Pella Crossing

Pella Crossing Open Space is located just west of Longmont in Hygiene, Colorado and offers fishing and walking trails. Pella Crossing is a Wetland habitats, nestled within the surrounding Great Plains. The Open Space supports aquatic plant and animal life and serves to lure in large numbers of migrating bird species. With grasses, wildflowers and trees surrounding the wetlands, these areas are biologically diverse both in and out of the water. This former gravel mine was opened to the public in 1996 after it was donated to Boulder County by Frontier Materials, Inc. in 1992. The property was an agricultural site before it was mined for gravel from 1975 to 1990. In 1995, the western part of the property was purchased from the Marlatt family and added to Pella Crossing.The location of Pella Crossing was known as Laramie Crossing in the 1860s. It's where the Overland Trail (a stagecoach and wagon trail) crossed the St. Vrain Creek en route from Denver to Laramie, Wyoming. Hygiene Elementary 5th graders won a competition to name the donated open space property. They chose the name, Pella Crossing, because the property is the midpoint between 19th century towns Pella and North Pella.