Town of Elizabeth via Facebook
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An hour outside of downtown Denver, a two-square-mile rural Colorado community is becoming a major moving destination.
The town of Elizabeth in Elbert County has one of the fastest-growing “mountain town” populations in the nation, according to an Outside Magazine report published on November 24. Located on the Eastern Plains, Elizabeth isn’t quite a mountain town, but it ranked in the top ten in the analysis of communities within mountain states.
Approximately 3,000 people currently call Elizabeth home. That’s just ten times the town’s population when it was incorporated in 1890 — but around half of that growth has occurred in the last five years.
Elizabeth’s population was under 1,700 during the Census count in 2020, rising by nearly 80 percent since. The town experienced the largest percentage population increase in Colorado between 2023 to 2024, according to a Census report released in May.
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“Why are people moving to Elizabeth?” the Outside article asks. “It’s close to Denver, quiet, with a rural feel and highly rated schools.”
In addition to its proximity to Denver, Elizabeth is fifty miles from Colorado Springs and sixteen miles from Castle Rock. This makes it an ideal location for people who want the space and quiet of small-town living, with the paychecks that come from larger economic hubs. According to a 2019 report from the town’s mayor, around 80 percent of Elizabeth residents commuted to the Denver metro for work at the time.
The town has particularly attracted millennials; its median age is only 32.5 years old, according to Census data, even lower than Colorado’s median age of 38.
Not all Elizabeth residents have been happy about the growth, however. In 2019, a group of local advocates launched a partially successful effort to recall Elizabeth’s entire elected government driven by frustrations over new development.
Elizabeth began in 1855 as a saw mill camp. The town had a population of 300 when it was incorporated in 1890. By 1970, it had only reached 493 people.
Other communities on Outside’s list of fastest-growing mountain towns range from Sundance, Utah (with a population of 56), to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho (with a population of 57,000).
Here’s the full list, in no particular order, as the towns were not ranked against each other, but compiled based on both annual population growth and growth since 2020:
- Show Low, Arizona
- Paradise, California
- Elizabeth, Colorado
- Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
- Kalispell, Montana
- Mesquite, Nevada
- Barton, New Mexico
- Sundance, Utah
- Leavenworth, Washington
- Alpine, Wyoming
