106 Years Ago
The August 7, 1919 Colorado Transcript provided farm statistics from a report by the County Assessor.
At that time, Jefferson County had 1,021 farmers. They held a total of 140,267.84 acres, though only 41,816 of those acres were under cultivation. The average farm size was 136.24 acres.
There were 55 silos, 23 tractors, and 6 threshing machines. They owned 36,014 hens.
The biggest crop in Jefferson County was alfalfa (15,911 acres). Alfalfa is used primarily as feed for horses and cattle. Horses were still widely used at that time for both farming and transportation.
Wheat was in second place, at 12,485 acres. Those local wheat crops explain why Golden had two active grain mills at the time.
Crops grown in smaller quantities were: timothy (823.75 acres), rye (816 acres), alfalfa cut for seed (374 acres), potatoes (321.33 acres), cabbage (220 acres), grain sorghum (50 acres), orchard (41.75 acres), sweet clover (40 acres), sweet sorghum (36 acres), berries (35 acres), field peas (34 acres), sudan grass (23 acres), beans for seed (20 acres), beans (8 acres), garden (7 acres), asparagus (5.25 acres), tomatoes (4.25 acres), and carrots (1 acres).
