Miller Farms

My grandfather, John Miller, moved to this area near the turn of the last century. He and his wife, Mary owned a General Store in Windsor Colorado and worked as farmers through the Great Depression. This was when droughts from 1934 to 1937 helped create the Dust Bowl of the Great Plains. It is also when my father, Roy Miller, was growing up.

My dad began his own farm after WWII. In 1949, Roy and Dorothy Miller purchased the land that we currently farm. In the beginning, they had a small dairy and grew conventional crops like alfalfa, corn, beans, and beets. In the early 1950s, sugar beets were a major industry of Colorado's eastern plains. During harvest, my parents and other local farmers would haul their sugar beets to the local "beet dumps." There, beets would be piled high and waiting for the Great Western Sugar Mill Company to take them away for processing.

In the late 1950's my parents started growing a few acres of vegetables and put a small roadside stand in the front yard. They sold fresh farm produce on the honor system. People would stop by on their Sunday drives, get their vegetables, and leave the money in the tin can.

In 1965, about the time I was born, my parents built our current market, followed by several greenhouses. Most of our market business was still from the traditional Sunday drives where families would drive around the countryside, buy fresh produce, and visit their neighbors. Unfortunately, the gas shortage of the 1970s greatly slowed the business of selling directly from our market.