Hundreds attend annual cattle drive through south Denver metro area community
There's something special about the Colorado community of Sterling Ranch, a tight-knit community of roughly 3,000 where the breeze is crisp, the fields stretch for miles, and cattle peacefully graze under Colorado's open sky. But on Saturday, that calm gave way to the thunder of hooves.
As four-wheelers revved and cowboys took their positions, the annual Sterling Ranch cattle drive kicked into gear, bringing a century-old Western tradition straight through one of Colorado's most modern master-planned communities.
"It's a tradition," said Sterling Ranch founder Harold Smethills, who has led the event for the past four years. "We bring the cattle from the summer pasture here to Sterling for the winter, where they'll have their babies."
Hundreds of residents lined the streets, stood in fields, and even climbed onto rooftops for a front-row view of the spectacle. About 100 head of cattle made their way across 3,400 acres of land to their winter home.
The drive is more than a community event; it's part of Sterling Ranch's ongoing rotational grazing strategy, an environmental approach designed to nurture the land and reduce fire risk.
"They fertilize the soil and eat what we call "fuel," the grasses that would otherwise burn," said Smethills.
Beyond fire control, the herd helps sustain the local ecosystem. Their hooves naturally aerate the soil, their manure fertilizes it, and their grazing patterns create low-grass areas that offer small wildlife protection from predators.
From the very beginning, Sterling Ranch's founders say they envisioned a neighborhood where people and nature coexist. Before the first home was built, the team developed a Prairie Management Plan to restore the land, which had been overgrazed and stripped of native vegetation. The plan brought cattle back in a carefully managed rotation, helping transform what was once weeds and dust into a thriving prairie habitat.
Sterling Ranch Cab General Manager Gary DeVus says that while the community is only about 20% built out, this event represents what Sterling Ranch is all about.
"These cattle will be here in perpetuity, and people love it," DeVus said. "You don't see much cattle in the Denver metro area, so we bring it right up to the people. The community really embraces it."