Prowers County

Prowers County covers 1,644 square miles of the Great Plains and Arkansas River valley in southeastern Colorado. The rectangular county is bordered to the north by Kiowa County, to the east by the state of Kansas, to the south by Baca County, and to the west by Bent County. Prowers County has a population of 11,954. More than 7,800 live in the county seat of Lamar, in western Prowers County on the south bank of the Arkansas, at the intersection of US Highways 50 and 385. Other communities include Holly (pop. 1,048), Granada (640), Wiley (405), and Hartman (110), as well as the smaller unincorporated communities of Bristol, Carlton, and Kornman. In eastern Prowers County, US Highways 50, 400, and 385 converge in Granada, while State Highway 89 runs south from Holly.

Prowers County was formed in 1889 and named after John W. Prowers, an early rancher in the area. Once the hunting and wintering grounds of many nomadic indigenous peoples, the Prowers County area officially became part of the United States in 1803. In the late nineteenth century, the arrival of railroads led to the development of agriculture and towns. In the twentieth century the county became an important center of the sugar beet industry, centered on the factory in Holly. During World War II the county was the site of Granada Relocation Center, also known as Amache, one of ten internment camps that held Japanese American citizens for the duration of the war. Today, Prowers County is one of the most productive agricultural counties in the state.

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