Our Story

In the early 1970’s, we bought a 160 acre flood irrigated farm east of Platteville. My father, H Gordon Johnson, owned a center pivot manufacturing business called Raincat. We installed 3 small pivot sprinklers on the farm and used them to test new manufacturing methods and materials and irrigate the farm. The existing house was located in the middle of the farm, ¼ mile from the nearest county road and had a whole bunch of large cottonwood trees surrounding it. The previous owner had died in the run down house and was found a couple weeks later. Needless to say, the place was kind of creepy!

A friend of mine, who had lived his whole life in Los Angles, moved into one room of the house and was hired to clean up and remodel the house. I was out of town quite a bit doing service on Raincat sprinklers so he stayed by himself at the farm. He was pretty freaked out staying there at night so of course, and we teased him about being a city kid. We would come home after a night on the town and pretend we saw Bigfoot at different places on the farm which freaked him out even more – he even started sleeping in his Volkswagen van when by himself! We teased him so often, we started saying we were heading home to Bigfoot. 

Since then, we have always gone by Bigfoot Turf!

– Greg Jonson

It has the greenest grass in the county because Johnson got it from his own place, Bigfoot Turf. The players on this field of dreams aren’t former major leaguers who materialize out of a cornfield; they’re high school students who come on Sundays to play the game they love. To get to the field, take Weld County Road 49 south to the turf farm, then follow the dirt road around the gasoline tanks, past the fields of turf, past the stacks of wooden pallets, and there it is, big and green and all-American. It was Johnson’s dream, and – to make it even better – the field was badly needed for the fall season wooden bat baseball league. According to Johnson, they play “pure baseball, with no aluminum bats.” More than two years ago, when Greg and Sheree Johnson and their children moved to the farm from Glenwood Springs, Greg vowed, “I’m going to build a baseball field. “So when the irrigation lake needed expanding, and they brought in a huge earth scraper, Greg used it on the days it was shut down and leveled his baseball field with the gigantic machine.

In a little more than two days, he moved 5,000 cubic yards of dirt. A gas company donated the pipe for the backstop poles, and Greg talked to the baseball experts at Coors Field in Denver about the sprinklers and layout. He uses the same watering system as the major league field. He brought in four tons of clay for the pitcher’s mound and batter’s box and installed 100,000 square feet of Bigfoot sod. It took him five weeks, but Greg did almost all of the work himself, to provide the baseball field for the kids. His son, Andy, is a junior at University High, and is “really into baseball,” Greg said. He’s on a fall wooden bat team with players from University, Greeley Central, Valley and Platte Valley. They play Denver teams, who travel the long distance because they want a high-quality field to play on. With only wooden bats allowed, the players can’t hit the ball as far, “and they break a few bats, which is something most of them have never done,” Greg said. They expect it will improve their hitting when they return to high school ball and use the aluminum bats again. Greg’s field of dreams not only fulfills his dream, but those of the boys. Sheree Johnson kids her husband about his “hobby,” and wants him to make one more improvement. “She’d like some corn planted in the outfield, just like in the movie,” Greg said. “I guess we’ll do that next year.”

– Greeley Tribune