Chivington is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in Kiowa County,

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

, United States. The U.S. Post Office at

Eads Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft throughout the world. The company has three divisions: '' ...

( ZIP Code 81036) now serves Chivington postal addresses.

Description

The community was named for the Reverend

John Chivington John Milton Chivington (January 27, 1821 – October 4, 1894) was an American Methodism, Methodist pastor and Freemasonry, Mason who served as a colonel (United States), colonel in the United States Volunteers during the New Mexico Campaign ...

, a colonel in the Union Army during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

, who was celebrated as the hero of the 1862

Battle of Glorieta Pass The Battle of Glorieta Pass (March 26–28, 1862) in the northern New Mexico Territory, was the decisive battle of the New Mexico campaign during the American Civil War. Dubbed the " Gettysburg of the West" by some authors (a term described ...

and commanded the 700 Union soldiers who perpetrated the Sand Creek massacre, a slaughter of approximately 150 Native Americans in a nearby gulch. His men took human body parts as trophies, including unborn fetuses and genitalia of both genders. The massacre was condemned by the

United States Congress Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War was a United States congressional committee started on December 9, 1861, and was dismissed in May 1865. The committee investigated the progress of the war against the Confederacy. Meetings were held ...

and Territorial Governor John Evans lost his job for encouraging Chivington.

History

Chivington (est. 1887) was one of several railroad towns in Kiowa County on eastern Colorado's plains along the

Missouri Pacific Railroad The Missouri Pacific Railroad , commonly abbreviated as MoPac, was one of the first railroads in the United States west of the Mississippi River. MoPac was a Class I railroad growing from dozens of predecessors and mergers. In 1967, the railroad ...

line, and in the late 19th century, eastern Colorado had a lot of agriculture and related commerce. Railroad workers also briefly contributed to the local economy as the Missouri Pacific extended into

Colorado Springs Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...

Pueblo In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...

Palmer Lake Palmer Lake is a Statutory Town in El Paso County, Colorado, United States. The population was 2,420 at the 2010 census. Palmer Lake was founded by General William Jackson Palmer in 1871 and was incorporated in 1889. Palmer Lake is one of thr ...

, and eventually brought service into

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

. As new towns along this railroad line formed, they were named alphabetically, which might explain why "Chivington" was chosen—with the massacre site only about 9 miles away, "C" brought the name "Chivington" to mind. During Chivington's early days, it supported a number of local businesses, the crown jewel being the $10,000, 60-room, 3-story Queen Anne styled Kingdon Hotel—but when the railroad realized that Chivington's water had too high an alkali content to use in the locomotive boilers, a nearby town in Kansas (Horace) instead became an important watering stop for the railroad. The Kingdon Hotel was disassembled (its intended purpose was to house railroad workers), and its materials shipped to two other Colorado communities for constructing buildings there—a common fate in Colorado, in the era. The

dust bowl The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of both natural factors (severe drought) a ...

and Depression days of the 1920s and 1930s proved sustained agriculture on Colorado's

eastern plains The Eastern Plains of Colorado refers to a region of the U.S. state of Colorado east of the Rocky Mountains and east of the population centers of the Front Range. Geography The Eastern Plains are part of the High Plains, which are the wester ...

unsupportable, and Chivington (like many other nearby towns) mostly died somewhere in those decades.

Today's Chivington

A few newer homes are still occupied in Chivington, but the town consists mostly of a few abandoned but still-standing ruins, more partially collapsed buildings (the former school house degrades, year-by-year), and many piles of bricks mark where the town once stood. Standard green highway markers ("Chivington") identify what these ruins once were. The post office existed into the 1980s but nearby

today offers the nearest postal service and amenities like stores and gas stations. Lamar is the closest remaining "significant" town on Colorado's eastern plains. Chivington appears to be returning, like much of eastern Colorado, to its sparse

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses ( Poaceae). However, sedge ( Cyperaceae) and rush ( Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur na ...

and

prairie Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the ...

land origins. One of the former town's buildings contains a

ghost sign A ghost sign is an old hand-painted advertising sign that has been preserved on a building for an extended period of time. The sign may be kept for its nostalgic appeal, or simply indifference by the owner. History and preservation Ghost signs a ...

asking for Chivington citizens to vote for a man named Jan King, who ran for the office of Kiowa County clerk. The famous TransAmerica Cycling Trail passes through Chivington and is frequented by hundreds of cyclists annually.

Geography

Chivington is located at (38.436649,-102.542095).

References

External links