116-year-old Colorado town argues itself out of existence

A tiny town in southeast survived the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression and a century of decline. It could not survive a fight over a water bill.

The Colorado Department of State officially declared the town of Hartman — located in southeast Colorado near the Kansas border in Prowers County — abandoned on July 29 after a resident sent in an application in June that alleged the town of 30 residents didn’t have a board of trustees or town clerk, could not hold elections, and could not fix a crumbling water infrastructure that has been around for nearly 100 years.

“As of today, it has been over a month since we have chlorine in our water, our water smells horrible and not potable at this time,” resident Jessie Simmons wrote in the June 17 application, pointing toward the boiling order that had been in place since October 2025.

The abandonment issues for the 116-year-old town started with a squabble. At a local government meeting on Jan. 23, mayor pro tem Tammy Lucero got into a physical altercation with trustee Melissa Venegas over a water bill issue, according to initial reports by Courthouse News.

The mayor pro tem was in charge because the former mayor had already been recalled.

Lucero and Venegas were both charged with misdemeanor counts of disturbing the peace and received deferred sentences. And, if that wasn’t enough to fill a soap opera, another trustee, Velma Cassanova-Cooper, suffered a seizure and went to the hospital.

“Yelling and screaming has happened in Hartman since forever. Like, it’s never been a quiet, peaceful meeting ever,” Venegas told Courthouse News. “It’s always somebody hyped up about something, and it’s never turned physical.”

The fight centered on Hartman’s water system, for which the Colorado Department of Health and Environment gave over $1 million in reimbursement grants to work on. The trustees wanted to get the contracts rolling to fix the water.

The board of trustees promptly paid the electric bill to keep water pumping until the beginning of July and resigned, leaving the town without any formal government until the official hearing with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office on July 13.

And now, without government officials, the town cannot enter contracts to fix the broken water system and receive the reimbursements.

Despite officially losing the functioning government, it wasn’t functioning much prior to the resignations. According to the abandonment order, the Division of Local Government for the Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) has visited the town 30 times since 2022 to help with “elections, turnover, recalls, resignations, budgets, audits, grant administration and training of new officials.”

The state’s exhibit binder paints one big picture of finger-pointing drama, with nearly 500 pages of infighting and emails sent from residents to state officials begging for help. In one audio example, members of the city government can be heard arguing over a DOLA representative, who in turn says there is “a lot of anger. A lot of blame.”

“Our town is in crisis, and those in power, from local officials to state authorities, have failed us,” resident Shawna Casey wrote in a June 2025 letter to the Secretary of State’s office. “The residents of Hartman, have witnessed blatant financial misconduct, including embezzlement of COVID relief funds, unauthorized checks written from the town’s account, and mismanagement of public funds — all of which have been deliberately concealed from the public.”

In the state’s order, another resident said, that Hartman “is not a failed town, but that Hartman is a town that was failed by the systems designed to protect it.”

Under state law, DOLA can only help with the operations of towns, not actually take control. Counties also cannot take control until the town is considered abandoned, while the Secretary of State can only take over election control. So, in a small town that requires government officials to often work as volunteers, there is often no quick response when officials resign.

A former state law prevented the Secretary of State from holding official abandonment proceedings until a town couldn’t hold an election for at least five years. However, Gov. Jared Polis signed an amendment last year that allows expedited abandonment for towns with no government and water infrastructure problems. Otherwise, Hartman would have been waiting for help without water until 2030.

Now, Hartman will become part of unincorporated Prowers County. All water infrastructure improvements will now fall under the county’s control.