Ovid, Colorado Sugar Factory (1926-1985)

August 2025 edit:  Note that the factory shown here was demolished in 2017.  See update at:  https://longmontian.blogspot.com/2025/08/ovid-colorado-revisited.html

Next long-overdue visit on the ghost tour of empty northern Colorado sugar beet factories takes us to the small town of Ovid (population 318), in Sedgewick County, in the very northeast corner of the Colorado, along I-76 and the South Platte river.  Not many have heard of Ovid but it was in the news for a few days this past September 2013 as the rushing flood waters of the South Platte made their approach and threatened to flood the town. Ovid is also known by its stop on the Pony Express trail.

1940 Census Map of Ovid (population 650) showing the river and Union Pacific railroad to the south.    US-138 was the highway access to Ovid, long before I-76 opened in 1970.

Of all of the factories we've seen, Ovid's factory looks the most haunted as it sits on the lonely eastern plains with all of its windows boarded up with weathered plywood.  Adding to the striking effect is a large graveyard of arranged farm equipment in front of the factory and a surrounding town that has seen better days. 

[Shameless disclosure on all the pictures here:  they are six years old, from January 2008! I thought I would be going through NE Colorado again since then, with a chance to get newer pictures, but that hasn't happened.  Going by modern satellite views, I don't think much has changed]
 

 The factory administration building in front:

 

Ovid was a true company town and became incorporated in 1925 while the huge Great Western Sugar Company factory was still being built just east of town.   With irrigation from the South Platte, the surrounding area had proven that it could successfully grow beets but the crops had to be transported to Sterling or Eaton for processing.  When Great Western decided to build a new state of the art factory to accommodate the NE Colorado area growers, Ovid was chosen among two neighboring towns, Julesburg and Sedgewick. 

Ovid is the only northern Colorado sugar beet town that has lost population since their factory was shut down. Unlike most of the other factory towns (Ft. Collins and Sterling would be the exceptions), Ovid still celebrates their factory town history, including having their Dinky on display in a small park:

Amalgamated Sugar retains factory ownership today, which they use as a storage facility.  The silos were freshly painted when I was there and these can easily be seen from I-76:

Outside of the factory is a boneyard of vintage agricultural implements:

A quick look at the 1940 Ovid census shows a wide variety of jobs and pay grades provided by the factory.  A foreman who worked all year round in 1939 (a recovery year from the Great Depression) made $2200/year while a chemist pulled in $1950.  Some positions were only seasonal, during beet-processing campaigns, which usually lasted five months out of the year.  A sampling of the many factory roles from the census includes: "elevates coal", electrician, "blowup man" (?), carbonater, "cooler man", master mechanic, and pipe fitter. 

And for a Longmont connection with Ovid, Longmont's head librarian in 1926, Genevieve Dorsett, mysteriously left her position to move to Ovid when the factory opened there, with her new husband who was a Great Western employee.  They lived in Ovid for ten years before moving to Ft. Collins.  You can read more about her in my hack genealogy effort back when I was a library volunteer.

The quiet little town of Ovid (in 2008):

 Ovid's art-deco style Platte Valley High School:

And how it looked in the early 1920s: 

Photo credit:  Denver Public Library Digital Collection

Ovid's Public Library:

One final look, closed for almost thirty years now:

Continuing series on the northeastern Colorado beet sugar factories:

• Loveland (1901)
• Greeley (1902)
• Eaton (1902)
• Windsor (1902)
• Longmont, Part 1 (1903)
• Longmont, Part 2 (1903)
• Fort Collins (1903)
• Sterling (1905)
• Brush (1906)
• Ft. Morgan (1906) 
• Brighton (1917
• Ft. Lupton (1920)

Full house for the Boulder County Paranormal Research Society

An overflow crowd showed up at the Longmont Library tonight to hear a presentation from the  Boulder County Paranormal Research Society (BCPRS).  I'm behind on my pop culture but I guess there are a few popular TV shows these days that cover ghost hunting and paranormal activity, which may explain the large number in attendance.  Anyway, BCPRS has been around for a few years now and they describe themselves as being more skeptical than other similar organizations on the Front Range.

Their full presentation is on their site.  Here's a few notes I remember from their talk:

• Never pay for a paranormal investigation.  Ever.  A payment implies a delivery of results, of which there may be none whatsoever. 
• BCPRS always tries to look for rational explanations.  A pigeon tapping on a window or some vibrations from a nearby railroad track may be the cause of that noise you're hearing.
• Paranormal investigation tends to be a lot of waiting with no results.  Some investigators have not lasted long with BCPRS because they expected more action, like the TV shows depict. 
• Their McClelland School story from Pueblo, CO was compelling.  This was a true house of sadness when it was an orphanage and tuberculosis treatment center.
• The term paranormal is not really accurate.  There is really just the normal that we don't fully understand,

I'm skeptical myself but I enjoyed their talk.   Their investigation page lists a few structures in Longmont, which I intend to read about.  Maybe they should visit the Hansen Building and listen for ringing telephones.

Dickens at the Library

David S. Skipper portrays Charles Dickens in the year 1844, in front of a packed audience at the Longmont Library community room.


This was the year after A Christmas Carol in Prose was published, so naturally he had a lot to talk about! Like for example, the name Scrooge was totally made up by Dickens, something he enjoyed doing. In all, he would invent over 900 names in his writings.

Skipper performs often around the Front Range, including a past handful of times at the Longmont Library. He was actually scheduled to do an Edgar A. Poe performance here, before Halloween this year, but it was snowed out. Great that he was able to be re-scheduled.

Russ Chapman

Russ Chapman of Paonia, playing tonight at the Longmont Library Summer Concert Series. Notice the neat little percussion instrument on his right foot. What's that thing called?