Why Phillips County's towns line up the way they do

Look at a map of Phillips County and you will notice the towns sit in a tidy row, spaced fairly evenly apart. That pattern is not an accident. It is the railroad.

In the late 1800s, a rail line was pushed across this part of northeastern Colorado, and town sites were laid out along it every several miles, about as far as a farmer could reasonably haul a wagon of grain to a shipping point. Holyoke, Haxtun, Paoli, and Amherst grew up as those service stops. Each one collected the surrounding farms, with grain elevators, a depot, a bank, and a main street to supply the area. The county itself was created by the state legislature soon after, as settlers filled in the land around the line.

Knowing this helps the present-day map make sense. The reason a small town exists where it does, and why the elevators still stand near the tracks, traces back to that single decision about where to lay rail. It also explains the spacing: these were not random settlements but planned stops.

History Colorado has documented the historic resources of Phillips County. For the railroad-era story of these towns, start with History Colorado.