Simla, Colorado
Simla is a small town located on the eastern plains of Colorado, situated in Elbert County. Founded in 1909, Simla has developed over more than a century into a close-knit rural community whose identity is shaped by its agricultural heritage, the sweeping windswept plains that surround it, and the resilience of its residents in the face of both natural and public health challenges. The town carries a zip code of 80835 and sits within a landscape that has long drawn homesteaders, farmers, and those seeking a quieter pace of life on the Colorado high plains.
History
Simla was founded in 1909 by a man with the name of Altman, according to historical records associated with the community.[1] Like many towns that took root on the eastern Colorado plains during the early twentieth century, Simla emerged during a period of significant homesteading activity across the region. The plains surrounding the town attracted settlers who staked claims and constructed homes, many of them built from the sod of the land itself—a practical solution given the scarcity of timber on the open prairie.
A striking illustration of Simla's homesteading era survives in historical records that document Mrs. J. A. McMichall, who in 1917 was identified as the oldest woman homesteader in Colorado at the age of 77. She was photographed standing at the door of a sod homestead in the Simla area, an image that encapsulates both the hardship and determination that characterized life on the Colorado plains during that period.[2] Such records offer a rare window into the lives of the men and women who shaped the region's early character.
The history of the town is woven into the broader narrative of rural Colorado, where communities developed in relative isolation from larger urban centers, relying heavily on local agriculture and strong communal bonds. The windswept nature of the landscape—both a challenge to early settlers and a defining characteristic of the region's aesthetic—remains central to the identity of Simla and the surrounding area.[3]
Geography and Natural Environment
Simla occupies a position on the High Plains of eastern Colorado, a region characterized by wide open vistas, semi-arid climate conditions, and an expansive sky that draws both residents and visitors. The town's surroundings are quintessential eastern Colorado terrain—rolling grasslands punctuated by the occasional farmstead, grain elevator, or line of cottonwood trees marking a dry creek bed.
The area around Simla is not immune to the severe weather that frequently affects the eastern Colorado plains. In early June of a notable year, a visually stunning tornado dropped out of a supercell thunderstorm in Simla, Colorado. The event attracted a flock of storm chasers who photographed the dramatic atmospheric display, and footage of the tornado later gained widespread attention for its mesmerizing visual qualities.[4] Such meteorological events are a reminder of the powerful atmospheric dynamics that characterize the Great Plains and the eastern Colorado front, where warm moist air flowing north from the Gulf of Mexico can collide with drier, cooler air masses to produce severe convective storms.
The plains around Simla form part of the broader ecological zone of the shortgrass prairie, a landscape that sustained large buffalo herds before European-American settlement and that today supports cattle ranching and dryland farming operations. The town lies far enough from the Rocky Mountains to the west that it experiences the full brunt of continental weather patterns, including temperature extremes, low humidity, and the persistent winds that shaped the character of early homesteaders and continue to define daily life for current residents.
Community and Demographics
Simla is, by most measures, a small and tightly bound community. The town's character is one of rural self-reliance, where neighbors know one another and community institutions—schools, churches, local businesses—serve as anchors for social life. The description of Simla as a place "where history whispers through the windswept plains and community thrives" captures the dual nature of the town: a place shaped by its past while remaining an active, functioning community in the present.[5]
Small towns across the eastern Colorado plains often share a common set of social challenges, including population shifts associated with changes in agricultural employment and the migration of younger residents toward larger urban centers. Simla is no exception to these broader regional trends, and the town's ability to maintain its community fabric over more than a century speaks to the durability of local institutions and the commitment of its residents.
Public Health
Like communities across the United States, Simla faced the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020. The town had, in certain respects, felt insulated from the worst of the early pandemic due to its small size and geographic isolation. However, the emergence of new coronavirus variants in late 2020 changed the situation for many such rural communities. A report from The New York Times published in December 2020 documented the experience of Simla as it confronted the arrival of a coronavirus variant, illustrating how even the most remote and small communities were not sheltered from the pandemic's reach.[6]
The experience of Simla during the COVID-19 pandemic became something of a case study in how rural American communities navigated a public health crisis with limited local medical infrastructure. The town's story was representative of countless similar communities across the rural American West, where geographic distance from urban hospitals and clinics added complexity to the management of illness and the distribution of resources during a national emergency.
Infrastructure and Environment
Simla operates municipal infrastructure appropriate to a small rural town, including sewerage systems that serve the community. Records from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and documented by The New York Times indicate that the Town of Simla's sewerage facility, located approximately one-third of a mile northeast of the town center, has been subject to EPA oversight. The facility recorded a total of two inspections, with the last inspection occurring on February 27, 2008. The facility was classified under sewerage systems and recorded thirteen violations over the inspection period, including effluent violations in 2005 and 2006, as well as reporting and monitoring violations in 2007 and 2008. Importantly, EPA data indicated that the reporting and monitoring violations did not reflect any actual discharge of pollutants; in most cases, the violations were the result of required reports not being filed, which triggers automatic violations under the regulatory framework. No formal or informal enforcement actions were taken against the facility, and it had not been found out of compliance in the twelve quarters preceding the last documented review.[7]
This record reflects a pattern common to many small rural municipalities, where administrative capacity to complete regulatory filings can be constrained by limited staffing and resources, even when actual environmental performance remains acceptable.
Notable Residents
Among the individuals with roots in Simla is Leslie Levi, born Leslie Burns on March 10, 1954, to Chester and Betty Burns in Simla, Colorado. Levi was a 1972 graduate of Woodland Park High School and went on to build a life that took her beyond the small eastern plains town of her birth.[8] Her story is representative of many who were born in small Colorado towns during the mid-twentieth century, carrying their origins with them as they moved through the broader world.
The residents of Simla, past and present, reflect the enduring character of small-town Colorado life—rooted in agricultural tradition, shaped by the land, and connected to one another through the shared experience of living on the open plains far from major metropolitan areas.