~ the story of my paternal grandparents ~ the early years The following is an excerpt taken off the Internet, written by Richard Louden. Branson, Colorado is situated less than a mile from the passageway between two mesas that was a favored route for early travelers and a military freighting branch of the Santa Fe Trail. Branson owes its origin to the selection of this desirable pass, now known as Emery Gap, as the routing for the Denver, Texas, and Fort Worth Railroad. A switching track called Wilson Switch, adjacent to the present townsite, where railroad freight such as lumber, wind-mills, and farm machinery could be unloaded and the train "flagged" to take on passengers, eventually spawned the little village of Branson. By the year 1915, the nucleus of a little settlement consisting of a grocery store, a blacksmith shop, a clothing store, and a feed store had sprung up alongside the railroad switch, and in August of that year, a post office designated as Coloflats opened up. The surrounding land which had been previously used only for cattle and sheep grazing was now blossoming with homesteads, tar paper shacks, and dugouts, where the flocking settlers had high hopes of converting the prairie grassland into fertile farms. In 1918 a depot was established and the town was renamed Branson after Josiah F. Branson, a town planner who had acquired the land upon which the village was plotted. The homesteaders enjoyed a few good years with above normal moisture, and as they and their crops prospered so did the rapidly expanding little trade center. Three grain elevators were established to accommodate the abundance of wheat and other grains that were hauled from as far as fifty miles away to this railroad shipping point. A cream station was also established to accommodate the needs of the settlers who often relied on the butter and egg money as their cash income between harvest-time sales. Besides the usual assortment of business establishments, Branson was proud to claim the services of a bank, a newspaper, and a doctor. By 1920, the population had reached 400 and would ultimately grow to nearly 1000 in the 1920’s. Growth was hampered somewhat by two disastrous fires, one in 1921, and another in 1922. Before the city water system was established in 1926, a third fire ravaged a block of business buildings. Prior to the existence of the water system, water was delivered at prices of $0.35 and $0.50 per barrel, and some home has cisterns for water storage. After juggling students in the series of make-do buildings and utilizing the church facilities, a large two-storied brick school building was constructed in 1923, adequate to accommodate twelve grades of education within the community. By the late 1920’s weather patterns had returned to normal, and the homesteader population began to wither. The drought years of the 1930’s, coupled with a depression, sounded the death knell for the area as a farming community, and as the disheartened settlers began to move away so, also, did the little town begin to fade.