The complete history of the Littleton Police Department has never been fully studied or recorded. Recently however, several Police Department employees began researching this history through various resources including archival government records, newspaper articles, and personal interviews.
Much research remains to be done.
What follows is a brief history of the Police Department based upon information learned thus far. The Littleton Police Department story begins in 1890 when the townspeople of Littleton voted to incorporate their small community, thus forming a town government. The town was nearly thirty years old in 1890, having grown from Richard Little's original homestead of the 1860's, into a thriving farm community with a prosperous flour mill, a post office, and two railroad depots. Little information is presently known about law and order in Littleton before 1890. Any serious crimes were likely to be investigated by the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Department whose deputies might live in the area, or travel to Littleton by train from the county seat, which was situated in Denver at that time.