of residents stayed, finding jobs elsewhere.  As of 2015, Louviers’ population count was 296. 

I wish I knew more about the church in the picture.  It’s interesting to note the solid roof and American flag on the far side of the tent.

REFERENCES:

• Blast from the Past,” by Harrison Fletcher, Westword, dated March 11, 1999 at https://www.westword.com/news/blast-from-the-past-5059652

• Distance between Cities at www.distance-cities.com

• “Kiowa County Press” dated July 21, 1911 ( www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org   )

• “Louviers – Colorado’s only bonafide ‘boom’ town,” The Castle Pines Connection, August 1, 1915, at https://www.castlepinesconnection.com/louviers-colorados-only-bonafide-boom-town/

• Mapquest at www.mapquest.com

• “Éleuthère Irénée du Pont,” Wikipedia at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89leuth%C3%A8re_Ir%C3%A9n%C3%A9e_du_Pont