There’s More to Loma Colorado Than Their One Stop Light
Located roughly 18 miles west of Grand Junction lies Loma, Colorado. A small town with a vast history in the Grand Valley.
Loma was first home to the Ute people, who had left the area in 1881, followed by homesteaders who headed to the area in the late 1880s. Now, Loma is a small farming community marked by a big "L" on a small hill. It gets its name from the Spanish word meaning small hill.
Here are seven things you might not know about the small town of Loma.
The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad finished a narrow gauge railway through Loma in 1882, followed by a standard gauge railway in 1890,
A two-story schoolhouse was built in 1910, using yellow bricks fired on the school grounds. The school remained in use until 1982, and still stands today.
A post office was opened in 1905 and is still in use today.
The "Colorado Millionaire," Verner Zevola Reed, bought land in Loma and started the Golden Hills Ranch in 1907 to grow apples. It wasn't as successful as anticipated and was sold in 1923.
During the Great Depression, the US government sent 32 families from the Dust Bowl to Loma.
In 2015, Loma's first traffic signal was installed at the intersection of Route 6 and Highway 139.
Loma was once a uranium mining and milling town and was known as a "yellowcake town" because uranium oxide looked like yellow cake mix.