The Local Greeley Colorado Area

The City of Greeley is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Weld County, Colorado. Greeley is located in (or just west of) the area previously occupied by the Overland Trail station of Latham (originally called the Cherokee City Station). The Latham station (also known as Fort Latham) was built in 1862 and named in honor of Milton S. Latham, one of California's early senators. The stagecoach station was at the confluence of the South Platte River and the Cache la Poudre River. The web site www.Over-Land.com describes it as "probably the most important and busiest facility on the Overland Trail" (since it was a river crossing and a junction point for the spur of the Trail south to Denver). It is believed that here occurred the birth of the first white child born in Colorado, a girl. Fort Latham was the headquarters of the government troops during the Indian troubles of 1860-64 and the county seat (the post office being called Latham). Greeley began as the Union Colony, which was founded in 1869 as an experimental utopian community "based on temperance, religion, agriculture, education and family values." by Nathan C. Meeker, a newspaper reporter from New York City. Meeker purchased a site at the confluence of the Cache la Poudre and South Platte Rivers (that included the area of Latham, an Overland Trail station), halfway between Cheyenne and Denver along the tracks of the Denver Pacific Railroad formerly known as the "Island Grove Ranch." The name Union Colony was later changed to Greeley in honor of Horace Greeley, who was Meeker's editor at the New York Tribune, and popularized the phrase "Go West, young man". James A. Michener attended Colorado State College of Education, now the University of Northern Colorado, from 1936–1937. He was a Social Science educator at the Training School and at the College from 1936-1941. He conceived the idea for his acclaimed 1976 novel Centennial during his stay in Greeley, basing it on the real history of the town and the Colorado region.