10101 Dillon Rd History - Laserfiche WebLink

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According to the County website, the property also contains 10 additional structures. According to the owner/applicant's project narrative, there are 11 additional structures. The 1948 County Assessor card contains seven photos of outbuildings. George Rand Ownership, 1877-1912 Historically, this parcel was part of a larger property that was owned by George Rand and operated as a farm. The first reference to his ownership of the property in the Boulder County Recorder's Office is an 1877 "notice" that referenced the correct legal description of this property. This notice may have represented a legal step towards acquiring a land patent for the property from the government. Confirming this early date of Rand's ownership, an 1881 map of Boulder County by Samuel Freeze shows George Rand to be the owner of the land in question. It is understood that at the time when the US Government acquired Colorado, most of the land was legally unclaimed. A land patent represented the first conveyance of ownership to land from the US Government to a citizen. By a document that was recorded in 1886, George Rand acquired a patent for this property from the State of Colorado. The patent may have been dated earlier than 1886 and not been recorded with the County immediately. The 1881 Boulder County Map by Samuel Freeze and the Willits Farm Map dated 1899 both show that Rand owned the entire southeast quarter of Section 16. An 1886 publication called "Agriculture in Colorado" gave this description of Rand: "Lumbering, ranching, and farming in Jefferson and Boulder counties since 1864; justice of the peace; legislator, instrumental in passing appropriations bill for State University." George Rand was born in Nova Scotia, Canada in about 1837 and (according to the 1900 federal census) came to the US in 1851. His wife, Lucinda, was born in about 1838 in Canada. Their children were Katie and George Custer. Lucinda died in 1914 and George in 1924. The 1885 state census shows the Rand family to be in the correct location for their farm to be at 10101 Dillon. The family consisted of the four plus two "servants" who may have been farmhands. Other evidence also specifically places them in Boulder County. Katie Rand married Charley Welch, the son of Charles C. Welch, who was the prominent Colorado businessman who played the major role in the founding of Louisville and the opening of its first coal mine, the Welch Mine, in the 1870s. (Welch also established the Jefferson Place Addition in Louisville.) A newspaper account strongly suggests that George Welch, who was the son of Charley Welch and Katie Rand Welch, was born on the Rand farm near Louisville in 1892. 2