The story behind the place: Lagerman, Nelson, and Ryssby-Swedish Legacies

The Homestead Act of 1862 turned the American West into a promised land for religiously and socially repressed Swedish Lutherans, who were coming off three years of crop failure. Around 1.3 million Swedes immigrated to the United States between 1862 and the early 1900s.

But not all Swedish immigrants in Longmont acquired their land through the Homestead Act; at least one earned it by gratitude.

In 1870, August Nelson accepted a job in the Blackhawk smelter. With help from his two brothers, Nelson saved up $1,000 to buy land. He was passing through present-day Hygiene when he came upon a disturbing scene. Several men were attempting to hang a 15-year-old boy who had set fire to the Pella schoolhouse. Vigilante justice decided the boy and his family must depart within 24 hours or suffer the consequences. Nelson offered the father $1,000 in exchange for his homestead, shed, plow, and already planted fields. The father accepted.

You may be able to guess the location of the homestead Nelson inherited. In partnership with his brothers John and Louis, Nelson homesteaded a large part of the land now bisected by Nelson Road. In fact, the Boulder County Fairgrounds used to be a part of this family's agricultural domain.

But the Nelson brothers weren't the only Nelsons in the area, or even the first. The first Swedish settlers in Boulder County included Samuel Gumeson, Sven and Bengt Johnson, Aaron Peterson, Sven Magni, Peter Johnson, Lars Larson and Johannes Nelson. The latter was affectionately called "Canyon" Nelson to distinguish him from others with the same last name.

This entrepreneurial contingent of Swedes took up residence in the vicinity of present day Lagerman Reservoir between 1870 and 1871. Like many homesick pioneers, they named their settlement after the one they had just left in Ryssby, Sweden. Timbers were hauled from the mountains for homes, sheds, and a 12-mile livestock perimeter fence. The community helped dig the Swede, James, Tollgate, Lake, Table Mountain, and Holland ditches to irrigate their land.

Despite their best efforts, the first years were trying. Drought was exacerbated by plagues of Rocky Mountain locusts, a now-extinct grasshopper species that descended in biblical proportions and destroyed everything in their path.

But religion held the Swedes together. In the early days, Sven Johnson's commodious house doubled as a church and school for the Lutheran congregation. Both migrated into a log cabin at the edge of his farm in 1875. And finally, in 1878, the school district gave the Lutherans permission to organize a church.

The same year, Frederick Lagerman arrived in Ryssby to serve as a spiritual leader for the Swedish Evangelical Congregation of Ryssby. According to the Swedish custom, the congregation purchased 160 acres of land as a "Prastgard," or preacher's garden. The community farmed this land, and its profit went to pay the reverend's salary. Among the additions to the land--a reservoir known locally as Swede Lake but officially as Lagerman Reservoir.

It is ironic that the reservoir still bears this name, because Pastor Lagerman didn't last long. Paying his $300 salary was difficult enough for the congregation, never mind supplying the promised parsonage and church. The parsonage was eventually built, but Lagerman resigned before planning for the church began.

It is a tribute to the difficulty of life on the frontier that the congregation could not find another minister for two and a half years. The entire church was planned, built, dedicated, and used for one year before L.J. Sandeen became Ryssby's next minister in 1883.

The church was modeled after the church in Ryssby, Sweden. It was made of local sandstone and sat on three acres donated by Hugo Anderson. The dedication took place on June 24, 1882, a Swedish holiday called Midsummer Day. Residents from Longmont, Hygiene, and the Niwot United Brethren Church all attended the dedication.

Eventually, many of Ryssby's residents abandoned their homesteads for better land and work in Longmont's sugar and canning factories. In 1914, the church merged with the Elim Lutheran Church of Longmont. But the legacy of this community lives on in Lagerman Reservoir, Nelson Road, and the Ryssby Church, which still opens its doors for Midsummer Night Festival, Christmas services, and special events.