Simla, CO

Simla sits along U.S. 24 in Elbert County, about 48 miles northeast of Colorado Springs and 24 miles southwest of Limon. The town began as a Rock Island rail stop in the late 1890s, was founded in 1909, and incorporated in 1912. Its name came from Simla, India, after a railroad official’s daughter encountered the name in a book. The 2020 census counted 601 residents. Big Sandy Creek runs south of town toward the Arkansas River.

ATTRKen Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA / CC BY-SA 2.0

Simla’s economy started with agriculture and later included small businesses, commercial activity, and manufacturing in the 1970s. Big Sandy School District 100J is headquartered here and spans about 550 square miles across Elbert and El Paso counties, with elementary, junior high, and high school programs in the district. The town’s current civic address is Town Hall on Pueblo Avenue, while Highway 24 carries the regional route through the grid. Simla’s present map joins a railroad-origin town, a county-road corridor, and a school district whose students come from the surrounding eastern-plains ranch and farm country.