HYGIENE - When we met at Rabbit Mountain in my last “Discover Colorado” column, I mentioned I had much I wanted to confess to you, my dear readers. Today, I will start with the small details of a very long confession. 

First, however, I will introduce you to Hygiene, Colorado, a small unincorporated town, nestled next to Burch Lake and one mile west of McIntosh Lake. There’s much to say about this quaint little town, with interesting history and more interesting attractions. 

With only a couple of hundred residents, Hygiene is home to a rural lifestyle and peaceful Coloradoans. As I drove around Hygiene, I pulled over a few times to take photos. During one of my stops, I saw a couple holding hands, and my mind began to race back to my 20s. 

I fell in love when I was 23. I’m talking about the kind of love you see in Hallmark movies or read about in sultry romance novels. Yes, that kind of love. I will openly admit that my first love is the reason I made the conscious decision to avoid marriage or have children.

We were young, and things didn’t work out. I simply went about my business, dating and trying to be happy, but my heart never knew how to settle for anything less than what I had. The older I got, the more I found myself feeling happiest alone. 

I daydreamed, looking across one of the many fields in Hygiene. I recalled the few times I spoke with my beloved in the past two decades, including earlier this year. My concentration broke as a vehicle sped past me. I looked around as I fastened my seatbelt and continued driving. 

The town, once incorporated under the name of Pella, gets its current name from the  local tuberculosis sanitarium active in the 1880s.

In the late 1870s, Reverend Jacob S. Flory moved to Pella with his wife and eight children. The Reverend worked with the Church of the Brethren, a Christian denomination known as “German Baptists.”

By 1881, Reverend Flory opened the Hygienic House, the local sanitarium, which inspired the town’s new name, to help tuberculosis sufferers overcome the illness. Rumor says the sanitarium was a three-story home with 35 rooms and a glassed-in sundeck. 

The sanitarium also served as the local hotel for a period. The structure was torn down in 1926, but Hygiene continues to be a beautiful place to visit. Reminiscent of the sanitarium, I saw my life go from a great idea to an empty void; a woman in her 40s still daydreaming about her true, lost love. 

Stay with me while discovering Colorado. We will explore more of Hygiene and many other places as we dive deeper into the stories of my confessions. In the meantime, I’d like to remind you that we all deserve true happiness.  

Hygiene is located in Boulder County, on a map at coordinates 40.19607302003443, -105.18322346051261. To learn more, visit https://www.visitlongmont.org/listing/town-of-hygiene-co/19200/.