Longmont

Longmont is its own city, mostly in Boulder County with a slice in Weld County, northeast of Boulder and about 34 miles north of downtown Denver by US 287. That highway turns into Main Street through the center of town, and St. Vrain Creek runs through the city on its way east.

A colony from Chicago, laid out on a grid

Longmont started in 1871 as the Chicago-Colorado Colony, settled by a group from Chicago, and incorporated in 1885. The founders fit the streets into a grid one square mile across, the first planned town in Boulder County, and named it for Longs Peak, which is visible from town. Downtown went nearly dormant in the 1980s and came back in the 1990s.

Bungalows west of Main, older blocks to the east

The oldest neighborhoods flank downtown, and both are National Register historic districts. The West Side district runs between Third and Fifth Avenues, from Terry Street over to Grant Street, and was listed in 1987. Bungalows and Craftsman houses set the tone there, with Queen Annes mixed in. The East Side district covers roughly Fourth to Eighth Avenues between Kimbark and Atwood Streets.

Longmont has no locally designated historic districts. If you plan to change the outside of an older house here, ask the city's planning office what applies to that address before you count on the project. The city also runs NextLight, its own gigabit fiber network, which the council voted in 2013 to build to every house and business.

Prospect New Town on the south edge

Prospect New Town went up in the mid-1990s on Longmont's southern edge. It was Colorado's first New Urbanist project, designed by Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, with houses painted in bold colors on streets like 100 Year Party Court and Neon Forest Circle. If you want something newer than the old grid but not a standard subdivision, drive through here.

Main Street and the shops around it

Downtown is a Certified Colorado Creative District. Cheese Importers, at 103 Main Street, was founded in 1976 and moved in 2012 into the building that held the city's first electric utility; bring a jacket for the walk-in cheese room. Rosalee's Pizzeria, at 461 Main, has served East Coast-style pies since 2014 and made Westword's list of the best pizza in metro Denver. Left Hand Brewing has brewed here since 1993 and pours at its taproom on Boston Avenue.

St. Vrain Creek, the greenway and the flood work

The September 2013 flood hit Longmont hard. Since 2016, the Resilient St. Vrain project has been widening and reshaping the creek channel so it can carry a 100-year flood, working upstream from Sandstone Ranch. The goal is to pull most developed land west of Hover Road out of the 100-year floodplain, and the stretch from Hover Road up to Airport Road has no design or funding yet. Maps change as each reach wraps up, so look up any house near the creek on the city's Floodplain Inquiry Map before you write an offer.

The St. Vrain Greenway runs about 8 miles along the creek, from Golden Ponds Nature Area east to Sandstone Ranch, on concrete bike path, gravel and nature trail, and ties into the Left Hand Greenway.

Getting to Denver and Boulder

By car, US 287 runs south to Denver and Highway 119 runs toward Boulder. There's no train to Longmont, so the regional bus is the transit option. The 8th and Coffman Park-n-Ride serves RTD's BOLT, LD1, LD3 and LX2 regional buses plus local routes, and its stops reopened in January 2026 after the Coffman Street rebuild. Two bus rapid transit lines on Highway 119, from Boulder to Highway 66 north of Longmont, are expected in mid-2027 with buses every 30 minutes.