Simmental sign along the road at the Hill Family Ranches.

Centennial Farms & Ranches

Hill Family Ranches

Mesa County

After the tragic loss of his wife Emma and daughter Ida, William Hill and sons Kenneth and Norman left their home in Kansas City in the late 1880s and headed for Colorado.

The Hills planned to move again, but when Norman contracted polio, he stayed behind with a local family in the Collbran area while just William and Kenneth moved to Idaho.  (They returned to Collbran in 1923 and remained there for the rest of their lives.) Norman purchased his first property in 1913 and continued to buy adjoining tracts of land, where he eventually raised cattle.  Following his death in 1961, the land was transferred to his widow and two daughters, and his nephew, John Hill, purchased the property shortly thereafter.  John and Josephine Hill raised cattle before selling the land to their son Allen in 1996.  Since then, Allen and his wife Lita have owned and expanded the property, raising cattle and enjoying 50 years of marriage.