Hey there, NOCO Crew!

This week we’re heading out to Fort Morgan, where the farmers own the last sugar factory in Colorado.

We’re also marking 50 years since the Big Thompson Flood. It’s a heavier story than we usually run; but, the Loveland Museum’s exhibit is as much about how neighbors showed up for each other as it is about what was lost. If you or your family have a memory of that night, hit reply. We’d be honored to hear it.

Then we head north to Nunn, where a 105-year-old water tower is waiting to find out if Congress will give it a bigger job. And for Property of the Week, a tiny 1925 cabin in Drake that sits right on the river.

So grab a warm drink, and let’s dig in!

– David

Tuesday around Fort Collins: Sunny and mild, with a high near 72°F and almost no chance of rain. Check the forecast before a mountain trip, since conditions at the trailheads can be very different from town. Sunrise is about 7:17 a.m., sunset about 6:12 p.m., and we have just under 10 hours, 55 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous, on its way to full on Monday, October 26.

The week ahead: Enjoy the warm stretch while it lasts. Highs stay in the low to mid 70s through Friday. A cooler front moves in Friday night, bringing a chance of showers Saturday and a high near 58. Sunday and Monday warm back into the low 60s under sunny skies. Saturday is the day to pull out the jacket.

Local sunrise and sunset
Current National Weather Service forecast

Out on the eastern plains, there’s a factory in Fort Morgan that has been turning lumpy, dirt-covered sugar beets into the white stuff in your coffee and baked goods for 120 years. It started out as a big corporate operation. Today, it belongs to the farmers. Let’s dig in (pun very much intended).

Colorado’s Last Sugar Factory

The story starts in 1901 with a man named Charles Boettcher. While on vacation with his wife in Germany, he visited many sugar beet farms, and had the idea to introduce the industry in Colorado. He and a group of partners formed the Great Western Sugar Company and opened their first factory in Loveland. After some failure and re-tooling, the business took off. Great Western soon had factories all along the northern Front Range and out into Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana. It even had its own railroad, the Great Western Railway, built to haul all those beets around.

The Fort Morgan factory joined the family in 1906, and it grew right along with the industry. By 1976, it could slice through about 3,200 tons of beets a day. That’s a lot of beets.

After that, though, things got a little bumpy. Great Western ran into money trouble in the 1970s and changed hands several times. One owner was the Hunt Brothers, who are better known for trying to corner the world silver market. In 1985, the British company Tate & Lyle formed the Western Sugar Company (talk about innovative branding…), which ended up owning the factories. One by one, Colorado’s sugar factories closed. Today, Fort Morgan is the last sugar factory standing in the state.

The Farmers

In 2002, the farmers got tired of watching their livelihoods be passed from one company to another, and decided to organize. More than 1,000 beet growers from Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana teamed up to purchase Western Sugar from Tate & Lyle. They renamed it the Western Sugar Cooperative.

So, What Does Joining The Co-Op Mean For A Farmer?

Being an owner sounds great, and in many ways it is. But it’s a commitment, not a casual fling:

The big benefit is stability. When an outside company owned the factories, growers had to constantly worry that plants could just shut down due to a bad year or two. That’s exactly what happened to plenty of factories. When the farmers own the plant, they have a say in their future.

The Factory Is Still Growing

Fort Morgan isn’t just hanging on. It’s one of two factories the cooperative picked for expansion, along with Scottsbluff, Nebraska. The upgrades are meant to pull more sugar out of the same amount of beets while using less energy.

Bottom Line

The next time you stir a spoonful of sugar into your coffee or bake a batch of cookies, there’s a decent chance it started out as a beet in a field near you, and you are supporting the local farming community in a small but meaningful way. Now that’s a sweet deal.

Learn More

This may seem a bit somber for the newsletter; but, we wanted to talk about it because it shows that in the face of tragedy, people can rise to the occasion and serve to renew one another’s hope.

If you’ve ever driven Highway 34 up the Big Thompson Canyon, you’ve probably noticed the signs near the mouth of the canyon telling drivers to “climb to safety in case of a flash flood.” Those signs are there for a reason. This year marks 50 years since one of the darkest nights in Northern Colorado history, and the Loveland Museum has an exhibit that’s well worth a visit before it closes next month.

That Night

On the evening of July 31, 1976, a thunderstorm stalled over the upper Big Thompson Canyon and didn’t budge. It dumped a staggering amount of rain in a very short time. Accounts vary, but most say more than half a foot fell in about an hour. All that water had nowhere to go but down the narrow canyon. The resulting wall of water killed 144 people, destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses, and wiped out whole sections of Highway 34. Five people were never found.

It is still Colorado’s deadliest natural disaster. It also changed how emergency managers in our state plan for and warn people about floods, and those lessons still apply today.

More Than A Story Of Loss

As you’d expect, this exhibit carries real weight. But it’s not only about the devastation. Curator Ashley Yager wanted to shine a light on how the community supported each other afterward. Neighbors helped neighbors. Mennonite volunteers came to help rebuild. A coalition of churches called Interfaith kept providing aid long after the government crews had packed up and gone home.

What You’ll See

The exhibit fills the museum’s Dunning Gallery with photos, maps, paintings, objects recovered from the canyon, and oral histories. Some of the pieces that really stick with you:

Fair warning: you might want to bring some tissues. As Yager put it, it’s tough to see this, especially for people who lived through it.

