Farmers came to northeastern Colorado to make their fortunes from this land's natural wealth. They did not have dreams of instant riches as miners and cattlemen did, but they did have an optimistic sense that with work, the land could be transformed into an agrarian paradise.
The sodbusters moved onto lands along major watercourses and into valleys along the front range. Once these places filled with people, newcomers made faltering attempts to till the arid plains.
By the end of the nineteenth century these dryland efforts had yielded marginal success. Yet farm settlement, despite occasional setbacks, peopled most of northeastern Colorado. While intense agricultural use of the region came after the Civil War, some individuals were farming as early as As fur posts developed along the South Platte, their occupants needed food.
Because of the forts' isolation the occupants were forced to supply themselves. Some employees were put to work planting fields and gardens near the sites. Lands located along the South Platte were fertile and did not need water artificially brought to them.
What irrigation that was used was done by hand, without elaborate ditches. They built cabins and laid out fields. These earliest agrarians also tended small numbers of livestock and milk cows.
