History Colorado

Learn more about the people of Keota throughout the rest of their lives. 

More About the People of Keota

Water tower in Keota. Photo taken November 8, 2010 by History Colorado staff. 

Ghost Town

Explore key local, national, and global events that impacted the town of Keota.  

Timeline

Around the Homestead: The Barn

No one in Keota had indoor plumbing. Outhouses (also known as privies) were a fact of life for homesteaders--even town folk. Enjoy these pictures of historic outhouses and appreciate how fortunate most of us are to have modern plumbing!

Around the Homestead: The Outhouse

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. 

Keota School

Although Keota was always a small town, by 1920 it had grown enough to be counted on the national census, with 129 people living in the town itself. In this activity, meet six of Keota’s residents and learn about what they do everyday.


Meet the People of Keota

Keota was a dryland farming community on the Eastern Plains of Colorado that began in the 1860s after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act. The Homestead Act granted Americans 160-acre plots of public land provided they lived on it, improved it, and paid a small registration fee. Explore the map of Colorado to learn more about the land around Keota. 

Little Town on the Plains

Detail of map showing the stops on the Burlington Railroad line in Colorado. 

The CB&Q Railroad and the Telegraph

Some women embraced homesteading as a symbol of independence, and most female homesteaders in the Keota area proved up their claims alone. A minority shared claims with male relatives or husbands. Mary Beardsley proved up her claim on what is now Keota in 1889. In this activity, explore objects around one house in Keota -- that still stands today -- and the importance of women's work on the homestead. 

Around the Homestead: The Yellow House

There’s always something going on at Clyde Stanley’s store. He sells groceries and hardware, publishes the newspaper, files homestead claims and takes catalog orders, brings the mail in and sends it out. Short on cash? Not to worry; you can pay your bill with spare eggs or cream from your farm. If you want to do business, swap gossip or just see a friendly face, Stanley’s is the place.  Check out the goods Clyde Stanley sold at the general store and learn about the long history of brands we still see on shelves today!

General Store

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. But they didn't always have the money needed to make purchases. Farmers traded goods and services more often than they used cash. 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 and discover how much they cost in the 1920s!

Montgomery Ward Catalog

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, 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. 


This resource kit addresses the essential question 

How was life in Keota different from life today? How is it similar? 

Supporting questions addressed by specific activities include:

What was daily life like in Keota 100 years ago?

How did technology differ from what we use today? 

What national and global events shaped Keota’s history? 

For more, visit History Colorado's Primary Source Set: 

https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/media/document/2018/keota_primary_resource_set.pdf

Little Town on the Plains: Keota, Colorado

U.S. History

Social Studies

We built this school ourselves. Most days, we send our kids here instead of putting them to work on the farm--a hard choice when you’re trying to make ends meet. But our children are Keota’s future, and education is their path to prosperity. Though the school is small, it inspires great devotion and pride. Everyone turns out for basketball games, track meets, concerts, and graduations. 


In the West, schools signified permanence, civility, and opportunity--the very things families valued when considering a move to the frontier. At the town’s peak, the high school and the elementary school had separate buildings. As families moved away during the Great Depression, the schools were once again combined in the same building. After World War II, many small communities across the rural West lost their schools as students went off to consolidated schools in larger towns. The Keota School closed in 1951, and students were sent to nearby Briggsdale or Grover, both towns that still exist today. 

View of a school in Colorado. The one-story wood frame building has a covered porch and a belfry.


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Schoolhouse

"Sometimes I think about this school and I just get tears in my eyes—how the people around here came together to build it, knowing the most important thing they could do for their children was give them a good education. And it’s a fine building, just as nice as anything you will find in Greeley or Denver. I think of it as a testament, to the children and to the bright future and I know I am in the right place even though my classmates at college laughed at me coming back to a little speck on the prairie when I could get a better paying job in the city—well, they just don’t see things as I do. I know I am educating the brightest minds in Colorado and that is the most important job there is."

In 1917, the growing town of Keota addressed school management problems with educators from other area towns. Most of the questions of the day are still the subject of discussion among teachers: school discipline, raising test scores, the effects of home life on a student’s ability to learn.

The country school in the 1910s served to encourage good citizenship and discipline unruly students. Teachers needed to prepare students for an increasingly complex world –children would need to know something of global economics, weather, science, and critical thinking.


School reader used by children in Keota School. Book has a green cover with an igloo and a child with a dog.

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Learn to Study Reader's Book Two for Grade 3 ; Keota School Reader

The country school in the 1910s served to encourage good citizenship and discipline unruly students. Teachers needed to prepare students for an increasingly complex world –children would need to know something of global economics, weather, science, and critical thinking.

Red cover depicts title flanked by two columns of vines with two vines crossing in center under title.

Resource Kits

Object Library

Museums

Little Town on the Plains: Keota, Colorado

Keota School

Keota School