Kiowa County is the fifth-least populous county in Colorado, the county seat is Eads.
In the late 1800’s, eastern Colorado attracted significant attention by farming interests, not knowing that long-term agriculture was unsustainable in the landscape. The railroads were moving across the plains of the west toward the gold fields of the Rocky Mountains during the Gold Rush. Small camps for railroad workers were established, some sustained and developed into towns, while others went bust.
Agriculture in eastern Colorado collapsed in the Dust Bowl days of the 1930’s, today mostly dry-land farms and some ranching interests survive.
In November of 1864, more than a decade before Colorado became a state and before Kiowa County was formed, a massacre of Native Americans – men, women and children, occurred on Sand Creek that initially was slated as a victory in the Colorado War against hostile Native Americans, but within months, Congressional inquiries revealed a different picture and a national scandal erupted – this became known as the Sand Creek Massacre.
The exact location was not positively identified until 1999, and in 2005, the National Park Service established the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site; which includes a visitor’s center, walking trails and monuments – the massacre site itself is off-limits to visitors.