Grandfather Henry Selters was only 17 when he first saw the San Luis Valley. Initially he lived in the southern part but in 1904 property was purchased near Center in Rio Grande County. Son James was born on the land and never left while his siblings always remained close by. Crops raised have been potatoes, wheat, barley, peas, oats with an assortment of goats, turkeys, geese, and rabbits, and at one time over 1,000 sheep.

1905 saw the arrival of three brothers, Aubrey, William, and David Reid from Sparta, Illinois, who settled and homesteaded land in Weld County near Roggen. William later bought out his brothers and continued to establish and work the ranch until today. The dry-land farm encompasses 5,000 acres. Wheat has been cultivated and harvested over the years but the land also echoes stories of cattlemen and fence cutting as well. Howard, Doris, and John Reid together continued to operate Reid Ranches Company and maintain the related nine buildings on the property.

In 1905 Sidney Bert Potter and his father-in-law, Richard S. Becktell, traveled from Omaha, Nebraska to Rifle, Colorado in search of a dry climate to help the Potters’ first child recover from tuberculosis. They purchased land in the Cache Creek drainage area and moved their entire family out in 1906.The ranch’s products were hay, small grains, Percheron and saddle horses, cattle, hogs, apples, and peaches.

In 1902 Martin Hanna acquired 280 acres in Rio Grande County near Del Norte. By the time of his death in 1958 descendant Louis Hanna had acquired 200 acres through other heirs, property that Norma Hanna Myers inherited. She added back the other 80 acres in 1963 when it was purchased from the Paul Hanna estate. Major crops have included hay, potatoes, grain, lettuce along with raising hogs and cattle. Several historic buildings remain in use including a barn, granary, chicken house, and ice house.

The property was located by Hal Sayre, the only trained surveyor in Colorado Territory. In the 1870s, running the first county lines in the new state of Colorado – Boulder and Gilpin. Purchase of the ranch by the Sayre family was completed in 1894, with the intention of raising fish commercially, after obtaining decrees for water rights for ditches and to fill the lakes. The ranch was named Los Lagos (Spanish for The Lakes). The Lodge at Los Lagos was listed on the State Register of Historic Properties in 2005.

The farm was originally purchased by Samuel K. Clark on a Warranty Deed dated August 25, 1899. His wife was Mary Clark. In 1950, the farm passed to their daughters, Ella Clark Adams and Marion Clark Brunner. Grandmother Ella Adams told her grandchildren that their family farm was originally a tree claim. Over the years, the family worked together during the Depression days to keep the farm. It has had sheep, chickens, cattle, pigs, sugar beets, and hay, and now is leased to the Hungenberg Produce company.

The Soash Ranch in Routt County was homesteaded by Kate Monger, who took out her claim on May 2, 1904. The following year she married W.R. Gray, and together they accumulated additional adjacent  parcels, growing the 200 acre farm and ranch to its current size in excess of 1,000 acres. The current owners, Richard, Susan and Nellie Soash, continue in the family tradition, raising hay, barley, wheat and cattle on this property, which also features a 1918 granary, a 1934 chicken coop, and other buildings from the 1940's.

James and Myrtle Rhoades came to Colorado from Kansas in 1902. In 1903 they acquired the former Adams Homestead near Burlington in Kit Carson County. There, they raised barley, corn and feed, and kept horses and milk cows. Battling the hardships of life on the eastern plains took its toll, and for a time they leased the farm and moved to Idaho. But they returned a few years later and picked up where they had left off. Their perseverance paid off, because today the Rhoades property is a 12,200 acre cow and calf ranch occupied by the fourth generation of the family, Bobby and Gary Rhoades.

Located near the town of Gardner in western Huerfano County, the Martinez Ranch was homesteaded by Manuel Vigil in 1879 along the Vigil and Chavez ditch that had been established a decade earlier. Several buildings and landscape features from this early period remain, including the ditch itself and various corrals and sheds. In those years, the land produced pinto beans, alfalfa, blue corn, oats and wheat. Today,  Orlando and Rose Marie Martinez raise cattle and alfalfa on this family ranch.

Godfrey Charles Binder came to Colorado from Germany by way of Chicago in the late 1890's. In 1904 he bought this property on the Little Thompson River near Milliken in Weld County. There, he pioneered the cattle and sheep feeding business, and was among the first in the area to raise potatoes. The current owners, Esther, Dean and Tom Binder and Carol Binder-Sauer, raise alfalfa, barley, beans, beets and corn, and run a 1,000 head cattle feeding operation.