Longmont Map
Longmont is a Home Rule Municipality in Boulder and Weld counties in the U.S. state of Colorado. Longmont is located in Northern Colorado. Longmont is the 13th most populous city in the State of Colorado. The word "Longmont" comes from Longs Peak, a prominent mountain named for explorer Stephen H. Long that is clearly visible from Longmont, and "mont" from the French word for mountain. The city is located northeast of the county seat of Boulder and 31 miles (50 km) north-northwest of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. In contrast to its better-known neighbor, Longmont has a much more quiet and residential feel, although the city has begun to grow rapidly in recent years. The population was 86,270 at the 2010 census.
Also notable, Longmont was declared an "All-America City" by the National Civic League in June 2006. The city was also named number 50 on the 2008 list of the top 100 places to live in the United States by Money Magazine.
Longmont was founded in 1871 by a group of people from Chicago, Illinois. Originally called the Chicago-Colorado Colony, the men sold memberships in the town and with the proceeds purchased the land necessary for the town. As the first planned community in Boulder County, the city streets were laid out in a grid plan in a square mile. The city began to flourish as an agricultural community after the building of the Colorado Central Railroad line arrived northward from Boulder in 1877. In the 1940s the city began to grow beyond these original limits. In the 1960s the federal government located an air-traffic control center in town and IBM built a large plant near the city. As agriculture waned, more high technology has come to the city especially in the computer hard drive industry including companies like Seagate and Maxtor. In April 2009 GE Energy relocated their control solutions business to the area. The downtown along Main Street, once nearly dead during the 1980s, has seen a vibrant revival in the last decade. In the mid 1990s, the south edge of the city became the location of the first New Urbanist project in Colorado, called Prospect New Town, designed by renowned architect Andres Duany.
Nearby cities include Dacono, Lafayette, Louisville, Boulder, Superior.