Milliken is a statutory town in Weld County, Colorado, United States. The town population was 8,386 at the 2020 United States census. Milliken is a part of the Greeley, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Front Range Urban Corridor.

History The town was named for John D. Milliken, a judge.

The first community located near the Milliken townsite was initially known as Hillsboro. The community began as a trading post on the Denver, Laramie, and Northwestern Railroad for agricultural goods in the 1860s. The Milliken, Colorado, post office opened on November 10, 1909, and the Town of Milliken was incorporated on October 1, 1910. In 1910, Milliken annexed nearby Hillsboro.

Fires in the 1910s destroyed much of the town, and in 1917 the Denver, Laramie, and Northwestern Railroad was abandoned.

Milliken was primarily a farming community through World War I, the Depression, and World War II. In the 1950s, two large potato decks were constructed. The late 1960s and early 1970s saw a housing boom.

In 1985 and 1986, the town’s roads were paved. The community continued to grow, causing the town government to move its facilities, to the Milliken Community Complex in 1996. Additional facilities were added, including the Milliken Public Work Facility in 2004, and a new police station in 2009.

When Millikens police department moved to a new building in 2009, the old building became vacant. It was home to a coffee shop before being used as a computer lab for many years. In 2021, the nearby Glenn A. Jones MD memorial library opened a branch there. After sharing the building with the Mill Haus Coffee for five years, the library moved to a part of the Milliken Intermediate School and is now known as the Milliken Public Library. Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which is land and is water.

Demographics

2020 census As of the 2020 census, Milliken had a population of 8,386. The median age was 31.9 years. 29.5% of residents were under the age of 18 and 8.8% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 104.5 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 100.8 males age 18 and over.

88.7% of residents lived in urban areas, while 11.3% lived in rural areas.

There were 2,756 households in Milliken, of which 46.2% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 63.6% were married-couple households, 14.2% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 14.3% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 14.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 4.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

There were 2,836 housing units, of which 2.8% were vacant. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.2% and the rental vacancy rate was 3.3%.

+ Racial composition as of the 2020 census Race Number Percent White 6,190 73.8% Black or African American 32 0.4% American Indian and Alaska Native 90 1.1% Asian 40 0.5% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander 3 0.0% Some other race 899 10.7% Two or more races 1,132 13.5% Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 2,308 27.5%

Education Milliken is served by the Weld Re-5J School District. Children in the town attend Milliken Elementary School, Knowledge Quest Academy (KQA) and Civica. Roosevelt Middle School (known as Milliken Middle school from 1969 to 2024) and Roosevelt High School are both located in nearby Johnstown. In the 2025–26 school year, 3rd through 5th graders will attend the former Milliken Middle School, which has been renamed and repurposed into Milliken Intermediate School.

Daniels School

The Daniels School was built in Milliken in 1911. It is a two-room schoolhouse, with a partition that allowed separation of grades 1–4 and grades 5–8, which operated from 1911 to 1959. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. It was built on a one-acre (0.40 ha) plot of land donated to the school district by James Daniels in 1879. A wood-frame schoolhouse was built first; it was sold and moved off the property to enable replacement by the present brick building in 1911. James Daniels served as director of the school for many years. The school was named, however, for his brother, Henry Daniels, who was a pioneer in the Big Thompson Valley area before Johnstown and Milliken existed.

See also Greeley, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area Dent site, near Milliken, the first site to provide evidence that men hunted mammoth

References

External links

State of Colorado History Colorado

Weld Re 5j school district