Editing Larimer County, Colorado (section)

===Agriculture===
The early growth of agriculture, which depended highly on direct river irrigation, experienced a second boom in 1902 with the introduction of the cultivation of [[sugar beet]]s, accompanied by the construction of the large processing plant of the [[Great Western Sugar|Great Western Sugar Co.]] in Loveland. In the following decade, the sugar beet industry brought large numbers of [[History of Germans in Russia and the Soviet Union|German emigrants from the Russian Empire]] to the county. The neighborhoods of Fort Collins northeast of the Poudre were constructed largely to house these new families.

A significant increase in the agricultural productivity of the region came in the 1930s with the construction of the [[Colorado Big Thompson Project]] following the [[Great Depression]], sort of a third boom for the agricultural industry around Fort Collins. This project collected and captured [[Colorado Western Slope|Western Slope]] water, and carried it over to the [[Front Range]] [[Colorado]] counties of [[Boulder County, Colorado|Boulder]], Larimer, and [[Weld County, Colorado|Weld]], along with extensive water storage and distribution system, which significantly extended the irrigable growing season and brought substantial additional land under irrigation for the first time.