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TheColorado Piedmont is an area along the base of the foothills of theFront Range in north centralColorado in theUnited States. The region consists of a broad hilly valley, under 6,600 feet (2,000 m) in elevation, stretching north and northeast fromDenver in the valley of theSouth Platte River, as well as along theArkansas River valley southward fromColorado Springs. The name Colorado Piedmont also refers to the physiographic section of theGreat Plains province.[citation needed]
The Colorado Piedmont elevation is lower than the foothills, but is also slightly lower elevation than theHigh Plains to the east. According to current geologic theory, the Piedmont was formed approximately 28 million years ago, during the broad bowing of theNorth American Plate that lifted the continent between present-dayKansas andUtah to its present elevation of approximately 5000 ft (1500 m). This uplift resulted in increased streamflow and rapid erosion on the eastern side of theRocky Mountains. The erosion scraped away the top layer ofUpper Cretaceoussandstone (which still exists as the top layer on the High Plains), exposing the underlying layer ofPierre Shale, which had been formed during the Cretaceous, when ashallow sea covered present-day Colorado. It was during this time that the South Platte River, which had previously flowed eastward across the Plains, rerouted northward along the mountains to join theCache la Poudre River. In some areas of the Piedmont, a loose veneer ofPleistocene gravel overlays older shale and which accumulated duringglaciation in the mountains, when streams descending onto the Piedmont became overburdened with sediment.[citation needed]
The drop off from the Plains to the Piedmont is noticeable to motorists driving southward fromCheyenne, Wyoming onInterstate 25. At approximately Mile 293 northeast ofWellington, Colorado, near theLarimer-Weld county line, the road drops noticeably from the Upper Cretaceous sandstone of the Plains to the lower shale of the Piedmont. The transition from High Plains to Piedmont is likewise accompanied by a change in agriculture, from pasture lands on the Plains to cultivated fields in the Piedmont.[citation needed]
In the 19th century, the Piedmont region was inhabited primarily by theSouthern Arapaho andCheyenne tribes. From the earliest time of white settlement in the middle 19th century, the issue of water has been a controlling force in the economy of the region.[citation needed] The use of irrigation in the Piedmont starting in the 1860s led to widespreadhomesteading and cultivation of wheat and sugar beets, as well as cattle and sheep ranching. Much of the irrigation water in the Piedmont comes from shallow wells that tap the layers of Pleistocene gravel. Water diversion projects, locally from the Cache la Poudre and other rivers, as well as theColorado-Big Thompson Project, also supply needed water to the region.[citation needed]
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39°44′21″N104°59′06″W / 39.7392°N 104.9849°W /39.7392; -104.9849 (Denver, Colorado)
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