The Johnstown sugar factory impacted not only the immediate area, but the entire sugar beet industry. This unique refinery was built to extract sugar from molasses and was the only successful plant of its kind in the world. Willard Letford was influential in convincing the company to locate here. In 1920, the GW Sugar Company…
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Harvey Jay Parish was born in Taylor County, Iowa on February 5, 1862. At four years old he travelled with his mother by rail over the then new Union Pacific railroad to Carney, Nebraska, and from there by stage to join his father at Namaqua, a settlement on the Big Thompson River on the far…
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Midnight was foaled in Alberta, Canada in 1910 on Jim McNab’s ranch, and he may still hold the title as the “greatest bucking horse of all time” by cowboys and rodeo fans alike. The stories conflict on how this horse started bucking – one states he was spooked by a Model T Ford that backfired….
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Alexander Graham Bell is credited with making the first telephone call in 1876 when he demonstrated his ability to “talk with electricity” by transmitting a call to his assistant, Thomas Watson. Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone that same year. This new invention created a new profession – that of the…
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Forde and Grace Beeten and their four children – Arthur, Louis, Herbert and Eleanor, moved to Johnstown from Fort Lupton, Colorado in 1915. Forde was transferred from the Colorado Condensed Milk Company there to the Johnstown factory as manager. In June 1916, Forde suffered severe burns while troubleshooting the cause of a power outage at…
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Did anybody say snow? On Saturday, April 22, 1920 around 4:00 a.m., one of the most terrific storms which has ever been experienced in Colorado began to rage and continued without intermission until late Monday afternoon. Great damage to livestock and to buildings is reported from some communities. Denver was threatened with a serious milk…
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Leslie (Babe) Byers, his wife Evelyn, and their young daughter Barbara moved to Johnstown in 1937 where Babe worked as a butcher for Hays Market. In 1940, he worked at the Red and White Grocery for Ed McClure until he purchased the Community Cold Storage in November 1941. He renamed it Byers Cold Storage. The…
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