VGI Updates

The first group of Volga Germans to immigrate to Fresno left the colonies of Straub and Stahl am Tarlyk on 8 May 1887. They arrived at the old Southern Pacific Depot in Fresno on 19 June 1887. This first group was comprised of 31 men, women, and children. It consisted of the following families: Andreas, Berg, Kerner, Karle, Metzler, Mehling, Nillmaier, and Steitz. The second and third waves of Volga German arrivals in Fresno brought the following families: Bopp, Bitter, Diel, Gleim, Hartwig, Heinze, Hubert, Lieder, Roth, Scheerer, and Schwabenland.

The first Volga Germans to settle in Lodi were from Rosenberg. Many other families have moved there through the years.

Volga German families settled in and around Visalia, California.

The small settlement of Antlers, Colorado, was established in 1887 by a corporation composed of the Grass Valley Land and Water Co. and a group of English investors. The corporation's plan for Antlers included five cottages for their employees, a livery stable, town park, general store and a blacksmith shop. The new town was located in what today is the I-70 corridor between Rifle and Silt, on the fringe of Silt Mesa. The corporation and the investors owned most of the land in the Antlers district.

The first Volga Germans arrived in the Brighton area in 1886 to work in the sugar beet fields.

By the early 1900s Volga Germans from the Russian colonies Frank, Dietel, Dreispitz, Marienfeld, Oberdorf, Shcherbakovka, and Herzog settled in Brighton.

The town of Eaton is named after Benjamin Harrison Eaton, a pioneer in irrigation that increased agricultural production in the area. With the development of the sugar beet industry in Weld County, many Volga German families moved to the area from Kansas and Nebraska.

By the early 1900s Volga Germans from the Russian colonies Frank, Dietel, Dreispitz, Erlenbach, Kautz, Merkel, Oberdorf, Pobochnaya, Rosenberg, Shcherbakovka, and Walter settled in Fort Collins.

With the constrution of a sugar refinery in 1903, Fort Collins became another Northern Colorado link between the sugarbeet industry and Volga Germans. The Fort Collins Colorado Sugar Company brought forty-eight Volga German families to Fort Collins in April 1903.

By the early 1900s Volga Germans from the Russian colonies of Anton, Dobrinka, Frank, Kautz, Kraft, and Yagodnaya Polyana had settled in and around Fort Morgan.

The sugar beet industry was a large drawing force to their location on the plains of eastern Colorado.

Many Volga German families settled in and near Fruita.

Bernie Waldschmidt served as mayor of Fruita from 1992-1994.

Those Volga Germans who settled in Greeley came from Frank, Hussenbach, Merkel, Messer, Oberdorf, Pobochnaya, and Schönfeld. Through the years, Volga German immigrants from many other colonies also settled in Greeley and the surrounding area. They settled in “Little Russia” on the east side of town, between the railroad tracks and the sugar factory.

Many Volga German families were employed in the sugar beet industry.  As of 1910, there were 3,699 Germans from Russia laboring in the beet fields of Weld County.