Why It Matters Now

The people who remember that night firsthand are getting fewer every year. This exhibit is a chance to hear their stories while we still can, and to remember the 144 lives lost. It’s also a powerful reminder of what our communities can do when they pull together.

Plan Your Visit

Drive north on Highway 85 toward Cheyenne and you’ll pass a steel water tank standing on four legs in the little town of Nunn. Lots of people treat it as a fun bit of roadside history. But a proposal now in front of Congress pitches it as something more: a working part of the town’s water system, with a real job to do.

A Tower With A Résumé

The tower went up in 1921. It’s a steel tank with a platform and guard rails, sitting on four sturdy legs, and it is able to hold 50,000 gallons. For decades, it did exactly what water towers do: it stored water and supplied the town. It also had a side gig. A beacon light on top helped guide planes flying between Denver and Cheyenne, and it doubled as a night light for the folks in town. In 1993, it was added to the Colorado State Register of Historic Properties.

Retirement Didn’t Quite Stick

Like most of us, the tower eventually started showing its age. By 2012, news reports said the 91-year-old tank leaked and hadn’t held water for several years. According to the town, it stopped supplying Nunn’s drinking water in 2010. In 2012, the town broke ground on a new 180,000-gallon tower, and that newer tower now handles the town’s main water storage and pressure.

But Nunn didn’t tear the old tower down. The town had a preservation grant to help shore it up, and the old tower went back to work in a smaller role. Today, according to the town’s public works page, it holds non-potable water (water that isn’t treated for drinking) from a town well. That water is used to water the town park and trees and to keep the dust down on local roads. So it’s not exactly retired. It’s more like semi-retired with a part-time job.

The Pitch: A Bigger Job

In 2026, the Town of Nunn asked for $585,000 in federal funding to fix up the tower’s aging internal parts. According to the request, a restored tower would:

So, Is The Money On Its Way?

Not yet, at least as far as we can tell. Here’s where things stand:

A committee vote is an important step, but it’s not a check in the mail. The project still has to make it through the rest of Congress and get signed into law, and then the money has to actually be awarded. Federal budgets have plenty of twists and turns, so stay tuned.

Bottom Line

It’s easy to drive past an old water tower and see nothing but a cool photo op. Nunn sees a hardworking piece of equipment that has served the town for more than a century and could keep helping farmers and firefighters for years to come. Whether the federal money comes through or not, it’s nice to see a small town finding a practical way to keep its history in working order.

Learn More

Remember last week’s sprawling log ‘cabin’ near Loveland with room for a helicopter? This one is its humble, charming cousin. Tucked into the canyon in the tiny mountain community of Drake, this little cabin has been sitting by the river for about 100 years. And honestly? It might be the most Colorado thing we’ve ever seen.

Small, And That’s The Point

This cabin is built the way cabins are supposed to be. It’s just over 700 square feet, with one bedroom and one bath. There’s no sprawling great room or guest wing. It’s just enough space to kick off your boots, put on a pot of coffee, and listen to the water.

Inside, cathedral ceilings make the little space feel open and airy, and wood floors add warmth. There’s a fireplace in the living room and a wood stove too — because in the mountains, one source of cozy is never enough. It even has a separate dining room, which feels like a delightful little luxury in a cabin this size. You can just picture a long, lazy breakfast there on a snowy morning.

A Front-Row Seat To The River

The star of the show is right outside. The cabin has a patio right on the river and a front deck, which means the soundtrack here is rushing water, wind in the trees, and probably the occasional chatty bird. South-facing windows bring in the light, and rocky outcroppings rise up around the property. The canyon walls throw plenty of shade, so mornings here probably start a little slow. Honestly, that sounds about right for a cabin.

And the best part might be getting there. You reach the property by crossing a bridge that the neighbors take care of together. There’s something special about crossing over the water to get home, like leaving the rest of the world on the other bank.

A Little Piece Of Canyon History

The cabin was built in 1925 and has some history baked right in. According to the listing, it once sat along the original stage road between Loveland and Estes Park, back when getting up the canyon was a real adventure. That road has since moved to the other side of the river, but it’s easy to imagine stagecoaches rattling past this spot over a century ago.

And yes, there’s reportedly an outhouse on the property. Consider it a bonus history exhibit.

Living With The River

Readers who caught our story above about the Loveland Museum’s Big Thompson Flood exhibit know that this canyon is beautiful, but also powerful. Life by the river means respecting it. It’s a good reminder that part of loving a wild place is understanding it, too.

Bottom Line

We’ll admit it: we spent a little too long daydreaming about this one. A fire crackling in the wood stove, a good book, the river rushing just outside the door, and nowhere to be. Bigger isn’t always better. Sometimes all you need is a small cabin, a big view, and the sound of the water to remind you how lucky we are to live this close to the mountains.

Source: Redfin – 47 Berthoud Dale Ln, Drake

Riding up the canyon. Standing at a workbench. Walking the dog. Pain can keep us from enjoying the little things in life that make life, well… life.

Sam Fischer and the team at Choice City Physical Therapy offer one-on-one care in Fort Collins.

40-minute appointments with a licensed physical therapist. Treatment built around you, and the activities you want to get back to enjoying in life.

3938 John F. Kennedy Parkway, Unit 11E · Fort Collins
970-460-8544

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Every contribution keeps us out in the field, digging into local history, and showing up for the towns we cover. We're grateful for every bit of support. Thanks for being part of this.

— Megan & David

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