Montrose - Daily Press

Editor’s Note: This is the 10th installment in a 17-part series looking at 125 years in Montrose County

According to an 1898 publication by the Montrose Chamber of Commerce, the principal crop in the Uncompahgre Valley at that time was strawberries.

The mountain mining towns furnished an excellent cash market for fresh fruits and vegetables, with strawberries netting anywhere from $300 to $1,200 per acre. “Intensified farming” was recognized as the only profitable way in this land of irrigation.

(Use arrows above to view more photos) Advertisement

Good farm and fruit lands could be purchased for $10 to $25 an acre with perpetual water rights worth $15 to $18 per acre.

In 1897, 200,000 fruit trees were planted in Montrose County, a large percent being apple.

Grapes were also grown, as well as oats, wheat, alfalfa and potatoes, irrigated by a system of canals, including the M & D (Montrose/Delta) and the Ironstone.

Once the farmers removed the sagebrush, cactus and prairie dogs, potatoes became one of the leading industries of the county.

Local potatoes surpassed the world’s production both in quantity and quality without adding fertilizer—just the pure mountain water, according to an article in the 1905 book “Where Apple is King.”

 Orchard growers found that potatoes were a good crop to plant among their young fruit trees before the orchards became large enough to shade the ground.

In 1908, Isaac N. Pepper started Peppers Gardens in the Coal Creek area. It was a time of great opportunity, due to the fact that the Gunnison Tunnel was nearing completion and there would be plenty of water to open lands that had remained vacant. Pepper bought huge tracts of wild land, including an old cattle ranch of 800 acres, owned by the Pittsburgh Cattle Company. It was good fertile soil, but covered with sagebrush. Pepper bought an engine and plows, cleared the land, divided it into tracts and developed the water.

He was responsible for getting many small farmers and their families established at a reasonable price.  

Onions have traditionally been a popular cash crop in Montrose County, although they are considered labor intensive. Pepper advertised that Ben Lechleiter produced 800 bushels of onions on one acre, selling them for $600. Billy Franklin raised 4,000 sacks of onions on eight acres, which he sold for $1.10 a sack, right from the field. Onions had to be topped, sorted and sacked by hand, and the sacks loaded one by one onto wagons or trucks to be taken to storage or sale.

Pinto beans, which serve as a good rotational crop, have been another popular crop in the Uncompahgre Valley.

Whit Whitener, who came to Olathe in 1913, was one of the first to successfully raise field corn, which has become a major crop.

The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad played an important role in the success of Montrose County agriculture. Montrose was originally on the main line and was located midway between Denver and Salt Lake. The shipping record in Montrose County for 1904 was 2,300 railroad cars of cattle, sheep, fruit, produce, grain, lumber and merchandise.

In 1904 the sugar beet industry was introduced in the valley. The percent of sugar in the beets was said to be greater than at any other point in Colorado. That first year 350 carloads left Montrose, a thriving city of 3,000 inhabitants.

The completion of the Gunnison Tunnel project in the next four years would insure the opening of over 130,000 additional acres of agricultural and horticultural land.

Comments