In 1863 the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains was a wild and woolly place. Ute, Arapahoe, and Cheyenne peoples lived nomadic lives hunting bison and other game which flourished at the western edge of the Great Plains. Gold prospectors were among the earliest arrivals from the east. A few settlers eked out a living on small and scattered homesteads by dirt farming, trapping, or hunting. Goods and services were traded among these groups, but for the most part it was “every man for himself”! Newlyweds Lafayette and Mary Miller joined an ox-team wagon train across this country’s vast heartland. After months of hard travel the couple initially settled in Burlington, which later became Longmont. They left soon after to operate a stage stop along the Overland Trail between Denver and Cheyenne at the present site of the Coal Creek Farm. The couple moved to the Lafayette area in 1871 and began farming on land they acquired through the Homestead Act.