Montrose, Colorado
city in and seat of Montrose County, Colorado, United States
Montrose is a home rule municipality that is the county seat of and the most populous municipality in Montrose County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 20,291 at the 2020 census, within a total area of 18.5 square miles. The main road that leads in and out of Montrose is U.S. Highway 50.
The city is located in western Colorado, in the Uncompahgre Valley, and is an economic, labor, and transportation waypoint for the surrounding area. Montrose is the second-largest city in western Colorado, after Grand Junction.
History
Montrose was incorporated on May 2, 1882, and named after the Marquis of Montrose, immortalized in Sir Walter Scott's novel A Legend of Montrose by Oliver D. "Pappy" Loutzenhizer and Joseph Selig. The Denver & Rio Grande railroad was built west toward Grand Junction and reached Montrose later in 1882, and the town became an important regional shipping center. A branch railroad line served the mineral-rich San Juan Mountains to the south.
In 1909, the U.S. government completed construction of the Gunnison Tunnel, located east of Montrose. It provided irrigation water from the Gunnison River in the Black Canyon to the Uncompahgre Valley, helping turn Montrose into an agricultural hub.
The public source identifies “Montrose, Colorado” as city in and seat of Montrose County, Colorado, United States. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Montrose, Colorado and city.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Montrose, Colorado”, the useful work is to connect “city in and seat of Montrose County, Colorado, United States” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q994436. VIAF identifies the subject as 139581137. The Library of Congress control number is n82139050. Authority coordinates are 38.477, -107.866. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1882 and 1909.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
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Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
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- Expand the search: follow Montrose, Colorado primary sources, Montrose, Colorado archive and Montrose research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Montrose, Colorado” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.