From Modoc to Niwot - a railroad town

Third in a series of articles highlighting Niwot's 150-year history.

If you've ever wondered why the streets of Niwot's old town are laid out as they are, consider that what we now know as Niwot was originally just a section house along the railroad tracks that ran from Longmont to Boulder.

The railroad was extremely important to early area farmers, who by then were producing crops on land served by water from a series of irrigation ditches, most dug by hand. Before the railroad, the only way to get crops to market was by horse and wagon.

Longmont was platted a few years before Niwot, and the shortest distance between Longmont and Boulder ran right through what we know as Niwot. In 1873, the Colorado Central Railroad ran from Loveland to Denver. Niwot was the halfway point between Longmont and Boulder, and a convenient place for a section house, housing a railroad employee who inspected and repaired the tracks, and made sure the trains ran smoothly.

George Washington Wilson, the railroad's first station agent, was given the task of selecting a name for the post office site along the tracks, and he chose "Modoc," reportedly after an "ornery bunch of Indians, out in California."

As of 1873, two years before Niwot was platted, there was also a post office at the mouth of Left Hand Canyon, known as the Niwot post office.

When the town plat of "Niwot" was recorded on March 30, 1875, confusion arose, and the post office near Left Hand Canyon became known as Altona, while the Modoc post office became known as Niwot. The plat of Niwot established lots on both sides of the railroad tracks, though today, only the east side lots remain because the west side became the location of the Diagonal Highway.

Anne Quinby Dyni, who has recorded the history of the Niwot area in books, articles, and recorded interviews as well as in the pages of the Left Hand Valley Courier, wrote about Niwot's history with the railroad in her book "Around Niwot," published in 2015, and in her 1994 book, "Niwot, Colorado: Echoes from a Railroad Town."

Dyni wrote, "To this day, Niwot remains the only town in Boulder County founded solely for access to the railroad."

Though the railroad tracks remain, the depot and section house which were located on the west side of the tracks are long gone, as are the sidetracks that once served the community.

Dyni wrote, "[Niwot] became an important railhead for the shipment of farm products." She continued, "Because of the diagonal orientation of the railroad itself, Niwot streets were laid out at an angle. The west portion of town was never fully developed, although the depot, section house and several early businesses were located there."

Today, the train still runs through Niwot on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad tracks, but the train doesn't stop in Niwot anymore. There is little evidence of the early days of the railroad in Niwot, other than the caboose located in Whistle Stop Park, which is of a 1907 vintage, and the twisted rails on the iconic "Niwot" sign along CO 119.

But if you look closely, you will notice the original "Niwot" sign from the Niwot depot which now hangs on the south end of the caboose, courtesy of Niwot resident Tim Wise, who has spent many hours preserving artifacts reflecting Niwot's history. And on Thursday nights in the summer, the engineers still blow their horn as they pass by the crowd gathered for the Rock & Rails concerts in the park.

And as you pass by the grassed area on the west side of Murray Street, north of the Niwot parking lot, you will notice a small earthen ramp, once used by area farmers to load sugar beets into rail cars on a side track back when sugar beets were an important area crop.

The ramp was last used by the late Ray Newman, who lived across the street and used it to load and unload his small tractor and snow plow from a trailer. Newman was a longtime Niwot area volunteer, and maintained many paths in Niwot, including the concrete path extending from old town Niwot to Niwot High School, until his death in 2011.