A Brief History of Milliken
Milliken grew around a station the Denver, Laramie & Northwestern Railroad established in 1909 near Hillsboro, an older settlement in Weld County. The station honored John D. Milliken, and businesses from Hillsboro moved into the new town. A fire burned downtown in 1911, and the railroad’s planned route never extended beyond Greeley. Rail shipping nevertheless remained important to Milliken. By the late 1920s and into the 1930s, cattle and sugar beets were among the town’s leading shipments, linking local farms and feedlots to outside markets.