Colorado Food: 1876 to Today

In honor of Colorado’s 150th birthday as a State, I’m delivering three talks this August at the Denver Botanic Gardens on “the history of food in Colorado.” Attendance at the presentations is sold out, so I want to share some of the talks’ content with those of you who cannot be there. Here, a bit of Colorado’s food from Statehood in 1876 and the early 1900s.

But first, I am proud to say that I derive from a Colorado farming family: Beginning in the late 1800s, my great-grandfather, Edgar Sadd St. John, and his father were dairy farmers near Brighton, Colorado, north of Denver. In Edgar Sadd’s memoirs he writes: “Mother and I made regular trips to Denver in a lumber wagon pulled by a team of bronchos [ponies], starting about daylight and returning home after dark. Peddling butter from house to house on Capitol Hill, Denver; Stout Street at that time was almost out in the country.”

From 1893 to 1918, The St. John Mercantile Company, run by my great-grandfather, grandfather, and grand uncle, was a dry goods and food merchant. (The St. John Building stands today in Fort Lupton, Colo., at 701 4th Street.)

Beginning in 1882, John Petal and Jean Harlow (Harlow was Justice of the Peace in Palisade), farmers in Rapid Creek, Colo., two miles east of Palisade, diverted water from the Colorado River into their lands in the Grand Valley and began cultivating orchards of peaches, apples, apricots, and cherries. By 1888, they were shipping their peaches across the U.S.A. 

G.W. Swink crossed the Arkansas River in 1887 to set up a trading post at Rocky Ford, Colo., and diverted water from the river for irrigation. He discovered that the soils and climate are near-perfect for the growing and raising of melons. Beginning with success at watermelons, he soon plants cantaloupe, which becomes even more popular than watermelon, and by the turn of the century, Rocky Ford cantaloupes (often called muskmelons) are shipped across the country by the millions.

From 1900 until the 1960s, sugar beets become a very important state crop. The sugar-beet industry hereabouts commenced after a French-designed sugar-manufacturing plant, which was brought to America by the Mormons, failed to work in Utah. The soil and climate of Colorado proved to be good for sugar beets, and the plant was moved to Colorado by German-speaking Russians from the Volga River region who came here to become both winter wheat and sugar beet farmers. They bring with them recipes for their favorite foods, such as sausages encased in rich dough; a sponge cake made with lemon; cucumber salad with sour cream; “piroshki,” meat baked in small turnovers or tarts; and golbutzi, cabbage leaves stuffed with a mixture of meat, rice, and sour cream.

In April 1910, in an ad in The Denver Evening Post (later simply The Denver Post), the John Thompson Grocery Company of Denver touts “3 lbs dried cherries $1 [in 2026 dollars, $35); 1 quart pure fruit jam, 3 jars for $1; and Arbuckle’s Coffee 15 cents a pound.” [$5 today]. In a move not repeated in grocery stores until just recently, John Thompson also sells beer, wine and spirits: “1 quart 5-year-old Bourdon 75 cents [$26 today]; quarts Coors Export $1.40 a dozen [$50 today]; and a full line of the “best and sour wines $1 to $3.50 a gallon.” [$35 to $122 today]. Until the 2000s in the U.S., the word “sour” described wines, mostly white, that were tart, crisp or zesty. It wasn’t a pejorative moniker. 

Into the late 1890s, in the same newspaper, readers could count on a regular advertisement—small, about 1/16th of a page, in the lower left corner of the “women’s pages”—from stalwart Royal Baking Powder (“Highest of all in Leavening Power”). Its recipes stipulated: “4 teas [teaspoons] in Denver, 1 teas in Aspen.” The advertisement harnessed the leavening power of baking powder to assist in the difficulty of baking at this extraordinarily high elevation.

On this site, more about and recipes using:
- Butter
- Colorado Peaches
- Cantaloupe
- Cooking and Baking at High Elevation