Montrose is a home rule municipality that is the county seat of and the most populous municipality in Montrose County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 20,291 at the 2020 census, Montrose is the second-largest city in western Colorado, after Grand Junction.
History
Montrose was incorporated on May 2, 1882, and named after the Marquis of Montrose, immortalized in Sir Walter Scott's novel A Legend of Montrose by Oliver D. "Pappy" Loutzenhizer and Joseph Selig. The Denver & Rio Grande railroad was built west toward Grand Junction and reached Montrose later in 1882, and the town became an important regional shipping center. A branch railroad line served the mineral-rich San Juan Mountains to the south.
In 1909, the U.S. government completed construction of the Gunnison Tunnel, located east of Montrose. It provided irrigation water from the Gunnison River in the Black Canyon to the Uncompahgre Valley, helping turn Montrose into an agricultural hub. The Uncompahgre Project is one of the oldest of those in the area by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of ; all of it is land.
|source 2 = National Weather Service