St. Vrain State Park in Weld County, east of Longmont, combines modern outdoor recreation with a much older human story. Once home to Ute, Arapaho, and Cheyenne peoples, the area later included Fort Junction, a sod fort built in 1864 during frontier tensions, though it was never attacked. The present park took shape after the Colorado Department of Transportation bought land in 1958 for gravel used in highway construction, leaving ponds behind. Transferred to the state parks system in 1962 as Barbour Ponds, it grew into a popular camping, fishing, hiking, and birdwatching destination, especially known for Colorado’s largest great blue heron rookery and other wetland birds.