LOVELAND, Colo. For one family in Larimer County, their story dates back to before the state of Colorado was born. While finding a place to put down roots can be a challenge, the Osborn family have not looked back since 1861. A member from each generation has lived on the same property.It all started with William B. Osborn who came out west in search of gold but decided that mining was not for him. Originally from New York, he bought a piece of property to start raising crops, hay and vegetables. Dale Osborn is now the fifth generation to live on the property with his wife Pam."My folks built their house here in 1966," Dale Osborn said. "I graduated high school in 67 and then I lived here for a short time. Then I was off to college and then I came back from college back and forth a little bit."Dale and Pam raised their three boys, Wallis, Milo and Conor, on the land. Now, the two get to see their grandchildren become the seventh generation to call this place home. "Sometimes we take it for granted, then we start looking back and saying, this is pretty special and then my thoughts, sometimes when I'm walking on the property, I'm thinking, I'm walking on the same footpath or whatever that my great-great-grandfather walked, so that's kind of a special thing," Dale Osborn said.While cars zip by on County Road 18, there is still a sense of stillness on the Osborn's property. Signs warn guests to slow down as crops grow to the sunlight and birds talk above in the sky."The original homestead property acreage is where we are now, so where the original cabin was built is just over here between the two houses that are on the property now," Wallis Osborn said. "It was the second and third generations that built the houses that are still standing up on First Street here in Loveland."The family takes immense pride in their lineage, holding on to newspaper clippings and pictures of their past.Pam Osborn grew up in Chicago. She said in the fall she would go with her mother to a farm and picking out pumpkins. She wanted her boys to have the same experience and planted pumpkins on the property."We've never not had a crop. We've had a flood one time, the flood pictures that you see over here, it covered our fields and that was in September in 2013. We had pumpkins. If you looked out there, they came up off the ground and they were floating," Dale and Pam Osborn explained.The pumpkin patch turned into a sprouting success, with the family placing extra pumpkins on the side of the road and people would leave money in return. Over the decades, the Osborns turned this into a full fall harvest, welcoming the community to pick out their pumpkins and to meet their neighbors. "I've lived here for 41 years almost, and we've been doing pumpkins that entire time, so it's been my entire life watching every summer doing this every fall harvest and then pumpkin season open to the public," Connor Osborn said.Caring for the crop is a responsibility that Conor learned and is now teaching his sons. While visiting the property, Denver7's Maggy Wolanske saw the father-son duo on the tractor working on the pumpkin patch."So we go, we drive in, we pull new ditches and we'll flood irrigate here in another week or so, and then the pumpkins will take off and hopefully they'll beat out the weeds and it'll be a nice field of orange," Connor Osborn said. With Colorado celebrating its 150th year of statehood, Lindsey Flewelling, preservation planner at History Colorado, said they are doing oral history interview with several of these families.We did a big research project to see how many Centennial farms and ranches that were founded at least 150 years ago were still around to this day, and we found about 40 of those families, Flewelling said.For the past 40 years, History Colorado has been recognizing Centennial Farms and Ranches. It started in 1986 as a joint effort between History Colorado and the Colorado Department of Agriculture and has since recognized over 700 farms and ranches. This year, we will be recognizing 18 Centennial farms and ranches. We do a lot of outreach. The families apply to us, and we just check the materials that they have different homestead paperwork and things like that, public family records, Flewelling said.Stepping foot onto the property, the Osborns' love for Loveland runs generations deep and is experienced by all during their fall harvest. "We enjoy it. How can you not? We enjoy all the people coming out and seeing people who come year after year. We've had some people from Denver who come up a year after year, and we've seen their families grow and we see their grandchildren and we've seen a lot of that," Pam and Dale Osborn said.Opening weekend at Osborn Farm is scheduled for September 26 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. with free parking and no admission fee. ...read more read less