Hartman, Colorado

Hartman was founded in 1909 and the population grew to about 5,500 in the 1920s and 1930s. There was a railroad running through town and a plant for processing sugar beets into sugar. In 1938 the Works Progress Administration built a new gymnasium in town as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "New Deal." The gym was built right next to the town's existing two-story high school. Years later the school district was consolidated and the school itself torn down. Hartman's fortunes had begun to decline during World War II. The sugar beet plant closed in the 1960s and today, the gymnasium is in use as Hartman's community center.