Jacks Old Photos of Colorado

“Jessie,” the author of this postcard postmarked in Berthoud, writes to Mr. W. E. Deardurff in Morocco, Indiana, starting off by venting her pique at his failure to identify the people in the picture or pictures he had sent her. She writes:

“I wish you would come out and take me a ride in your ‘car.’ Who is that in with you? Have you ever tried marking your films? I just wrote on this with ink. It’s Mamma & Daisy and the youngsters cleaning up Russian thistles. They are a horrid pest here. Ans. Soon. Jessie“

The “Long View” in the caption at the bottom of the picture probably refers to the wonderful view of Long’s peak one can obtain from Berthoud. Berthoud, which straddles Larimer and Weld Counties, sits east of Hwy 287 between Loveland, which is about 7 miles to the north, and Longmont, which is about 11 miles to the south.

Berthoud owes its origin to Lewis Cross, a native of Virginia, who had been ranching outside of Golden, Colorado, which was then the Territorial Capitol of Colorado. Cross decided to stake a homesteading claim in the valley of the Little Thompson River in 1872. This was at a time when cattle ranchers in the area made use of the open range for grazing their stock.

Though Cross was far from the first to stake a claim in the area, it was the location of his claim which favored the development of a settlement. It was at the site where a well-traveled wagon road crossed the Little Thompson River. [The “Little Tommy” has its headwaters just south of the Big Thompson River in the Roosevelt National Forest in far northern Boulder County. It flows into Larimer County between Loveland and Longmont before joining the “Big Tommy” near its confluence with the South Platte River outside of Greeley.]

The wagon road ran between St. Louis, now known as Loveland, and Longmont. In 1877, the course of this road would become part of the route for the Colorado Central Railroad. The Central connected Golden with Cheyenne. When the railroad built the bridge to cross the Little Thompson, it also built a depot, a section house (a dwelling for the boss and crew that maintained that section of the line) and a water tank. The tiny settlement which grew here was known as Little Thompson, but was later named Berthoud, in honor of Edward L. Berthoud, who had surveyed the rail route through the valley.

Berthoud grew to include a handful of homes, as well as a mercantile store, blacksmith shop, small grain elevator and a log cabin, which served as both a church and a school. By the early 1880’s, the Colorado Central wanted to resolve the problem faced by its engineers in powering its steam locomotives, hauling loads of grain, from Berthoud up the steep grade out of the valley. So, in the winter of 1883-84, at the urging of the railroad and with little resistance from the citizens of Berthoud, most of its buildings, which had numbered fewer than a dozen, were moved — on skids pulled by teams of draft animals — to the town’s present-day location on the bluff one mile north of the Little Thompson.

Prior to this move, a man named Peter Turner had filed a plat on the bluff where the town of Berthoud would be re-located. It was located in the southeast corner of the 160 acres of land he had homesteaded and “proved up” the previous month. (“Proving up” meant you had lived on your homestead, built a home there, made improvements and farmed the land for 5 years.) The presence of the Handy Ditch satisfied the needs of the railroad for water, now that it would be coming through the newly re-planted Berthoud.

It was clear soon after the move that Berthoud would play an important part in the agriculture of southern Larimer County. The year 1884 saw 277,361 bushels of wheat; 67, 967 bushels of oats; 27, 205 bushels of barley; 4,800 bushels of corn; 48,000 pounds of potatoes and 24,000 pounds of pork shipped out of Berthoud on the Colorado Central.

Peter Turner started selling lots and the town began to grow. As early as January of 1884, two stores – the Munson & Company mercantile and the Bowman & Day grocery– and two blacksmith shops were in full operation. The blacksmiths were Pappy Fenton and a person named Mason. The Berthoud postmaster, who was none other than Lewis Cross, moved the post office from Old Berthoud to the back of Munson’s new store. A man by the name of Daniel Osborn opened a feed store equipped with a feed mill and corn sheller. He affixed a set of whistles to the steam engine powering his mill and blew them to let the farmers in the area know when he was producing fresh feed.

One merchant, Pat Murphy, did not experience success after opening a whiskey shop, also referred to as a saloon, in 1884. Even before he opened his place, the Fort Collins Courier reported, “It is sadly remembered that a whiskey shop will soon be opened. There is a genuine, determined opposition to such a foul attempt. The sentiment of the good people has long been known inasmuch as a protest fully signed met a former attempt to open a dram shop.” Poor Pat was out of business by November of that year. Looking back at the demise of his shop, a 1934 issue of the Berthoud Bulletin said that “Generally speaking Murphy’s saloon was an orderly place, but bullet holes in the walls and ceiling were reminders of at least one brawl in which there was gun play.”

When Lewis Cross’ daughter-in-law, Ida Cross, died in January of 1884, Lewis and other townsfolk decided their “new” Berthoud should have its own cemetery. Prior to that, burials had been made in surrounding towns, such as Burlington, which later became Longmont. A small parcel of land east of the “new” Berthoud was acquired one day after Ida’s death and subsequently given the name Greenlawn. Ida was buried there the following day.

Lewis Cross met his end on November 19, 1887, and is buried In Greenlawn, along with his wife, Susanna (Maudlin) Cross, and daughter-in-law, Ida.

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