Limon (1888, 5,366 feet), named for a railroad foreman, prospered as the junction point of the Union Pacific and the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railroads. Here, where the Smoky Hill trail split and the Rock Island Rocket passenger train divided, I-70/U.S. 40 and U.S. 24 now part company, with some traffic heading for Denver, some for Colorado Springs. Although this is the county's only sizable town, the only high rises are the grain elevators, including a white-painted concrete one marked with the town's name.
After a tornado leveled much of the town in 1991, reconstruction was carefully master planned with the help of a consortium of architects, landscape architects, and planners. The reborn Main Street mixes a new library and senior center with an old Masonic temple (1919), the Moderne Lincoln Theater, 245 E Avenue, and the tiny, cast stone Limon National Bank (c. 1905), 179 E Avenue. What remains of the downtown reveals its early twentieth-century roots, although alterations compromise the integrity of most buildings.
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