In 1900, the city of Cortez was a dusty, Old West mercantile town with a population of 125, according to census records. In just 50 years, the population would boom to 2,680 people.
With the wave of new residents came a wave of new, mid-century architecture and different uses for those buildings.
Historic consultant and researcher Jill Seyfarth recently completed her third survey of historic properties around North Street and the connecting streets between Montezuma and Main Street.
Within this concentrated area of businesses and single-family homes stands some of the most compelling evidence of the 1950s oil and gas boom, Seyfarth said.
“With this particular inventory, you could really see the progression of time; it’s kind of a neat area because you can see how Cortez has grown,” she said.
In addition to the change in architectural styles, another evident change was in building usage.
“In Cortez, from the early days in the 1900s, it was mainly residential houses on large lots but as time went on, in the 1940s and 1950s when Cortez boomed, the land became more valuable for commercial uses.”
Within the area she studied exists every type of structure from very typical commercial buildings of the late 1800s and early 1900s, all the way to boxy designs of midcentury modern.
Seyfarth also did some research on the people who built and lived in these structures, which eventually attracted some of the most prominent figures in local history.
Leading up to the sixth annual Historic Preservation Day events scheduled for May 16, Seyfarth will be giving a presentation on her findings during a talk, titled “From Mercantile to Mid-Century Modern: Cortez Grows Up.” The presentation, hosted by the Montezuma County Historic Society, will be held at the Cortez Cultural Center on May 13 at 7 p.m.
The sixth annual Historic Preservation Day will feature presentations and events at the Sunflower Theatre on Saturday May 16.
The morning presentation, at beginning at 10 a.m. will center around the Baxstrom Stone Masons who built several of the historic sandstone buildings in Cortez, followed by a discussion with stone mason Chris Zeller about the process of stone quarrying, actual building with stone, and the long-term preservation of stone buildings.
At 4 p.m., a program will be held on the Gold Medal Orchard in McElmo Canyon and its recent addition to Colorado’s List of Endangered Places. This session feature a short video on the history of the Orchard, which won a Gold Medal for fruit at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. Jude Schuenemeyer will present the current work that the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project (MORP) is doing to find and preserve historic orchards in southwestern Colorado.