Located just a bit east of the Front Range, Colorado's Central Plains is comprised of four counties - Cheyenne, Elbert, Lincoln and Kit Carson - that give you the best of both worlds. Businesses can't help but thrive because of the many economic opportunities in agriculture, light manufacturing, distribution and more. And families flourish in our tight-knit communities where people still know how to be good neighbors. It's what realtors call "high quality of life." We just know it's a nice way to live.

Take Cheyenne County. Many of its communities give a nod to the simple, frontier lifestyle with names like Wild Horse, Arapahoe and Firstview. And in addition to rich farmland and abundant oil production, Cheyenne County is the kind of place you can still see the tracks made by the Santa Fe Trail wagon trains and Wells Fargo stagecoaches.

Just southeast of Denver lies Elbert County with its bountiful creeks, ranches, farms and hilly grasslands. Boasting one of the nation's fastest growing populations, this county still hasn't shaken its small-town roots. In fact, much of the population is located northwest of Elizabeth and Kiowa. This area was founded in 1859 as a logging center to provide lumber for construction in Denver.

Twin blessings led to the settlement of Lincoln County and still live on today. The fertile land makes it one of the state's leading agricultural producers of wheat and cattle. And that same land, with its gently rolling topography, is crisscrossed by 5 major state highway's which makes it ideal for travel and freight routes.

Named for the famous scout, Kit Carson County is a story of perseverance. Well settled with farmers by the 1930s, the county was all but defeated by the disastrous drought of the mid-1930s. But the people of Kit Carson dug in and eventually discovered what it takes to thrive here. Today, Kit Carson County is often first in the state in wheat production, second in sunflower production, third in dry beans and fourth in corn.

For an in-depth profile on our four-county area, please visit www.coloradofrontiers.com/regions/ecp.htm.