ABOUT MEAD
The Town of Mead was platted on February 16, 1906 and incorporated on March 17, 1908. The Town of Mead was named for Dr. Martin Luther Mead by his son, Paul Martin Mead, who founded the town. Dr. Mead was the first medical doctor in this area and a brother of "Deacon" Loren C. Mead, who founded the nearby community of Highlandlake, CO. The founder of the Town of Mead, was the nephew of Highlandlake founder, "Deacon” L. C. Mead, who had emigrated from Chicago and built his homestead at what is now Highlandlake. L. C. Mead was well known locally for his work with the Highland Ditch Company while that Company was surveying and building Highland Lake on his property. The Highland Ditch and its reservoir system was one of the first farm irrigation systems in the country and was, at that time, a subject of wide agricultural study at many of the country’s agricultural education institutions. The small unincorporated community of Highlandlake is still in existence and is located approximately 1 ½ miles northwest of Mead. Page text.
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In 1905 the Great Western Railroad built a feeder line from Longmont to Johnstown to gather and take the sugar beet harvest to their refinery in Longmont. The railway passed directly through Paul Mead’s property. It was decided by the businesses at Highlandlake to relocate to this railway siding, which led Paul to plat a new town adjacent to the tracks. For the next two decades the Town prospered as farmers used this siding to get their crops to the market.
In her memorial tribute to her mother, Areit Palmer Mead (wife of Paul Mead), Paul and Aret's oldest daughter, MyraImogene Mead Cope wrote,"I can remember the founding of the little town of Mead, Colorado in 1906, on one corner of the farm. The Great Western Sugar company was putting in a railroad for the transporting beets to the sugar mill, and had located a beet dump where the tracks cut across a corner of the farm. With all of the farmers coming there with their crop, it seemed the logical site for a town, and Mead, the logical name for it, as the land had been originally homesteaded by Grandpa Mead (Dr. Martin Luther Mead). Mother and father laid out the plans for the town, named the streets, and were active in developing the new community, as they had been in the older one (Highlandlake). They wanted it to be a good town, with no "evil element," and had it stipulated in the titles to all of the lots that they sold, that liquor was not to be sold on any of the property, ever."
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At its peak, Mead had three general stores, a hotel, a combination grocery store and meat market, two saloons, a butcher shop, a filling station, two auto garages, an implement company, two livery stables, a lumberyard, a blacksmith shop, a drug store, a hoe and harness repair shop, a post office, two doctors’ offices, two banks, a bank (Mead First National and Farmer's) and a newspaper (Mead Messenger). Two of the churches in existence then are still active today. There was also a pickle factory, a hay mill and a pea-hulling factory on the outskirts of the community.
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There are indications a pickle plant existed before the Great Depression.
[7] The pickle plant was part of the Empson canning factory in Longmont. In Mead, cucumbers were sorted and cleaned before being sent to Longmont to be canned.
An additional note: The Church of Christ - Congregational of Highlandlake, is the official name of the church building where some outside scenes of the church in DieHard II with Bruce Willis were filmed. Originally built in 1896, the church is owned by Historic Highlandlake, Inc, the local historical society for the Highlandlake/Mead area, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building has been maintained by members of the Highlandlake community as a community center since 1917, after the church closed its doors.
Guardian Angels Roman Catholic Church celebrates its centennial year in 2011. Artists and photographers frequently stop to capture Guardian Angels Church in their work. It is easily seen when driving from Interstate 25 west into Mead.
The Highlandlake community was the original town site of what later became the Town of Mead, CO. For more information on the history of Highlandlake and Mead, visit Historic Highlandlake's website at.
www.HistoricHighlandlake.org
Information Taken From:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead,_Colorado#History
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