Oaklands Ranch marks 150 years of Curtis family stewardship in Douglas County

Oaklands Ranch still covers more than 1,100 acres near Sedalia, and six generations of the Curtis family have kept it in production since Henry C. Curtis, who immigrated from Wales, started the homestead in 1871. The ranch now reads less like a family keepsake than a test case for Douglas County, where open ground keeps colliding with growth, drought and the economics of keeping land working instead of selling it off.

History Colorado placed Oaklands Ranch in its Centennial Farms & Ranches program in 1996, a recognition reserved for places that have stayed in the same family for at least 100 years and remain working farms or ranches. The state agency says family farms, ranches, barns and other agricultural sites are disappearing at an alarming rate as growth, changes in farming methods, drought and economic conditions squeeze Colorado’s agricultural families. Oaklands also received the historic structures award for preserving several buildings, including the original 1871 homestead house.

Local history fills in how the ranch took shape. Douglas County Libraries says Henry Harper and Julia Curtis brought nine remaining children to Douglas County in 1871 and bought a 560-acre ranch on Perry Park Road, three and one-half miles south of Sedalia. The family enlarged a small house by seven rooms, named the place Oaklands, and raised cattle and dairy products there. Henry Harper Curtis later served Douglas County as a justice of the peace and magistrate, giving the ranch a role in the county’s civic life as well as its farm economy.

Another local historical account says Henry Curtis homesteaded 160 acres on West Plum Creek, west of CO 105 and north of Wolfensberger Road, and chose the Oaklands name for the oak thickets along the creek. The land later passed to his son, Charles W. Curtis, and then to Charles’s four sons: Henry, Charles, Edgar and Kenneth. That line of succession explains why Oaklands has remained intact while so much surrounding acreage has faced pressure for another use.

Oaklands is not the only long-running ranch in the area. History Colorado also lists Woodhouse Ranch near Sedalia, which began as an 80-acre purchase in 1873 and now totals 920 acres. Together, the two properties show that Douglas County still has pockets of working land with deep roots, but their future will depend on whether the next generation can keep ranching competitive enough to withstand the county’s next wave of change.