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==History== Crowley County was created by the Colorado legislature on May 29, 1911, out of the northern portions of [[Otero County, Colorado|Otero County]]. Previously both were parts of [[Bent County, Colorado|Bent County]]. The county was named for John H. Crowley, senator from Otero County to the state legislature at the time of the split. Its original inhabitants decades earlier were [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]], more [[Cheyenne]] than other tribes at the time the western expansion of the U.S. arrived. The first significant development and settlement occurred in 1887 when the [[Missouri Pacific Railroad]] came through from the east, on its way to [[Pueblo, Colorado|Pueblo]] and Colorado's rich gold fields of "[[Pike's Peak Gold Rush|Pikes Peak Or Bust]]". The county seat is in [[Ordway, Colorado|Ordway]], a town established in 1890 that quickly became the economic hub of the area. Other towns still existing along the Missouri Pacific Railroad's route are [[Sugar City, Colorado|Sugar City]], [[Crowley, Colorado|Crowley]], and [[Olney Springs, Colorado|Olney Springs]]. A few years later, developers brought a canal east from the Arkansas River, with ambitious plans to irrigate a million acres (4000 km<sup>2</sup>) in [[Kansas]]; instead, the canal petered out in Crowley County but did irrigate {{convert|57,000|acre|km2}} along its length. This turned early Crowley County into a lush agricultural mecca at first. By the 1970s almost all the water rights were sold from what is now called the Twin Lakes Canal to the fast-growing cities of Colorado's [[Front Range]] corridor. The area's economic activity has shifted toward ranching. Much of the land has returned to its original sparse [[prairie]] [[grassland]] conditions. The [[Crowley School]], which is now the Crowley County Heritage Center, is the county's only historic site listed on the U.S. [[National Register of Historic Places]]. Crowley County also today hosts two prisons: the [[Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility]] in Ordway, and the [[Crowley County Correctional Facility]] in Olney Springs. The 2000 census showed 5,518 county residents, of which 1,955 were prisoners, giving Crowley County the highest percentage of incarcerated prisoners of any county in the U.S. The county maintained this position in the 2010 census, with 2,682 prisoners out of 5,823 residents.
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