History Colorado

Check out the goods Clyde Stanley sold at the general store. Do you see any items or brands we still see on shelves today?

Keota's General Store

Windmill in Watkins, Colorado. Between 1937-2000, DeHarport photographed the southwestern United States, specifically focusing on Colorado and the Four Corners region. Much of his work focused on abandoned agricultural and mining towns in Colorado, as well as landscapes of the state's eastern plains.

Eastern Plains of Colorado, Late 1800s

A black and white photograph of the Keota baseball team and their rival baseball team. The rival team is standing in dark uniforms. Keota team sitting on the ground in white with "Keota" on the uniform front. 

People of Keota

What national and global events shaped Keota’s history?

Timeline of Events (1910s-1930s)

Why was the town of Keota settled by homesteaders?

Technology Developments

Engagement #2: Cause & Effect

What do you think is the most important factor that led to the settlement of the town of Keota? Complete the sentence below by choosing one of the 5 options, then explain why. Use the text tool to complete this activity.

Engagement #1: Complete the Sentence

Take a stroll through the town of Keota and see what everyone is doing. Any guesses about what the people of Keota used for toilet paper? Click through to find out!

Consider these questions as you explore the town; How was life in Keota different from life today? How is it similar?


A Day in the Life

Why was the town of Keota settled by homesteaders? Which of the events on the timeline seem like they may have been the most influential in the settlement of a new town?

Timeline of Events (1860s-1910s)

Anything you might have needed--and many things you probably didn't--could be ordered from one of Chicago's huge mail-order companies. Both Montgomery Ward (1872) and Sears (1888) catered especially to rural families. When Rural Free Delivery began in 1896, people living in towns like Keota had access to everything in the catalogs. The average family in Keota made three catalog orders a year, spending about $5 an order. Look through a selection of items from the Montgomery Ward catalog. How would you categorize the items available for purchase?

Montgomery Ward Catalog

How was life in Keota different from life today? How is it similar? Telegraphs were used to send messages in the past, use the telegraph to write your own message to a friend or family member. Explain some of the differences and similarities of life in Keota compared to life today that you've learned about. Make sure to write about at least 1 similarity and 1 difference.

Engagement #3: Telegraph about Life in Keota

It’s flat, windy, and dry--the middle of nowhere. The Eastern Colorado prairies look pretty bleak to most people. But to new homesteaders, they look like heaven. A family can prosper here and build for the future. There’s plenty of land (it’s free--just stake a claim), a railroad, a good school, and a strong community. Folks can support themselves, build some savings, and maybe leave something behind for the next generation. Keota doesn’t have everything, but it has all the things that matter. Freedom. Independence. Opportunity. Community. Those are the blessings that fill these empty prairies.


Why was the town of Keota settled by homesteaders?
What national and global events shaped Keota’s history? 
How does life today compare to living in Keota in the 1900s?

Little Town on the Plains: Keota, Colorado

Geography

Social Studies

U.S. History

At Keota's peak in the 1910s and 1920s, enough people lived in the town that the elementary school and high school were separate buildings. As families moved away during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, the schools were once again combined in the same building.

Circa, 1910-1930; The date of this photograph was determined when it was digitized and cataloged between the years 1994-1997 as part of the PhotosWest: Western History Imaging Project coordinated by the Denver Public Library. This project was funded through a three-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Boettcher Foundation. View of a school in Colorado. The one-story wood frame building has a covered porch and a belfry.

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Negative, Schoolhouse

Fae Oram grew up in the “sunshine corner house” with a green roof. The yellow house was brought to Keota by the railroad. From 1908 to about 1940, Sears sold houses by catalog, shipping most of the materials to build it on the railroad. Once the kit arrived, the new homeowner raised the house with the help of family, friends, and neighbors.  

Yellow house with green roof in Keota, Colorado.

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Photo of the House on Sunshine Corner, Keota, Sept. 1973

A woman’s workday is like the Eastern Colorado sky--there’s no end to it. You cook from scratch; make, alter, mend, wash and iron everyone’s clothes; cook, clean up, and cook again. You gather eggs, milk the cow, and tend the garden. If anyone in your family gets injured or sick, you’re the doctor and the nurse. And when a neighbor drops by for some coffee and small talk, she brings her mending, you get out your sewing kit, and you both keep working. 

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Photograph, Barn

Pumping water was an important daily chore on the homestead. Very few farming families had indoor plumbing in the 1920s, so they pumped water outside and brought it into the house in buckets for all their daily tasks, including cooking, washing clothes, and bathing. 

Since its creation centuries ago, ice cream has always been a popular treat. Children and adults went right to work churning the mixture of cream and sugar--or a powdered version with milk--and up to an hour later, it was ready! The first hand churns were invented in the 1840s, and are still around today. 

With little rain and no irrigation, Keota’s farmers had to use a technique called “dryland farming.” They plowed deeply in the fall to let water reach farther, harrowed (smoothed out the soil) after a rain to keep the moisture in the ground, and left lands fallow in the summer months. This method was only partly successful, and the soil was vulnerable to wind and erosion. When serious drought came in the 1930s, dryland farming was a major part of what led to the Dust Bowl.

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Men in Cornfield

No one in Keota had indoor plumbing. Outhouses (also known as privies) were a fact of life for homesteaders--even town folk. As one old-timer wrote, an outhouse is “a little house behind a big house, about 100 yards away. In wintertime, it’s 100 yards too far. In the summertime, it’s 100 yards too close.”

Auriel Oram and Ray by the Outhouse near Auriel's House in Midway, Colorado

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Although toilet paper was invented in 1857, it wasn’t very common -- or soft -- until 1935. Instead, homesteaders used pages torn out of Sears & Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs and Farmer’s Almanacs. 

Resource Kits

Object Library

Museums

Little Town on the Plains: Keota, Colorado

A Day in the Life

Keota School