JOHNSTOWN, Colo. — Mayor Gary Lebsack calls Johnstown a well-kept secret, but its recent population growth could reveal that this formerly agricultural community might not be on the fringes for much longer.
Back in 2000, the census data shows the population was around 4,000 people. That number grew to 10,000 in 2010, and ballooned to an estimated 15,000 in 2018. It's one of multiple rapidly-growing communities along Interstate 25 between Fort Collins and Denver.
“I think we’ve been one of the fastest-growing towns on the Front Range,” Lebsack said. “I think that’s due to the location, and our willingness to take a couple risks.”
Lebsack was born and raised on a farm just outside of town. He sold the land to a developer (nothing has been done with it yet), and said moving to town got him more interested in its growth. This led him to take up public service.
“There was years and years and years when I sat on my tractor, and I thought to myself ‘it would sure be nice to have a McDonald’s,” he said. “And you finally have enough people now where you can get a McDonald’s.”
That McDonald's is a block away from Johnstown's historic downtown, which is only a block away from a cornfield. But just up the street from that are developments that have brought hundreds of new residents to this formerly small town on the High Plains.
This story is part of our weekly #9Neighborhoods series. Join us at noon on Friday for a photo tour of Johnstown on the 9NEWS Instagram. Have a community we should check out next? Send us an email at webteam@9news.com.
"Hurry up and get well because I'm naming the town after you"
The vision for Johnstown came from a man named Harvey Parish, who was born in Iowa but moved to Colorado with his mother to join his father on the plot of land he settled on the Big Thompson River.
According to the Johnstown Historical Society, the Parishes lived on a log cabin among a settlement of mostly Native Americans and Mexicans. They would later move two miles further east along the river, and according to the Berthoud Bulletin, Harvey Parish became an expert with a rifle, started working in the local farming community.
In 1900, he joined a lumber business, and was referred to in an article at the time as "one of the enterprising young agriculturalists of northern Colorado." When Parish learned a railroad was heading through the area that is now Johnstown, the historical society says he submitted a plat for the town, hoping it would supply nearby farmers and ranchers.
That's why the Main Street was named Parish Avenue. The town itself, though, was named for his son John, who was in the hospital in Denver with appendicitis.
"It is said that Harvey told his youngest son to hurry and get well because he was naming the town after him," according to the Johnstown Historical Society's website.
The first business in Johnstown was Parish' lumber company. The Johnstown Breeze -- the local newspaper -- began publication in 1904.
It's still on Main Street. Editor Matt Lubich, who owns the paper with his wife, has had a front seat to the changes in the community since he moved to Johnstown in 1991 (the couple bought the paper in 1997).
"I just fell in love with the paper, fell in love with the community," he said.
Lubich said he remembers back in 1997, when a headline on the front page of the Breeze was "Local girl returns from camp." He says back then, the town board meetings would deal with heavy topics ... like whether or not to buy new snow tires for a truck.
But as the years have gone on, the paper has started covering the town's growth and the boom in new developments.
"When I first moved here in 1991, there was no development," Lubich said. "The town ended on the east side of the street."
One of the town's traditions was the annual Johnstown BBQ Day. Lubich said firefighters used to drive up and down all of the streets in town and got on the PA, telling people to wake up and come to the firehouse.
But, as more and more people started moving to Johnstown, Lubich said the new residents didn't know this was a tradition, so they'd assume the firefighters were warning them about a tornado and then get angry upon learning the hubbub was about a barbecue.
Now, the firefighters only get on the PA on a couple of streets.
"But some people still complain about it," Lubich said.
A changing community
Driving down CO 60 on the way to Johnstown's Main Street, the views are a combination of vintage Colorado farmland and new subdivisions.
The town's biggest tax base, though, is 9 miles north at Johnstown Plaza -- a shopping center near the Loveland border (and its outlets) that is home to the mega sporting goods store Scheels.
The Coloradoan reports that Johnstown's Town Council issued $95 million in bonds to help with infrastructure improvements in the area, which has $200 million in disposable income within a 7-mile radius.
"Here in the last year that I've become mayor, I've decided in order to continue that growth, we needed to step up and have a little skin in the game, so to speak, so we've taken it upon ourselves to help the developers put the infrastructure in with reimbursement and other new things," Lebsack said.
The Johnstown Plaza is flanked by large new apartments, with a development just behind it.
An expansion of I-25 means that more people will likely come to northern Colorado and Johnstown -- which is sort of a "bedroom community" for people who work in relatively close places like Fort Collins, Longmont and Greeley.
"I keep telling people, when you look at it, if you don't grow, the expenses to maintain your town are going up all the time," Lebsack said. "Just the simple things like chemicals to treat your water plants, and labor and insurance costs and streets, all of that continues to get more expensive.
"The only way to offset that is with controlled growth. You need the property tax. You need the sales tax."
Lebsack said his goal his to handle the growth in an "orderly fashion" and to expect quality from the developers. Nevertheless, his hope is for Johnstown to remain the character that brought people to the area in the first place.
"Johnstown, we try to call ourselves an ag community," he said. "We've got the best of both worlds in that we've got a retail area and we've got the historic downtown area.
"We're a friendly community ... we don't want to let it out to where everybody comes here, but when they come here, they find we're welcoming, we're well-organized, we're well-planned. We're just a great place to live."
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