Longmont (1872, 4,979 feet) was founded by members of the Chicago Colorado Colony, who named it for Longs Peak, the 14,255-foot landmark on the western horizon. Boulder County's second largest city has a strong agricultural base as well as significant industry and commerce, although the once mighty Great Western Sugar and Kuner-Empson canning factories are both defunct.
The 1870s two-story frame house of colony treasurer John Lawrence Townley is on its original site at 239 Pratt Street, next to the Denio Flour Mill in Old Mill Park. A brick Moderne building at Main Street and 6th Avenue, a former auto dealership, features contrasting horizontal banding and a facade combining convex and concave curves. Across from it is a sinuous brick sculpture (1991, Kenneth Williams), installed as part of a relandscaping of Main Street. The frame Colorado & Southern Railroad depot now serves as a retail store at 2nd Avenue and Main Street, while the nearby Chicago, Burlington & Quincy depot, in local sandstone, is now the freight office for the Burlington Northern.
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