Hello again. In case you missed it, I'm conducting a very important investigation to find out how cities in Northern Colorado got their names. Yesterday's installment was Fort Collins if you want to check it out. 

But today, we're going a little further south to the only town on the Front Range with a decent-sized mall: Loveland. 

Just like Fort Collins, Loveland was also named after a guy named William (must have been a top baby name in the 1800s).

William Austin Hamilton Loveland was the president of the railroad company Colorado Central. While working on the railroad, he stumbled across the future town, which, at the time, was simply a wheat field owned by a man named David Barnes.

In 1877, Barnes permitted the railroad to continue through his property and began building a town around it, according to the Reporter-Herald. In honor of the Colorado Central president and his good friend, Barnes named the town Loveland.

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Although the town was not named after him, Barnes became a beloved staple of the city, with the Loveland Chamber of Commerce referring to him as "Uncle Dave." His house is still standing on Earnest Place.

As for William Loveland, he didn't even settle in his own town. Instead, he moved to Golden, where he tried to build the first business in the area. He faced competition from a man named George West, but the two settled their dispute over whiskey, and Loveland became the first man to own a store in Golden.

However, Loveland's luck ran out there. By the 1870s, he ran out of money for the railroad and was fired as the president of Colorado Central. He moved to Denver in 1878 and spent the remainder of his life there before he passed away at age 68.

At least he still has a town named after him, right?

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