Limon

History

Railroads were the major factor for Limon's original founding and location. The Kansas Pacific Railroad made its way across the plains from southern Kansas following the Smoky Hill Trail in 1870. In 1888, the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad (now the Kyle Railroad) made its way west to east from Colorado Springs, entering Lincoln County and intersecting the Kansas Pacific (now Union Pacific) at the present day location of Limon. This union of the two railroads was the earliest founding of the "Hub City". Limon was the site of a lynching on November 16, 1900. Preston Porter Jr., a fifteen-year-old African-American male, had confessed under duress to the murder of eleven-year-old Louise Frost who was Caucasian. Porter was apparently being held some 90 miles away in Denver, but was sent back to Limon by request of unspecified people and against the wishes of Sheriff Freeman. When the train carrying Porter stopped in Limon, sixteen men selected from a mob of 300 "marked by calmness and determination" took Porter from Freeman's custody despite the sheriff's protestations "in the name of law." Originally it was announced that Porter would be hanged but many in the crowd including R. W. Frost, the girl's father, objected "that such a death would be too easy." The method was left to Frost who decided upon burning at the stake. Frost also refused to allow mutilation of Porter's body before burning. While waiting for his execution, Porter sat next to a bonfire reading the Gospel of Luke from the Bible. Porter was chained to an iron railroad rail set in the ground on the exact spot where the murder had taken place and burned to death, the match to start the fire being set by the girl's father. Lynchings of this type were apparently rare, as reporters on the scene…

Geography

Although entirely in Lincoln County, Limon is located immediately east of the Elbert County line. It lies on the north side of Big Sandy Creek, a tributary of the Arkansas River, on the eastern edge of the Colorado Piedmont region of the Great Plains, and is near the eastern end of the Palmer Divide. Located in east-central Colorado at the junction of Interstate 70, U.S. Highway 287, U.S. Highway 40, U.S. Highway 24, and State Highway 71, Limon is far from any major city or town, being northeast of Colorado Springs and southeast of Denver. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , all land. Limon has a semi-arid steppe climate (Köppen BSk) with cold, dry winters and warm, mildly wetter summers. Due to its location on the eastern plains, the town is often subject to severe, sometimes violent thunderstorms throughout the summer. Large hail, damaging winds, heavy rain, and tornadoes are common in the summer months. The high temperature reaches or exceeds an average of 32.3 days a year and reaches or exceeds an average of 0.8 days a year. The minimum temperature falls below the freezing point an average of 195.9 days a year. |source 2 = NOAA (average snowfall/snowy days 1981–2010) }}

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Western Meadowlark

  Sturnella neglecta Audubon, 1844 · Aves
  797
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  682
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  595
• European Starling

  Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  554
• Great-tailed Grackle

  Quiscalus mexicanus (Gmelin, 1788) · Aves
  493
• Eurasian Collared-Dove

  Streptopelia decaocto (Frivaldszky, 1838) · Aves
  489
• Red-winged Blackbird

  Agelaius phoeniceus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  471
• Horned Lark

  Eremophila alpestris (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  469

Largest nearby schools

• Limon Junior-Senior High School
  High · LIMON · 242 students · 16.1:1 ratio
• Limon Elementary School
  Elementary · LIMON · 215 students · 13.4:1 ratio

Most recent

• M 3 — 2025-10-17
  11 km NNE of Black Forest, Colorado
• M 2.5 — 2021-08-07
  23 km NE of Sugar City, Colorado
• M 3 — 2014-07-15
  23 km NNE of Haswell, Colorado