Added: 02/24/2006 |
Settlement In Westminster, Single Focus GoldToday Westminster, Colorado is a reasonably affluent city of more than one hundred thousand people located in north central Colorado. In 1858, national attention focused on this region of Colorado when gold was discovered on Little Dry Creek. Male gold prospectors were the initial settlers in Westminster. Women in greater numbers (and of more respectable social status than those who tended to frequent mining camps) began to move into the community after 1862 when the Land Act of 1862 encouraged families to move westward.
Almost all communities in the American west, even those not built on the local discovery of gold, followed a pattern of settlement similar to Westminster. Women and children tended to come later in the life of these frontier towns and exerted a considerable civilizing influence on the localities. With the women came the churches and schools that form the backbone of real, established civilization.
Not surprisingly in the early days of Westminster, single women were rare and highly sought after by the predominantly male population. In modern times, however, the ratio of men to women in the community is roughly equal with men enjoying only.2 percent predominance over the women.
Of the more than thirty eight thousand households in Westminster, single women occupy approximately ten percent. Around fifty-four percent of the households are occupied by married couples and some thirty-two percent of households are made up of non-families.
In a demographic sense in Westminster, single ethnicity is still the norm with Caucasians comprising some eight-four percent of the population. Less than one percent of the local population is African-American but approximately fifteen percent is Hispanic or Latino. Not surprisingly given the frontier heritage of this community, more than five percent of local residents list themselves as Native Americans.
The average income is relatively high in Westminster. Single households tend to earn on average some fifty-six thousand dollars a year. Families make more than sixty-three thousand dollars a year. Males earn approximately forty-one thousand while women bring in around thirty-two thousand.
In Westminster the average age is approximately thirty-three. Approximately twenty-seven percent of the population is under eighteen years of age while some seven percent are older than sixty-five years of age. Some of the affluence in the Westminster area may be explained by the fact that the population is skewed toward people in their thirties who are older and more established than their younger counterparts.
Like many communities in the American west, one thing drove the settlement of Westminster. Single focus was placed on accumulating gold there in the Rocky Mountains in the late 1850s. It was only a few years later and with land incentives put in place by the federal government, that whole families began to migrate to the community and put down the roots that formed the foundation for the thriving town that exists today.
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