Historic Niwot home with Ukranian roots

The area around in and around Niwot, known as the Left Hand Valley, has deep agricultural roots dating back to the late 1800s in the early settlement days of Colorado

Pioneer families such as the Caywoods, Williamses and the Goulds turned the prairie land into productive soils, producing wheat, sugar beets, and alfalfa. Many farms started alongside the nearby railroads and Niwot became a farming town, even having it;s own dairy and creamery.

Many homes were built on farmland in the early 1900s, including the beautiful farm house at 7007 Quiet Retreat in Niwot, which was originally on farmer John Guess White's 160-acre patent, issued in 1897, according to a cultural resource inventory completed in 2005 by the Colorado Historical Society.

The land was sold to Anton Fladung in 1917. Fladung had emigrated from Poninskoi, Russia in 1908, moving to Kansas and later to Colorado. Many Germans living in Russia's Ukraine province emigrated to Colorado and became railroad workers and farmhands, and were

instrumental in the growth of the sugarbeet industry. The home was built on the property in 1931, according to county records.

A 1994 cultural resources survey notes that Idell Leinweber, a longtime Niwot resident, "remembers visiting one of the Fladung girls and getting a tour of the main floor. The entire family lived in the basement of the house. The main floor was only for show, much like the parlors of early homes that were only used for company visits."

Descendants of Anton Fladung farmed the land through the 1970s, according to the survey. Portions of the land were later sold to the St. Vrain Valley School District and the Niwot Sanitation District, with the remainder of the property platted into a subdivision in 1995.

Today the home is a beautiful 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom farmhouse with a wood burning fireplace, on a 1.3 acre lot, still zoned for agricultural use. As the world is in turmoil with the Russia/Ukraine crisis, it is comforting to know that Niwot was as welcoming a hundred years ago as it is today.