At 11:40 am on May 14, 1877 Mathew L McCaslin paid $1100 to Lydia Downs for 74 acres on the Upper St. Varin outside of Longmont. Mathew was born in Pennsylvania in 1822 and had joined the Califonia gold rush in 1847 and was lured to Denver in 1858 by gold fever. He turned from mining to ranching with the purchase  of what is now the McCaslin Farm.