Haxtun

Haxtun, Colorado is a small statutory town and agricultural center in Phillips County on Colorado’s northeastern plains, located along U.S. Highway 6 with a population of just under 1,000 residents in the early 21st century.

History

Settlement in the Haxtun area began between about 1885 and 1887, when early homesteaders such as the Strohm family claimed land on the gently rolling, fertile prairie. A post office was established in 1888, and Haxtun officially became a town on July 1, 1909, after the Lincoln Land Company purchased local homesteads and the railroad branch line made it a focal point for surrounding farms. Miss Alice Strohm, one of the first settlers and the first postmaster, wanted the community named “Lillydale,” reflecting a more pastoral image for the new town. However, Mr. Emerson of the Lincoln Town (or Land) Site Company bought the land for one thousand dollars in gold and named the settlement Haxtun after his hometown on the Hudson River in New York. Haxtun grew steadily in the early 20th century as homesteads, businesses, banks, and grain facilities clustered around the rail line; by the mid 1900s it functioned as a full service small town for a wide rural trade area, likely approaching or exceeding 1,000 residents at its historic peak. Today the town’s population is listed as “just under 1,000,” indicating relative stability as a modest but intact community rather than a declining near ghost like some neighboring settlements.

Major industries

From its beginnings, Haxtun’s economy has revolved around farming and ranching, with settlers raising wheat, corn, sugar beets, and later other cash and feed crops on the surrounding plains. The town gained special notoriety for its high quality carrot production, and local boosters have long promoted Haxtun as the “Carrot Capital of the World,” with related processing, shipping, and celebratory events helping define its identity.

Geography

Haxtun lies in northeastern Colorado at roughly 40 degrees north latitude and 102 degrees west longitude, on the open High Plains in western Phillips County. It sits along U.S. Highway 6 between Sterling and Holyoke, at an elevation of about 4,200–4,300 feet, with the town fabric concentrated around the highway, former rail facilities, elevators, and a compact grid of residential streets. The area around Haxtun features gently rolling loess and sandy soils that proved attractive to homesteaders and later to intensive dryland and irrigated agriculture. Haxtun serves as a service and school center for a broad rural hinterland, with families in the area sometimes farming land that has been in the same operation since the early settlement era.

Obscure and Notable Facts

When a planned railroad branch line failed to reach Akron, much of the nearby town of Bryant was physically moved to Haxtun, including buildings and businesses, boosting the young town’s commercial importance in a dramatic early episode of regional consolidation. Early town minutes and anecdotes record vivid details of community life, including a 1911 ordinance requiring all new buildings to be constructed of fire resistant materials after a café fire killed an 11 year old girl, strict rules on water use enforced by fines, town funded medical care and a private nurse for a family struck by smallpox, and a special tax to support a town band that gave summer concerts at a bandstand in the middle of Colorado and Fletcher streets.