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Cultural Resource Review and Reconnaissance Survey for the Fairmeadows RV Storage and Gravel Mining Pit
<br /> Project, Greeley, Weld County, Colorado
<br /> scale quadrangle shows the project area with many of its current features(see Figure 1),with a few
<br /> variations. First,the access road branches off of Highway 263 and proceeds north to pass the houses and
<br /> outbuilding,but instead of curving around the field and back into Highway 263, as it does today,the road
<br /> continues north for half a mile to connect to Bliss Road. Second,a residence is shown within the project
<br /> area northeast of the field,where the gravel pit is proposed,where none exists today.And third,the house
<br /> at 1515 East 8th Street is not shown despite having been built in 1938, indicating that house may have
<br /> been moved to its current location from within the project area.
<br /> General Area History
<br /> Greeley began as the Union Colony of Colorado(Union Colony),an experimental utopian farming
<br /> community founded in 1869 by Nathan Cook Meeker,an agricultural reporter for the New York Tribune.
<br /> Meeker and former Union Civil War General Robert Alexander Cameron were part of a committee that
<br /> traveled to Colorado to find a location for their colony. They purchased 12,000 acres at the confluence of
<br /> the Cache la Poudre and South Platte Rivers. The colony successfully attracted investors and settlers to
<br /> buy lots that would then fund civic improvement. Union Colony leadership then established the town of
<br /> Greeley in 1870. Greeley was named after Horace Greeley,the editor of the New York Tribune,who
<br /> supported Meeker in creating the Union Colony and who popularized the phrase"Go West,young man."
<br /> As the town grew,the farming community compensated for the and climate by creating an extensive
<br /> network of reservoirs and irrigation channels(Ely 1902; Kroepsch 2020; Worster 1985:83-84).
<br /> The project parcel(Parcel No. 096103300067)is currently zoned industrial and owned by Sunset
<br /> Industrial. In 2022, Sunset Industrial acquired the property through Fairmeadows Liquidation Trust,
<br /> which had transacted the property previously with Stanley F.Davis(or his estate),according to Weld
<br /> County Clerk and Recorder records online(Weld County 2022a).The portions of the southwest quarter of
<br /> Section 3 and adjacent lands in TSN,R65W containing the project area were originally patented in 1894
<br /> through cash entry by Joel E.Davis,according to online GLO records(BLM 2022).Joel Edwin Davis
<br /> (1831-1899)of Greeley should not be confused with another J.E.Davis who lived and farmed south of
<br /> Greeley at Big Bend/Peckham, in the late 1800s and early 1900s.Joel Edwin Davis(Figure 3)was
<br /> investing in lands around Greeley prior to 1894,according to the A History: Greeley and the Union
<br /> Colony(Boyd 1890). J. E. Davis,originally a confederate of the South, arrived in Greeley in 1873 and
<br /> became a farmer and financier. He was primarily an investor and rented out his properties,according to
<br /> Boyd(1890:413-414). Therefore,the Davis family does not appear to have resided on the land within the
<br /> project area but was the landlord of a property that was rented from the beginning of its development.
<br /> The Greeley Tribune,on August 10, 1899,noted Joel Edwin Davis's funeral and that"[h]e was known as
<br /> one who treated his neighbors and tenants well."Various articles in the Greeley Tribune in the 1890s
<br /> indicate J.E.Davis lived locally and that he held properties deeded from the Union Colony,although the
<br /> proposed project area is outside the sited colony lands.At the time of his death,Joel Edwin Davis's home
<br /> is noted by the Greeley Tribune to be at 7th Avenue and 1 Oth Street.He died from the effects of a stroke
<br /> suffered in 1896. Based on a Greeley Tribune article on April 14, 1898,this was his son Stanley's house
<br /> (built in 1898). In 1908,his wife. Ella(age 78,nee Northcross)is noted by the Greeley Tribune(January
<br /> 16, 1908)as passing away at 828 Tenth Street, Greeley.Davis had one son,Mr. Stanley Davis of Greeley,
<br /> and three daughters:Mrs.Lulu Burr of Greeley,Mrs.Nellie Patton of Boulder,and Mrs. Daisy Carney of
<br /> Denver,according to his Greeley Tribune obituary. Stanley Davis and wife(nee Harrington)had a son,
<br /> Franklin(Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection[CI-INC] 2022). Stanley continued to rent out farms
<br /> and ranches in the area,as apparent from the Greeley Tribune in the early 1900s.According to
<br /> FamilySearch,which compiles census and related data,this was Edwin Stanley Davis(1868-1925),and
<br /> he and his wife,Lida Harrington Davis(1872-1963),had one son,Franklin Burr Davis(1898-1951);
<br /> Franklin had a son, Robert Stanley Davis(1929-1974), as well as two daughters(Intellectual Reserve,
<br /> Inc. 2022).
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