Our four-county region, known as Planning & Manangement Region 5, is situated on Colorado's Central Plains between the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains and the Kansas state line. The region is comprised of wide-open spaces, friendly communities, clean air and water, and a slower pace of life that might remind you of some place special--maybe even your own hometown.

Our counties are checkered with commercial and industrial sites. They offer almost unlimited land, prime employee demographics and very strategic locations. Denver and Colorado Springs are less than one hour's drive from parts of our region. We're also the state's second-highest entry and exit point for motor traffic. Add to this our proximity to major railways, the Front Range, the Colorado Springs Airport and Denver International Airport, and it's clear why Colorado's Central Plains hold incredible opportunities.

We invite you and your family to walk down one of our town's main streets, to visit a local diner and to talk to our people. You'll find these places offer good public schools, helpful neighbors, Friday night football games, annual town festivals, no traffic jams and lots of peace of mind!

Our southeastern county is one of the top counties in the state in petroleum exploration, barrel-filling, and oil and gas production. The world's largest helium plant also calls Cheyenne County home. A county of rich farmland, of windmills, of flowing waters, the local place names...Smoky Hill River, Eureka nd Bellyache creeks, Wild Horse, Arapahoe, Firstview...evoke the not too distant frontier past---a past uniquely American. Here, the tracks of the Santa Fe Trail wagon trains and the Wells Fargo stagecoaches, early forts, and dugout and soddy homes can still be seen.

With one of the nation's fastest growing populations, and just 20 minutes away from Denver, Elbert County is ideal for new business. This county is shaped like an L on it's side and stretches 50 miles east to west along its length. A spur from the nearby Rockies runs west to east, forming a plateau-like ridge as high as 7,350 feet. The higher precipitation along this Divide causes an abundance of creeks, some of whose names...Kiowa, Comanche and Arickaree...recall the Plains tribes who roamed the area when its first settlers came from the East.

Commissioners:

Kurt Schlegel

Robert Rowland

Larry Ross

Wheat is king in Kit Carson County, followed closely by sunflowers, dry beans and corn. This county is also home to such tourist attractions as the Kit Carson County Carousel and Old Town Museum, both at Burlington. The county is a vast rectangle crossed by the South Fork of the Republican River and its tributaries, a mixture of level prairie and valley lands along the streams, with Kansas along its eastern border. The first settlers came in the 1870s...horse ranchers, whose stock ranged widely between the water courses. After the Rock Island Railroad arrived in 1888, a wave of homesteaders claimed about every half section of public land in the county.

With some of the finest rangeland in the country, Lincoln County is ideal for breeding and raising cattle, as well as for agricultural processing. Twin blessings led to this county's setttlement and growth in the last quarter of the 19th century, and they lead to its prosperity and opportunity today. It is a region of rich and fertile soil, plentifully watered by the Big Sandy Alluvial and Ogallala Aquifer. As a result, homesteaders came, and their hard unglamorous work was rewarded by the land's bounty.