History of District 5440

District #14 At the 6th Annual Convention held in Oakland, California in 1915, the District System with a District Governor for each District was adopted. The District for our area was numbered 14 and included Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. John E. Zahn of Denver was the first District Governor. The District started with four clubs: Salt Lake City #24, Denver #31, Pueblo #42 and Butte, Montana #140. Five clubs were added by Jack Zahn. The second Governor, T. Casey Witherspoon of Butte, Montana, added five clubs and was followed by George E. Relf of Salt Lake City who added seven clubs.

District #21 At the International Convention in 1918 the area was changed to include Eastern Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico, and was renumbered the 21st District. This change reduced the number of clubs from 21 to 6. Under the next four District Governors 22 new clubs were added, bringing the total to 28.

District #7 At the International Convention in 1922, the boundaries were again changed to include Colorado, Wyoming, one county in Nebraska, and two counties in New Mexico, and the District was renumbered to #7. During the next 15 years 20 clubs were added.

District #113 In 1937 the District was renumbered the 113th, with no change in the territory. Over the next 12 years 27 clubs were added, making a total of 73 clubs in the District.

District #168 In 1950 the District was divided by an East-West line south of Littleton. The northern part retained the number 168 with 40 clubs: 23 in Colorado, 15 in Wyoming, and two in Nebraska.

District #545 The District was again renumbered in 1955 but with no change in territory. In 1975 Summit County was transferred to District 547 (Southern Colorado).

District #544/5440 At the close of the Rotary year 1986-87, District 545 had 70 clubs and approximately 5,000 members. This made the District so large that it became too large a burden for the District Governor to handle effectively. The decision of the Board of Directors of Rotary International to split District 545 into two smaller Districts was made on November 1, 1986, to become effective July 1, 1987. The new District 544 received 38 clubs; 22 (all of the clubs) in Wyoming, two in one county of western Nebraska, and 14 in northern Colorado.

During the past sixteen years that we have been a new District, we have grown from 38 to 49 clubs. The latest club to be added was Ski Town USA, Steamboat Springs, CO.

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that need to be made to this web site, please contact me at rotary5440@yahoo.com

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