CHS road marker program : Marker text

FORT MORGAN, RIVERSIDE PARK
Colorado Historical Society (CHS) marker located just off Main Street, north of I-76 exit 80, installed 1998

PANEL 1: FORT MORGAN
Junction Station, the first settlement at this site, suffered numerous Indian attacks similar to those that raged all along the South Platte during the mid-1860s. To protect the crucial crossroads, which joined the South Platte River Trail with its Denver cutoff, the U.S. Army established Camp Junction in 1864. In 1866 Fort Morgan, roughly the size of a city block, was completed. The post defended the Trail, but traffic soon shifted north to the transcontinental rail corridor, and Fort Morgan was abandoned in 1868. Sixteen years later Abner S. Baker founded the present-day town and named it after the old battle station. Today one of eastern Colorado's most important cities, Fort Morgan has anchored life on the plains for more than a century.

Rainbow Arch Bridge
From the day of its opening in August 1923, Rainbow Arch Bridge drew praise for its visual elegance; when, twelve years later, it withstood a devastating flood with nary a shudder, the span gained fame for its sturdiness, too. The first bridge to employ James B. Marsh's popular open-spandrel design, Rainbow Arch survived a second flood in 1965, but its narrow roadway couldn't keep up with the rising tide of Fort Morgan's traffic. City officials reluctantly closed the beloved structure in 1987, but after a five-year rehabilitation effort Rainbow Arch reopened to pedestrians and bicyclists in 1996. Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the 1,100-foot-long bridge remains one of the longest and grandest of its type.
Also found on this panel:
Photo of Bridge
(Caption) Though the eastern approach to Rainbow Arch Bridge washed out in the flood of 1935, the bridge itself solidly stood its ground, a testament to its designer, James B. Marsh, and local builder, Charles Sheeley of nearby Merino.
Colorado Historical Society

Fort Morgan panoramic photo
(Caption) Fort Morgan, 1908. Fort Morgan was named for Col. Christopher Morgan, a Civil War hero, a man who never came west of the Mississippi.
Colorado Historical Society

Drawing of Fort Morgan
(Caption) Fort Morgan, Colorado Territory. Wood was scarce at the time of Fort Morgan's construction since there were few trees along the Platte at the time. The Fort's wooden buildings were built in Denver and then fabricated on site.

PANEL 2: SUGAR BEETS
Sugar beets didn't become Colorado's first major cash crop by accident. Scientists, businessmen, and newspapers spent thirty years singing the praises of this starchy root, which as early as the 1860s was found to be perfectly suited to Colorado's climate and soils. Among their other virtues, beets provided a double harvest — the root yielded sugar, while the rest of the plant was marketable as livestock feed. It took decades for local planters to embrace this unfamiliar crop, but when they finally did so around 1900 the prairie economy took off. By 1920 the value of Colorado's beet harvest had multiplied twenty-fold, and Colorado had become the nation's top sugar-producing state, accounting for a third of U.S. output.

Great Western Sugar Company
For more than half a century, the Great Western Sugar Company helped drive the economy of Colorado's eastern prairies. The conglomerate built fifteen processing plants along the South Platte and Arkansas Rivers between 1901 and 1910, creating economic opportunity for local farmers, laborers, packers, shippers, and sundry other agents. Towns competed vigorously to attract Great Western mills, and no wonder: after Fort Morgan's factory opened in 1906, the city's land values soared from $40 to $250 per acre. Great Western prospered into the 1970s, but corporate neglect caused a steep decline; one by one its plants shut down. The Fort Morgan site closed in 1985 but reopened in 1986 under new ownership, and a new name--Western Sugar. Today it and a Greeley mill are all that remain of Great Western's sugar kingdom in Colorado.

Also found on this panel:
Photo of Beet Factory
(Caption) Great Western Sugar Factory, Fort Morgan c. 1915. Originally, the factory could process 600 tons of beets a day. Presently, Western Sugar can process more than 13,000 tons daily.
Colorado Historical Society

Photo of people harvesting sugar beets
(Caption) Harvesting beets c. 1925. Harvesting was labor intensive. The beets were pulled, topped, and placed in rows, then the crop was forked into a truck or wagon. After unloading at the beet dump, the workers returned to repeat the process again.
Courtesy Denver Public Library, Western History Collection

Photo of sugar beet dump
(Caption) Great Western Sugar Company beet dump, Fort Morgan, 1931. Once harvested, beets remain fresh for about 120 days, but loose their sugar content quickly, making speedy processing a necessity.
Courtesy Denver Public Library, Western History Collection

Photo of bags of sugar
(Caption) Processed and bagged sugar stored in the Fort Morgan warehouse.
Colorado Historical Society

Photo of cattle in field
(Caption) Cattle feeding on beet pulp, c. 1905. Pulp was probably the worst smelling and wettest by-product. Factories eventually installed pulp dryers to take care of the problem.
Courtesy Denver Public Library, Western History Collection