Jessum, Colorado

A good friend of this blog, Ron, has been supplying me some great information about an area near the western border of Weld County, southeast of Longmont, that used to be called Jessum. I've passed by this area many times out on Weld County Road 20.5 without ever knowing about it.

(Photo courtesy of Google, and Ron's markup, with the old railroad track bed highlighted in yellow).


Jessum was at least a sugar beet dump, located on the train tracks there, as evidenced by this March 3, 1922 mentioning in the Longmont Ledger:

E. L. Montgomery reports [from the Beet Grower's meeting] that in four districts near the dumps of Mead, Gowanda, Jessum, and Deke ninety-eight percent of the growers have signed the beet grower's agreement.

A sugar beet dump was simply a drop-off location for farmers to turn over their beets to the sugar company after harvest. After the farmer dumped his/her beets, they were filtered of rocks and debris, weighed, and some samples were checked for their sugar content. The farmer's contractual obligation was then fulfilled and the beets became the property of the sugar company, where they were hauled to the factory via rail.

But there is some evidence that Jessum was a small community in addition to having a beet dump on the rail line. More on that later, I hope.

Today, an aggregate company occupies the area formerly known as Jessum.



And this old structure is there, as well, perhaps left over from the train days, I don't know.


There's more to see out there but I was chased away today by a thunderstorm!