Sterling - Eastern Colorado

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Experience Sterling, Briggsdale, Crook, Fleming, and Stoneham, Colorado

The Logan County Fair and Rodeo

Established in 1868, Sterling, Colorado developed through a series of pioneering events. Around the mid 1860s, The Overland Trail (a branch of The Oregon Trail) became the heaviest traveled trail for ranchers, freight, newspapers, trappers, miners, and many others. There is now an Overland Trail Museum to honor and remember the days of the settlers. The Civil War in the 1870s brought people looking for new beginnings. The Union Pacific Railroad finally came to town in the 1880s and the town began to grow.

The Original Skygazers by Bradford Rhea was wood, now it is bronze and at Columbine Park

Metamorphosis Sculpture Located at the Sterling Visitors Center

Today, Sterling has many different activities for visitors to enjoy. Local favorites include the Library, the Welcome Center, Columbus Park, golfing, and the tree sculptures located throughout town. For history buffs there's also the Summit Springs Battlefield and the Grover Depot Museum. Check out the local cattle drives and rodeos in the area.

Annual Events include the Logan County Fairgrounds hosts the Logan County Fair every August, the Sterling Celtic Festival every June, and the Sugar beet Days in September.

North Sterling State Park's Reservoir provides 3,000 acres of aquatic recreation fed by the South Platte River. Water-skiing, sailing, and swimming are all popular pastimes at the lake. If fishing is your style, look for these warm-water dwellers - Bass, Bluegill, Catfish, Crappie, Perch, Tiger Muskie, Walleye, & Wipers.

The Pawnee National Grasslands near the Wyoming border is a bird watching paradise. Check out the Chalk Bluffs, a popular raptor nesting site. Hiking is popular at the Grasslands especially to the Pawnee Buttes, the most notable geologic feature.

Take a drive along the Pawnee Pioneer Trails Scenic Byway. It is a perfect day trip as it only takes you 3 hours to drive. This byway traverses the rugged Colorado Piedmont, a wide-open region anchored by the towering Pawnee Buttes. Watch for wildlife: coyotes, prairie dogs, rattlesnakes, pronghorn antelope, and hundreds of bird species.

The town of Crook is a "small town [with a] big heart." Noted on lists of unusual place names, this town got it's name from General George Crook of the Civil War. The town hosts the Crook Fair every July.

Willa Cather's 1900 short story The Affair at Grover Station describes Grover as, "a red box of a station, section house barricaded by coal sheds and a little group of dwellings at the end of everything, with the desert running out on every side to the sky line." Grover is "home of the biggest little rodeo in the west"; the Grover Rodeo is held every Father's Day Weekend.

Sterling is near: Fort Morgan, Julesburg & Yuma

Driving Directions and Location: Sterling, Briggsdale, Crook, Fleming, and Stoneham, Colorado

Sterling is 66 miles west of the Colorado-Nebraska Border on Highway 138, which parallels Interstate-76.

Commercial air travel accommodations are handled by Denver International Airport. Please contact your preferred travel agent or airline for flight arrangements. Sterling is 122 miles northeast of Denver International Airport along Interstate-76.

Featured Sterling Businesses

For more travel information contact:

Sterling Activities & Maps

National Parks and Monuments:
Pawnee National Grasslands

Scenic Byways:
Pawnee Pioneer Trails Scenic Byway