Town file
Byers, Colorado
Byers, Colorado (Arapaho County, Colorado) is the town in one episode of Small Town Murder, the comedy true-crime podcast: episode 134, "Some People Just Don't Mix" (29 August 2019). Byers is a small town in Arapahoe County, Colorado, about fifty minutes north-east of Denver, with a population of 1,212.
- Town
- Byers
- County
- Arapaho County
- State
- Colorado
- Country
- USA
- Episodes
- 134
- Approximate location
- 39.709, -104.213
Episode 134 / 29 August 2019 / 152 min / full
Some People Just Don't Mix
"We're going to Byers, Colorado, about 50 minutes northeast of Denver, in Arapaho County." about 0:06:30
The case: Murder of Virginia May (July 18, 1986). Read the case file.
The figures, as told in 2019
- Population
- 1,212
- Median age
- about 47
- Median household income
- almost $65,000
- Median home value
- $369,900
- Two-bedroom rent
- $1,310
- Religious
- 34.5%
- Property crime
- ▼ about one third lower
- Violent crime
- ▼ about half
History, in brief
- Byers has had a post office since 1873. about 0:08:34
- The community was named for William Byers, the newspaper editor who started the Rocky Mountain News, the first newspaper printed in Colorado; it ran until 2009. about 0:08:39
- Byers started out in Iowa in the 1850s, moved to Omaha in 1854 and was the first deputy surveyor in the Nebraska territory. about 0:09:06
- He moved to Denver in 1859 for the gold strikes, taking printing presses west by ox cart. about 0:09:52
- He and another man wrote a handbook to the gold fields for newcomers. about 0:10:18
- In 1863 he bought hot sulfur springs in northern Colorado from a Minnesota woman in what the episode calls a shady deal; the Ute tribe sued unsuccessfully. about 0:11:03
- He planned to turn the springs into 'America's Switzerland', but the railroad did not arrive until 1928. about 0:11:18
- In Denver he built several mansions, including the Byers-Evans House, now a museum next to the Denver Art Museum. about 0:12:36
- He and his wife moved to South Denver and organised a dry community there. about 0:12:49
- During the 1860s the area was cattle range and sheep country, and the gold rush did not last long. about 0:13:22
- Joseph Farmer ran the biggest catalogue operation in Byers. about 0:14:09
- Homesteaders arrived in the early 1900s and lived in sod houses called soddies, built from three-foot strips of buffalo grass sod. about 0:15:12
- The Kansas Pacific Railroad received federal land grants of odd-numbered sections for 20 miles on each side of the track, earning 20 square miles of land for every mile of track, and towns including Byers were created from this in 1889. about 0:17:05
Nearest Small Town Murder towns
- Kiowa, Colorado28 miles
- Golden, Colorado53 miles
- Longmont, Colorado57 miles
- Greeley, Colorado57 miles
- Estes Park, Colorado83 miles
- Carr, Colorado89 miles
Everything here is as told in the episode, on the date it went out; figures and places may have changed since. Endings are covered: open an episode and use the spoiler switch to read them.