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Branson is a town in Las Animas County, Colorado, United States. The population was 77 at the 2000 census. It is the southernmost town in the state of Colorado. It is .30 miles from the New Mexico border . It basically sits in New Mexico and Colorado.
It is the site of a state supported online high school open to Colorado residents of school age. Students must have been enrolled in a Colorado public or charter school and be no older than 20 on October 1 of the school year.
Branson is located east of Trinidad, Colorado on the Great Plains. It is a ranching community today. Farming in the area was severely impacted by the dust bowl. Branson is much smaller than it once was in more optimistic days and features some picturesque abandoned buildings.
First known as Wilson, or Wilson Switch, then Coloflats, Colorado, a post office established in 1915, its name was changed to Branson in 1918, after Josiah F. Branson who platted the town on his land. The town was incorporated in 1922. Branson is located north of a break in the mesas which separate Southeast Colorado from Northwest New Mexico, the route of a minor branch of the Santa Fe Trail. It was founded near a switch, Wilson Switch, of the Denver, Texas, and Fort Worth Railroad, now the Colorado and Southern Railway. A depot was built in 1918. Despite being unsuitable for farming, many homesteaders attempted dryland farming in the early 20th century. In good years there were bountiful harvests of grain and in the 1920s the town boasted 1000 people and 3 grain elevators as well as facilities such as a bank and a newspaper. After the drought and dust bowl of the 1930s population decreased rapidly as the economy turned from farming to ranching.
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