George and Morse Coffin, Illinois brothers who came to Boulder around the same time as Allen, set up farms near the confluence of St. Vrain, but not by much, and there was plenty of land to go around.

Leaving Dickens to work the land, Allen went prospecting again, eventually establishing the small mining town of Allenspark in the foothills to the west.Īllen may have beaten others to the St. Vrain Creek, just west of what is now US Highway 287. After prospecting near present-day Boulder, Allen built a log cabin in 1860 on the south bank of St. Allen came west with his stepson, seventeen-year-old William Henry Dickens, to join the Colorado Gold Rush.

Burlington was also the home of Longmont’s first newspaper, the Burlington Free Press, founded in 1871. Many of Longmont’s influential early citizens came from Burlington, including William Henry Dickens, founder of the Dickens Opera House, Farmers National Bank, and several other local enterprises. Coffman helped convince the colony to establish Longmont where it is today. The bountiful wheat crop of Burlington homesteader Enoch J. The settlement grew to a population of about 150 before the Chicago-Colorado Colony absorbed it in 1871. Allen, Burlington was named after Burlington, Iowa. Burlington was a small homestead community along St.

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