Lookout Mountain School for Boys, Golden, Colorado


Milk Barn	Separating Room	Milking Cattle

"About thirty-five cows are milked by machines and some hand milking. The later operation gives the boys interested in dairying an opportunity to learn the business as they might expect to learn in a small dairy. It has proved in many cases a stepping stone to permanent employment after a boy leave the school.

The school's thoughbred Holstein herd has received very favorable recognition for a long time. Many of the animals have consistently set high records for milk and butter fat. Surplus young stock is easily sold at good process to dairy owners who wish to improve the quality of their herd.

Plenty of rich pasteurized milk and pure butter are top foods because of their vitamin content for growing boys. They are factors in producing a substantial weight increase for nearly every boy after a few months' stay at the school." 1

"Situated at the foot of famous Lookout Mountain and surrounded on all sides by mountain scenery, whos'e grandeur defies description, the location of the State Industrial School, is unsurpassed from a scenic standpoint. This, no doubt has its esthetic value, but in accordance with the inevitable law of compensation, that for every excess there must be a deficit. Nature herself could not afford a lavish hand in agricultural resources also. Of the more than nine hundred acres owned by the institution, only a little more than fifty can be irrigated, and most of the dry land is unproductive, much of it unsuitable for pasture, except for a very limited period in the spring of the year...

Partly overcoming these limitations, however, the farming department has a long and broad column on its side of the ledger for the past year. King corn was made to yield us some 200 tones of corn silage for the dairy cows. Wheat, king of the small grains, replenished the pantry with seven hundred sacks of flour a year's supply...together with rye and sudan grass, bring the estimated total value of field crops to $7,000 for 1926 on a few comparatively small patches of ground."2

"For splendid results in health and muscle building, and economical production of foodstuffs, the garden and orchard rank at the top. That contentment, that peace of mind, that enlargement of vision, that love of nature which comes with tilling the soil and exterminating the weeds and conditions inimical to best results in garden and orchard, are all conductive of longevity, honesty and vigilance. The pride in fine growth, in straight rows, in clean plats may quite properly be expected to extend into the domestic economy of more than one boy when he becomes a landowner or tiller of the soil. The lesson of thrift which diligence and thoughtfulness exemplify through luxurious growth and consequent plenty, or that proof of carelessness and shiftlessness which may be shown in puny plants and sickly results each has its lesson.

The instructor in this department is in love with his work and he surely comes within that definition of a man who makes two vegetables grow where many would have but one, and he fills his boys with enthusiasm and ambition."3

1.      State Industrial School, A Pictorial Presentation of Activities at the Colorado State Industrial School, Golden: Industrial School Press, 1949. Stored at the Colorado State Archives RCC 10151.
2.      State Industrial Training School, The Industrial Training School Year Book 1926, Golden: State Industrial Training School Press, 1926. Stored at the Colorado State Archives RCC 10150.
3.       State Industrial School for Boys, Eighteenth Biennial Report 1915 - 1916, Golden: State Industrial School Press, 1916 Stored at the Colorado State Archives RCC 10150.