Topic
History and culture
Mining towns and railroads, landmarks and museums, festivals, food, and the local-color stories that make each corner of Colorado make sense.
414 notes - page 11 of 18
History and culture - June 10, 2026
Salida's FIBArk river festival has run since 1949
FIBArk, short for First in Boating the Arkansas, is Salida's June whitewater festival on the Arkansas River, held since 1949 and one of the longest-running events of its kind.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Salida's Tenderfoot 'S' and the Christmas Mountain tree
Tenderfoot Mountain over downtown Salida wears a lighted 'S' that alternates with a red heart, and each year after Thanksgiving volunteers light it as a 750-foot Christmas tree.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
San Luis is widely called Colorado's oldest town, settled in 1851
San Luis, the seat of Costilla County, dates to 1851 and is often described as the oldest continuously settled town in Colorado, founded by Hispano families moving north from New Mexico.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
San Luis's old plaza is a registered historic district built in adobe
The center of San Luis, the Plaza de San Luis de la Culebra, is a National Register historic district of early adobe buildings, with the town's commons, the Vega, and the People's Ditch nearby.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
San Luis's Stations of the Cross climb a mesa above the oldest town in Colorado
A free, year-round walk under a mile long climbs La Mesa de la Piedad y de la Misericordia past Huberto Maestas's bronze Stations of the Cross to a hilltop adobe chapel and grotto.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Sand Canyon held a village with about three times the rooms of Cliff Palace
West of Cortez, the Sand Canyon area in Canyons of the Ancients held a 13th-century village with roughly three times the rooms of Cliff Palace, and hiking there is restricted to marked routes.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Schweiger Ranch is a restored 1874 homestead site beside Lone Tree
Schweiger Ranch near Lone Tree, an 1874 homestead site, is a designated Douglas County historic landmark restored and run by a nonprofit foundation that opens it for tours and events.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Silverthorne grew up with the building of the Dillon Dam
Silverthorne took shape as a town in the era of the Dillon Dam, which housed many dam workers in the early 1960s, and incorporated in 1967 at the first I-70 exit west of the tunnel.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Six WWII veterans started a museum that records Colorado's war stories
The free, volunteer-run Broomfield Veterans Memorial Museum keeps nine exhibit rooms, a 3,000-book military library, and hundreds of recorded veteran interviews inside the old Mamie Doud Eisenhower Library.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Snowmass Village began as a ranching valley, then a ski resort
The Town of Snowmass Village grew from ranchland in the Brush Creek valley after a ski area opened in the 1960s, and it later incorporated as its own home rule town.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
South Park City in Fairplay is a town rebuilt from Park County's lost mining camps
South Park City Museum at the west end of Fairplay's Front Street is an open-air museum of historic buildings moved in from the county's vanished mining camps.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
St. Elmo is a preserved mining ghost town up Chalk Creek
St. Elmo, a mining town founded around 1880 high in Chalk Creek Canyon southwest of Buena Vista, is widely described as one of Colorado's best-preserved ghost towns, and the place lasted only as long as its mines and railroad did.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Stanley Marketplace: Aurora's living room in an old ejection-seat factory
A 1950s aerospace plant that built fighter-jet escape systems is now an Aurora food hall and gathering place with more than 50 local businesses.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Steamboat's Summer Rodeo: The Cowboy Half of Ski Town USA
On summer Friday and Saturday nights, Steamboat trades skis for spurs at a downtown arena whose rodeo roots run back to 1898.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Sterling's carved 'living trees' are a free, walkable bit of local art
Sterling calls itself the City of Living Trees for the cottonwood sculptures carved by artist Bradford Rhea, several of which you can see on a self-guided downtown walk.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Sterling's old Union Pacific depot is a landmark that was moved to save it
Sterling's 1902 Union Pacific Railroad depot is a National Register landmark that the city relocated when passenger service ended, a small window into why the town grew.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Sugar Beet Days and the county fair are the two days Logan County all shows up
Logan County's two big yearly gatherings are Sugar Beet Days on Sterling's courthouse square each September and the Logan County Fair and Rodeo at the fairgrounds each summer.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Sugar beets and the Great Western factory shaped Logan County farming
A sugar beet factory opened in Sterling in the early 1900s and came under the Great Western Sugar Company, and the beet industry helped shape farming and growth across Logan County.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Sugar beets built much of early Loveland and Fort Collins
In the early 1900s, sugar-beet factories run by the Great Western Sugar Company reshaped Loveland and Fort Collins, drawing in workers and leaving behind a heritage you can still see in old factory sites and neighborhoods.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Sugar City's old factory gates mark a vanished boomtown
The brick-and-wrought-iron entrance gates in Sugar City are the last surviving piece of the beet sugar factory that gave the town its name and its early identity.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Taste of Creede: a painter's festival that turned a mountain town into an arts hub
A festival started by a watercolorist more than 35 years ago fills Creede's Main Street with working artists, a Silver Chef cook-off, and a one-hour Quick Draw each Memorial Day weekend.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Telluride runs on festivals, and Bluegrass weekend is the heart of it
Telluride's summer calendar is built around festivals, from Bluegrass in Town Park each June to the Film Festival's secret program on Labor Day weekend.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Telluride's old town is a recognized mining-era historic district
Telluride's historic core is recognized as a National Historic Landmark District tied to Colorado's hard-rock mining era, which shapes how the town looks and what owners can change.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Tennessee Pass and Ski Cooper carry the 10th Mountain Division story
Tennessee Pass north of Leadville and the Ski Cooper area trace back to World War II, when the Army trained the 10th Mountain Division ski troops in this high country.
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