Editing Longmont, Colorado (section)

==History==
Longmont was founded in 1871 by a group of people from [[Chicago, Illinois]]. Originally called the '''Chicago-Colorado Colony'''<!-- bolded per [[WP:MOSBOLD]] as a redirect -->, led by president [[Robert Collyer]], the men sold memberships in the town, purchasing the land necessary for the [[town hall]] with the proceeds. As the first planned community in Boulder County, the city streets were laid out in a [[grid plan]] within a [[square mile]]. The city began to flourish as an [[agriculture|agricultural]] community after the [[Colorado Central Railroad]] line arrived northward from Boulder in 1877.

In 1925, the [[Ku Klux Klan]] gained control of Longmont's City Council in an election. They began construction of a large [[Pork barrel|pork-barrel project]], Chimney Rock Dam, above Lyons and marched up and down Main Street in their costumes. In the 1927 election they were voted out of office, and their influence soon declined. Work on Chimney Rock Dam was abandoned as unfeasible, and its foundations are still visible in the St. Vrain River.<ref>{{Cite news |date=April 10, 1971 |year= |title=Ku Klux Klan Controlled Longmont in 1920's |work=[[Longmont Times-Call|Longmont Daily Times-Call]] |url=https://bocolatinohistory.colorado.edu/newspaper/ku-klux-klan-controlled-longmont-in-1920s-p-1 |url-status=live |access-date=November 22, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220201140512/https://bocolatinohistory.colorado.edu/newspaper/ku-klux-klan-controlled-longmont-in-1920s-p-1 |archive-date=February 1, 2022 |via=The Boulder County Latino History Project}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Runyon |first=Luke |date=January 2, 2019 |title=What Happened When The Colorado KKK Tried To Build A Dam |url=https://www.kunc.org/news/2019-01-02/what-happened-when-the-colorado-kkk-tried-to-build-a-dam |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201108013401/https://www.kunc.org/news/2019-01-02/what-happened-when-the-colorado-kkk-tried-to-build-a-dam |archive-date=November 8, 2020 |access-date=November 24, 2022 |website=[[KUNC]] |language=en}}</ref>

In 1955, [[United Airlines Flight 629]] exploded over [[Weld County, Colorado|Weld County]], [[Colorado]] 8 miles east of Longmont, killing 44 passengers and crew.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Jack Gilbert Graham |url=https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/jack-gilbert-graham |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220513001442/https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/jack-gilbert-graham |archive-date=May 13, 2022 |access-date=May 13, 2022 |website=FBI}}</ref>

During the 1960s, the federal government built the [[Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center]] in Longmont, and [[IBM]] built a manufacturing and development campus near Longmont. Longmont Foods was a turkey processor that once supplied turkey products throughout the United States. For example, turkey hot dogs with the Longmont Foods label were sold throughout the US. In 1950 they constructed a large plant on southern Main St. that received trucks full of live turkeys. The company was eventually purchased by [[Butterball]] and then closed 2011.<ref>{{cite web |title=Butterball to shutter Longmont plant; 350 jobs to be lost |url=https://www.timescall.com/2011/09/14/butterball-to-shutter-longmont-plant-350-jobs-to-be-lost/ |website=Longmont Times Call |date =September 14, 2011 | access-date = February 3, 2024}}</ref>
As agriculture waned, more high technology has come to the city, including companies like [[Seagate Technology|Seagate]] and [[Amgen]]; Amgen closed its Longmont campus in 2015. In April 2009, the [[GE Energy]] Company relocated its control solutions business to the area.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}}

The [[downtown]] along Main Street, once nearly dead during the 1980s, has seen a vibrant revival in the 1990s and into the 21st century. During the mid-1990s, the southern edge of Longmont became the location of the first [[New Urbanism|New Urbanist]] project in Colorado, called [[Prospect New Town]], designed by the [[architect]]s [[Andrés Duany]] and [[Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk]].

Longmont was the site of Colorado's first library, founded in 1871 by [[Elizabeth Rowell Thompson]], though it lasted up to a year before its collection of 300 books was lost. Following this, Longmont also was the site of one of Carnegie's libraries with the single-story structure being opened in 1913. It remained open until August 7, 1972, when, due to overcrowding with approximately 22,000 books within the space, it was closed just a week before the new library that had been constructed next door was opened.<ref>{{cite web |title=Longmont Carnegie Library |url=https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/longmont-carnegie-library |website=Colorado Encyclopedia |date=July 5, 2017 |publisher=Encyclopedia Staff |access-date=October 23, 2019}}</ref>

In May 2013, the Longmont City Council voted to finance and build out its own municipal gigabit data [[fiber-optic]] network, known as NextLight, to every house and business over a three-year period starting in late 2013.