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.

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Local notes

More history and culture notes

502 sourced notes in this topic

History and culture

LoDo is a protected historic district, not just a nightlife name

Lower Downtown, or LoDo, was declared a Denver historic district in 1988, which is why its old brick warehouses still stand and changes to them are reviewed.

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History and culture

Manassa's Pioneer Days is the town's long-running heritage celebration

Each July the small town of Manassa holds Pioneer Days, a heritage festival rooted in its Latter-day Saint founding, with a parade, rodeo, and fair that draw far more than the town's everyday population.

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History and culture

Montezuma is a tiny silver-mining town that is still its own town

Montezuma, high up the Snake River valley past Keystone, began as a silver-mining camp and remains a small incorporated town today.

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History and culture

Norwood and Wright's Mesa: the ranching side of San Miguel County

On the county's drier west end, Norwood sits on Wright's Mesa, a ranching and farming area very different from the resort towns around Telluride.

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History and culture

Park County's seat moved twice before it settled in Fairplay

The county seat started at the Tarryall diggings, shifted to Buckskin Joe, and finally landed in Fairplay, tracing where the mining action was at each moment.

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History and culture

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.

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History and culture

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.

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History and culture

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.

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History and culture

The big archaeology museum near Dolores changed its name in 2018

The regional archaeology museum near Dolores, long called the Anasazi Heritage Center, was renamed the Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center and Museum in 2018.

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History and culture

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.

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History and culture

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.

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History and culture

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

The old town hall in Silver Cliff is now a museum

Silver Cliff's historic 1870s town hall and firehouse on Main Street holds the town's museum, where the county's mining-era story is kept.

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History and culture

The West Elks wine trail runs through some of the highest vineyards in the country

Between Hotchkiss and Paonia, the West Elks AVA grows Riesling, Pinot Noir, and other cool-climate grapes at elevations that rank among the highest vineyards in North America.

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History and culture

Western Montrose County's uranium years left a real legacy at Uravan

The former town and mill of Uravan, in far western Montrose County, was a major uranium and vanadium center whose contamination became an EPA Superfund cleanup, a history best learned from official sources.

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History and culture

Why Denver built mountain parks a century ago

Denver's mountain parks were a deliberate early-1900s project, planned by noted landscape architects and built over decades to give city people access to the foothills.

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History and culture

Why Denver grew up where Cherry Creek meets the South Platte

Denver started at the meeting of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek during an 1850s gold rush, which is why the old city center sits where it does.

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History and culture

Commerce City was built around industry, and that still shapes it

Commerce City grew up as an industrial town near Denver, home to a refinery and heavy industry, which still shapes its land use and air-quality monitoring.

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History and culture

Doc Holliday is tied to Glenwood Springs, but his exact grave is uncertain

Doc Holliday died in Glenwood Springs and is associated with Linwood Cemetery, though the precise location of his grave is not documented with certainty.

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History and culture

Downtown Sterling is a registered historic district, which can matter to owners

Several blocks of downtown Sterling form a National Register historic district, a status that recognizes the old commercial core and can open up preservation grants and tax credits.

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History and culture

Florence is home to a federal prison complex, including the federal supermax

A federal correctional complex outside Florence, including the federal supermax, is part of why corrections runs deep in Fremont County life and work.

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History and culture

Kremmling grew where the river, the ranches, and the railroad met

Kremmling started as a store and became Grand County's shipping point when the Moffat railroad arrived, anchored by ranching in lower Middle Park.

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History and culture

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

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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