A Brief History of Johnstown
Harvey J. Parish established Johnstown in 1902 and named it for his son John. The settlement developed along the Great Western Railway amid northern Colorado’s irrigated farms. Its first business, the Fairbairn-Parish Lumber and Mercantile Company, opened in October 1902, and a four-room brick school followed in 1904. Johnstown incorporated in 1907. Dairy processing and the Great Western Sugar Company subsequently helped sustain the agricultural town. The Parish family’s 1914 Craftsman bungalow preserves another chapter of this history: the town purchased it in 1998, and it became the Historic Parish House and Museum.