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History · Simla

Simla’s post office opened in 1907, and 26% of its homes were built before 1940

Below: maps from 1970 on and the census since 1920.

1907first post office
0on the National Register
26%homes built before 1940
1famous people
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Photo: Jeffrey Beall · CC BY 4.0
Quick answers

How Simla began

When was Simla founded?

1907

The Simla post office opened in 1907, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 387 in 19202020 census: 601119 years
Founding year: the first Simla post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Simla’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Simla are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Simla’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Simla’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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The story

How Simla came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Simla.

Read it all →

Simla was founded in 1909 by a man with the name of Altman. Simla was named because the daughter of a railroad official was reading a book about India when she came across the name, Simla. Settled in the 1880s, Simla was incorporated in 1912. The first newspaper was started in 1911. It was a center for the shipping of the area's potato harvest each year.

Simla received national attention when it became the place where the first so-called "English Variant" of SARS-COV-2 (Covid-19 virus) was diagnosed in the United States.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Simla, 1907 to 1970

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 20th century
  2. 1907Post officeThe Simla post office opens
  3. 1912Born hereGlenn Morris is born here
  4. 1970On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
By decade

Simla, decade by decade

Today3 recent
Simla, Colorado2018Simla, ColoradoSimla, Colorado2013Simla, ColoradoCOMap-doton-Simla2005COMap-doton-Simla
On the map

Simla on the map in 1970

The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Simla.

Simla on the 1970 USGS map1970Simla sheet · 1:24,000

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Simla.

People over time

Simla, census by census

0100200300400500600700192019401960198020002020Peak: 663

Between 351 and 663 people in every census since 1920.

11 censuses, 1920–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Simla’s Wikipedia page.

Questions about Simla’s history

What year was Simla founded?

The Simla post office opened in 1907, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
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Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikimedia Commons (3), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.