Eastern Plains
Yuma County
11 Porch Notes tied to Yuma County — the local details that change from one part of Colorado to the next.
Water and land (3)
Water and land
A house well in Yuma County is not the same as an irrigation well
A domestic well that serves a Yuma County home comes with permit conditions and use limits that are very different from a big irrigation well.
Read note ->Water and land
In Yuma County, groundwater comes with the Republican River Compact
Most irrigation in Yuma County draws on the Ogallala Aquifer in a basin governed by an interstate compact, so pumping here is administered, not unlimited.
Read note ->Water and land
Why Colorado's northeast corner looks like desert: the Wray sandhills and Arikaree River
Yuma County's far corner is a stabilized sand-dune country of sandsage shrub, and the Beecher Island nature trail near the cottonwood-lined Arikaree River lets you walk it.
Read note ->Outdoors and wildfire (3)
Outdoors and wildfire
Bird hunting in Yuma County runs on access programs, not open land
Most of Yuma County is private farmland, so public bird hunting here happens through state wildlife areas and the Walk-In Access program, each with its own rules.
Read note ->Outdoors and wildfire
Bonny is now a wildlife area, and the lake is much smaller than the maps show
The old Bonny Lake State Park on the Republican River became South Republican State Wildlife Area, so the rules and the reservoir itself are not what older maps suggest.
Read note ->Outdoors and wildfire
Spring booming grounds: greater prairie-chickens in the Yuma County sandhills
The sandhills of northern and central Yuma County hold greater prairie-chickens that gather on spring leks to perform a booming courtship display.
Read note ->Cars and driving (1)
Local rules (1)
History and culture (3)
History and culture
A Smithsonian Ice Age Bison Hunt, Displayed in Downtown Wray
The Wray Museum on the Eastern Plains holds a permanent Smithsonian paleo-Indian exhibit built around a real Ice Age bison-kill bone bed.
Read note ->History and culture
Old Threshers Day in Yuma: a harvest run on steam
Each year the weekend following Labor Day, Yuma fires up antique steam engines and threshing machines and works real wheat the old way, twice a day.
Read note ->History and culture
Under a Wray Cornfield, an Ice Age Bison Hunt
A rancher's bones turned out to be one of the oldest bison hunts in Colorado, and the Wray Museum is where you can stand close to it.
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