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 13 of 18
History and culture - June 10, 2026
The coal seams in the Book Cliffs
The cliffs and canyons north of the Grand Valley hold coal that shaped local industry, including the old mining area around Cameo east of Grand Junction.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The coke ovens west of Trinidad explain how this county was built
Stone coke ovens and old company towns along the Highway of Legends are physical reminders that coal mining shaped where people settled in Las Animas County.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The Colorado River Headwaters Byway follows the river out of Grand County
A scenic byway traces the young Colorado River through Grand County, linking the towns to the river that shaped them.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The county is divided by old mining districts, not just towns
San Juan County's history is organized around several named hard-rock mining districts, and that legacy still shapes the land, old workings, and place names you encounter.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The county museum in Del Norte keeps the local story in one place
The Rio Grande County Museum and Cultural Center in Del Norte collects the county's history, from early rock art and Hispanic settlement to mining, ranching, and railroad days.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The county seat moved twice, ending up in Salida
Chaffee County's seat of government started at Granite, moved to Buena Vista, and in 1928 moved again to Salida, and the old Buena Vista courthouse and jail now house a heritage museum.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The county seat that moved three times
Custer County's seat of government started at Ula, then moved to Rosita, then Silver Cliff, and finally Westcliffe, tracing the rise and fall of each mining town.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The county's history lives in an old schoolhouse in Hot Sulphur Springs
Grand County's main history museum sits in a 1920s schoolhouse in Hot Sulphur Springs, alongside an early courthouse and other moved historic buildings.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The county's name comes from a trading fort on the Arkansas
Bent County is named for the Bent family, whose adobe trading post on the Santa Fe Trail along the Arkansas River was a meeting place for traders and Plains tribes.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The Crested Butte heritage museum lives in an old hardware store
Crested Butte's heritage museum is housed in one of the town's oldest frame buildings, a former blacksmith shop and hardware store, and tells the area's mining and town history.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The Dark Sky Over Westcliffe: Why People Drive Here to Look Up
Westcliffe and Silver Cliff protected their night sky so well they earned Colorado's first International Dark Sky Community certification, and a free in-town observatory lets you see the result.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The Dillon Schoolhouse Museum was saved when the town moved
Dillon's 1883 schoolhouse was moved to higher ground when the reservoir flooded the old town, and it is now a museum run by the Summit Historical Society.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The Durango–Silverton train was built to haul ore, not tourists
The narrow-gauge railroad that climbs to Silverton was built in the early 1880s to move ore and supplies, and it is now a National Historic Landmark that still runs in summer.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The Dust Bowl shaped Baca County's land and its people
Baca County was at the heart of the 1930s Dust Bowl, and that history still explains its grasslands, its small towns, and how the land is used today.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The Egyptian Mummy on Rosemount's Third Floor
Climb to the top floor of Pueblo's 1893 Thatcher mansion and you reach the McClelland Collection of world curiosities, an Egyptian mummy among them.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The Elbert County Fair grew from an 1891 'Vegetable Day'
The Elbert County Fair traces back to an 1891 'Vegetable Day' in Elizabeth and moved through Elbert and Matheson before settling at the fairgrounds in Kiowa.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The Elbert County Historical Society & Museum preserves local history in Kiowa
The Elbert County Historical Society and Museum in Kiowa collects photographs, artifacts, and local histories — a good first stop for research, while official land records stay with the county.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The faint lights of Silver Cliff Cemetery
For decades visitors have reported faint bluish-white lights drifting among the headstones at Silver Cliff Cemetery, a piece of Wet Mountain Valley folklore with a likely down-to-earth cause.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The first Fort Lewis stood at Pagosa Springs
A frontier Army post once guarded the Pagosa Springs area in the late 1870s, an early Fort Lewis that later moved west, shaping the town's beginnings.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The free Golden museum with a moon rock and a room of glowing stone
On the Colorado School of Mines campus, a free earth-science museum holds an Apollo 17 moon rock, a cave of glowing minerals, and tens of thousands of specimens that explain why Golden became a mining town.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The Galloping Goose in Dolores is a leftover from a vanished railroad
Dolores keeps a restored 'Galloping Goose,' a homemade motor car the Rio Grande Southern Railroad used to survive in its final decades before the line was scrapped.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The Galloping Goose: how a struggling railroad kept Telluride connected
The narrow-gauge Rio Grande Southern once served Telluride, and during hard times it ran odd rail cars called Galloping Geese to keep going.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The Garfield County Courthouse is a historic landmark in Glenwood Springs
Garfield County's seat of government is the historic courthouse in downtown Glenwood Springs, a building recognized by History Colorado for its history.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
The Georgetown Loop is a railroad built to climb a wall
The Georgetown Loop is a restored narrow-gauge railroad that loops over itself to climb between Georgetown and Silver Plume, with a historic silver-mine tour on the route.
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