Ignacio once shipped Depression-era turkeys east by rail

It is easy to think of La Plata County as a railroad-and-mining place, but farming and ranching have always been part of its backbone, and one old Ignacio building tells a memorable piece of that story.

A structure that began as an 1880s railroad warehouse was later used by a turkey-packing cooperative. During the Great Depression, local farm families banded together, raised turkeys, and brought them to the co-op to be packed and shipped east on the railroad, especially ahead of the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. It was a way to bring outside income into a hard rural economy, using the same rail line that had been built for the mines.

That kind of cooperative effort, neighbors pooling labor to reach distant markets, is a thread that runs through Western Slope ag history. And agriculture is not just history here: La Plata County still raises cattle and horses, and ranching shapes much of the land outside the towns.

For a newcomer, the lesson is that the county’s identity is part mining town, part ranch country, and the second part is still very much alive.

For this site and others, see La Plata County’s list of historic sites; for county background, see the Colorado Encyclopedia.