Colorado Porch

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 14 of 18

History and culture - June 10, 2026

The German colony that came before the mines

Before the silver rush, a colony of German immigrants from Chicago tried to farm the Wet Mountain Valley in 1870, and the congregation they founded lives on at Hope Lutheran Church in Westcliffe.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The Greeley Stampede grew from a 1922 rodeo for potato farmers

Weld County's marquee summer event traces back to a one-day 1922 'Spud Rodeo' honoring potato growers and now runs nearly two weeks around the Fourth of July.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The Hamill House shows a silver baron's Georgetown

The Hamill House in Georgetown is a preserved 1800s home of a wealthy silver-era figure, now cared for as a historic house museum.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The Heginbotham House: a banker's home that became Holyoke's library

Holyoke's public library sits in the historic W.E. Heginbotham House, a 1920s brick home built for a local banker and documented by History Colorado.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The Hinsdale County Museum keeps Lake City's mining-era story

The Hinsdale County Museum in Lake City, run by the county historical society, gathers the area's mining-era history in an 1877 downtown building.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The Holden/Marolt site shows Aspen's mining and ranching side by side

On Aspen's edge, the Holden/Marolt Mining and Ranching Museum sits on a silver-era ore works that later became a working ranch, telling both stories in one place.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The hot spring that gave Pagosa Springs its name

The geothermal spring at the center of Pagosa Springs has drawn people since long before the town existed, and its story includes Ute and earlier Native histories that deserve careful telling.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The hot springs that put the "Springs" in Idaho Springs

The steaming geothermal water that drew a prospector here in 1859 still feeds a soaking spot you can visit today.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The Iron Horse Bicycle Classic: When Durango Cyclists Race the Train

Every Memorial Day weekend, Durango cyclists try to beat the narrow-gauge steam train to Silverton over two high mountain passes, in a race born from a brothers' bet in 1971.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The Julesburg Drag Strip Still Races on an Old Airport Runway

On a stretch of the old Julesburg Municipal Airport runway, a quarter-mile drag strip has been running cars since the late 1950s and still races under NHRA sanction.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The Lincoln County Free Fair & Rodeo in Hugo

Late each summer, the county's ranching and 4-H families gather at the Hugo fairgrounds for livestock shows, exhibits, a parade, and a rodeo.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The Littleton Museum keeps two working pioneer farms

The Littleton Museum runs an 1860s and an 1890s living history farm where staff in period dress work the land, showing how settlement changed once the railroad arrived.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The long red ridge along the foothills is the Dakota Hogback

The steep, tilted ridge that runs north-south at the edge of the foothills is the Dakota Hogback, and creeks cut narrow gaps through it where roads now pass.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The Ludlow site north of Trinidad tells a powerful chapter of Colorado labor history

Las Animas County was a center of the Colorado coalfield strikes, and the Ludlow site, where lives were lost in 1914, is a national historic landmark worth visiting thoughtfully.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The Madonna of the Trail stands in Lamar

In Lamar, the Madonna of the Trail statue marks the Santa Fe Trail's story and sits near a welcome center where you can learn the area's history.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The Matchless Mine and the cabin where Baby Doe Tabor held on

A short drive up from downtown Leadville, a guided surface tour of Horace Tabor's silver mine ends at the spare cabin where his widow lived out her last decades.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The Million Dollar Highway is history you can drive

The stretch of US 550 between Silverton and Ouray, the 'Million Dollar Highway,' dates to the 1920s and is part of the San Juan Skyway, a route built on old mining roads.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The Murdock Building in Eads is a county-owned landmark with a Sand Creek story

The historic Murdock Building in downtown Eads is owned by Kiowa County and has served as a senior center and has housed National Park Service space connected to the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The Museum Built So Everyone Climbs the Same Ramp

Colorado Springs holds the licensed 'Olympic City USA' title, and its downtown U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum was designed so visitors of every ability move through it together.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The name Prowers, and the Cheyenne woman behind Amache

Prowers County is named for rancher John Prowers, and the name Amache traces to his wife, the Cheyenne woman Amache Ochinee Prowers.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The neighbors on the wall: stories at Adams County's veterans memorial

At the Adams County Veterans Memorial in Riverdale Regional Park, a battleship replica draws your eye, but a story wall of accounts submitted by county residents is what tends to hold you.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The old Castle Rock train depot is now the town's history museum

Castle Rock's historic Denver & Rio Grande stone depot now houses the Castle Rock Historical Museum, a free place to learn the town's railroad and quarry story.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The old Rio Grande depot in Alamosa, and what it is now

The historic Denver & Rio Grande Railroad depot on State Street in Alamosa, rebuilt after a 1907 fire and listed on the National Register, today houses the Colorado Welcome Center.

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History and culture - June 10, 2026

The Old Spanish Trail passed through the Grand Valley

A branch of the Old Spanish National Historic Trail, a 19th-century trade route between New Mexico and California, reached the Grand Junction area on its way west.

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