Rocky Ford Enterprise (Rocky Ford, Colo.)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,666 issues from 1893 to 1916, published in Rocky Ford, Colorado, digitised for Chronicling America.
The area of Rocky Ford, Colorado was platted in 1877 by A. Russell and George W. Swink in the Arkansas River valley in the southeastern plains of the state. By 1887, the town of Rocky Ford was organized and 400 acres were platted and sold almost immediately to incoming settlers. Owing to the fertile soil and irrigation of the area, Rocky Ford thrived as an agricultural center producing high yields of sugar beets and watermelons and becoming known as the “Watermelon Metropolis.” Rocky Ford led the state in the advancement of horticulture, particularly fruit grafting, producing 40 varieties of apples, 14 of plums, 33 of grapes, 12 of pears, and 8 of cherries. Rocky Ford was also the home of the Arkansas Valley Agriculture Experiment Station, established under Colorado state law in 1889; the Rocky Ford Milling and Elevator Company; the Birds Brothers’ canning plant, which produced 10,000 cans daily of local produce and employed many of Rocky Ford’s townsfolk; and the first factory of the American Beet Sugar Refining Company.
The township’s paper, the Rocky Ford Enterprise, was founded in 1887 by Harry V. Alexander. The May 12, 1887 issue of the Colorado Daily Chieftain described Alexander as a “pleasant gentleman, who if appearances are a true index, will be able to reach the grangers through the hay seed and corn cobs, and convince them, not only that towns are much benefited by the intelligent and industrious husbandman…but also that the towns do confer upon the farmers…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Rocky Ford, Colorado, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress