Larimer County, Colorado

Larimer County is the seventh most populous and the ninth most extensive of the of the  of the. The county is located at the northern end of the, at the edge of the along the border with. Larimer County was named for, the founder of , who is believed to have never have set foot in the county. The estimates that the county population was 276,253 in 2006, a 9.84% increase since. The and most populous city is. The comprises Larimer County.

History
Larimer County was created in as one of seventeen original counties in the ; however, its western boundary was disputed. Controversy existed as to whether Larimer County ended at the or at the  thirty miles further west. An Colorado Supreme Court decision set the boundary at the Continental Divide, although the land between the Medicine Bow Range and the divide was made part of  in.

Unlike that of much of Colorado, which was founded on the of  and, the settlement of Larimer County was based almost entirely on , an industry that few thought possible in the region during the initial days of the. The mining boom almost entirely passed the county by. It would take the introduction of to the region in the  to bring the first widespread settlement to the area.

Early History
At the time of the arrival of Europeans in the early, the present-day county was occupied by s, with the occupying the mountainous areas and the  and  living on the  areas along the base of the foothills. infiltrated the area in the early decades of the 19th century, soon after the area became part of the United States with the and was organized as part of the. In  ascended the  on his way to the  in present-day. The river itself received its name in the middle from an obscure incident in which French-speaking trapping hid  along its banks, somewhere near present-day  or. In a group of  crossed through the county following the North Fork of the Poudre to the  on their way to  along a route that became known as the.

The area of county was officially opened to white settlement following negotiations with the Cheyenne and Arapaho in the, by which time the area was part of the. The first U.S. settlers arrived that same year in a party led by from. Janis, who had visited the area near Bellvue in 1844 and proclaimed it "the most beautiful place on earth", returned to file his official claim and helped found the first U.S. settlement in present-day Colorado, called Colona, just west of Laporte. Nearly simultaneously, established  along the  just west of present-day. The first irrigation canals were established along the Poudre in the 1860s.

In the settlement established by Janis became a  stop along the, which was relocated south from its route in present-day  to the  valley because of threats of attacks from Native Americans. In 1861, Laporte was designated as the first county seat after the organization of the. In, the established an outpost near Laporte that was designated as. A devastating flood in June wiped out the outpost, forcing the Army to seek a better location. At the urging of, who had settled along the Poudre in , the Army relocated its post downstream adjacent to Mason's land along the Overland stage route. The site of the new post became the nucleus of the town of, incorporated in after the withdrawal of the Army. By that time, Mason and others had convinced the leglislature of the Colorado Territorial Legislature to designate the new town as the county seat. In, the legislature designated Fort Collins as the location of the state agricultural college (later ), although the institution would exist only on paper for another decade while local residents sought money to construct the first campus buildings. In 1873, and other members of the  established the, which greatly expanded the  and population of Fort Collins.

Railroads
One of the primary goals of the early citizens of the county was the courting of s. County residents were disappointed when the bypassed the county in  in favor of. The first railroad finally arrived in the county in when the  extended a line north from  via  to. The town council of Fort Collins designated through the center of town (and through the campus of the unbuilt college) for the line, creating a contentious issue to this day.

Along the new railroad sprung up the new ted towns of and, named respectively after the  and  of the Colorado Central. Likewise (founded in ) was named for a railroad employee. The arrived three years later as a subsidiary of the, with the intention of creating a transcontinental line over. Although the line was never extended over the mountains, it opened up the quarrying of stone for the railroad at, furnishing another industry for the region. The brief attempt at the mining of gold in the region centered at the now of  in the.

Agriculture
The early growth of agriculture, which depended highly on direct river irrigation, experienced a second boom in with the introduction of the cultivation of s, accompanied by the construction of the large processing plant of the  in Loveland. In the following decade, the sugar beat industry brought large numbers of s to the county. The neighborhoods of Fort Collins northeast of the Poudre were constructed largely to house these new families.

A significant increase in the agricultural productivity of the region came in the with the construction of the  following the, sort of a third boom for the agricultural industry around Fort Collins. This project collected and captured water, and carried it over to the   counties of, Larimer and , along with an extensive water storage and distribution system, which significantly extended the irrigable growing season and brought substantial additional land under irrigation for the first time.

Geography
According to the, the county has a total area of 6,822 (2,634 ). 6,737 km² (2,601 sq mi) of it is land and 84 km² (33 sq mi) of it (1.24%) is water.

Adjacent Counties

 * - northeast
 * - east
 * - south
 * - southwest
 * - west
 * - northwest

Demographics
As of the of 2000, there were 251,494 people, 97,164 households, and 63,156 families residing in the county. The was 37/km² (97/sq mi). There were 105,392 housing units at an average density of 16/km² (40/sq mi). The racial makeup of the county was 91.44%, 0.66% or , 0.66% , 1.56% , 0.08% , 3.41% from , and 2.19% from two or more races. 8.27% of the population were or  of any race.

There were 97,164 households out of which 31.70% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 53.60% were living together, 7.90% had a female householder with no husband present, and 35.00% were non-families. 23.40% of all households were made up of individuals and 6.30% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.52 and the average family size was 2.99.

In the county the population was spread out with 23.80% under the age of 18, 14.20% from 18 to 24, 30.70% from 25 to 44, 21.80% from 45 to 64, and 9.60% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. For every 100 females there were 99.90 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 98.20 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $48,655, and the median income for a family was $58,866. Males had a median income of $40,829 versus $27,859 for females. The for the county was $23,689. About 4.30% of families and 9.20% of the population were below the, including 6.80% of those under age 18 and 4.40% of those age 65 or over.

School Districts

 * Park R3
 * ( & Surrounding Area)

Incorporated communities

 * (town)
 * (town)
 * (city)
 * (city)
 * (town)
 * (town)
 * (town, historically in, but expanded into Larimer County in the ).

National park

 * is headquartered in