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.
Page 3 of 21
Local notes
More history and culture notes
502 sourced notes in this topic
History and culture
The town of Dillon was moved to make room for its reservoir
The Dillon you see today sits in a new spot because the old town was relocated in the 1960s when Denver Water built Dillon Reservoir over the original site.
Read note ->History and culture
The Ute Indian Museum tells the Ute story of the Uncompahgre Valley
Just south of Montrose, the Ute Indian Museum is a History Colorado site on land tied to Ute leader Ouray and his wife Chipeta, and it is the place to learn the Uncompahgre Valley's Ute history.
Read note ->History and culture
Why Idaho Springs exists: an 1859 gold strike
Idaho Springs grew up around an early 1859 gold discovery on Clear Creek that helped launch Colorado's gold rush.
Read note ->History and culture
Greeley began as the Union Colony, planned around irrigation
Greeley grew from the Union Colony, a planned farming settlement set between the Cache la Poudre and South Platte rivers and built around irrigation.
Read note ->History and culture
Akron: a railroad town on the high edge of the plains
Washington County's seat began in 1882 as a Burlington railroad stop and sits near the highest point on Colorado's plains, roughly 4,663 feet above sea level.
Read note ->History and culture
Broomfield's rail stop was Zang's Spur, and the name is usually traced to broomcorn
Broomfield grew from farm country along the railroad and was known to the railroad as Zang's Spur after a local landowner; the name Broomfield is traditionally traced to broomcorn grown nearby, though the city's own history does not settle the question.
Read note ->History and culture
Camp Hale was where the 10th Mountain Division learned to fight in the snow
The Pando valley in southern Eagle County holds Camp Hale, the WWII training base for the Army's 10th Mountain Division and now part of a national monument.
Read note ->History and culture
Canyons of the Ancients protects a landscape full of ancient sites
West of Cortez, BLM-managed Canyons of the Ancients National Monument holds many archaeological sites, and visiting them comes with stewardship rules.
Read note ->History and culture
Fannie Mae Duncan made the Cotton Club a welcome room
Fannie Mae Duncan's Cotton Club on West Colorado Avenue became a remembered Colorado Springs place because she welcomed people across race lines.
Read note ->History and culture
Fort Garland Museum preserves an 1858 adobe army post
The Fort Garland Museum and Cultural Center, run by History Colorado, preserves an adobe fort built in 1858 that once housed Kit Carson and Buffalo Soldiers of the Ninth Cavalry.
Read note ->History and culture
Fort Vasquez at Platteville was a fur-trade post on the South Platte
Fort Vasquez, an adobe trading post built in the 1830s near Platteville, is now a reconstructed museum site on the old South Platte trade route.
Read note ->History and culture
The Star on the Rock: Castle Rock's 1936 beacon of hope
A star raised on the butte during the Depression still lights up over Castle Rock every winter, tended by the fire department and switched on each year at the chamber's Starlighting.
Read note ->History and culture
The Tabor Opera House tells Leadville's silver-boom story in one building
The 1879 Tabor Opera House in Leadville was built by silver magnate Horace Tabor and is a contributing landmark within the Leadville National Historic Landmark District.
Read note ->History and culture
Weld agriculture is a water story first
Weld farming rose from irrigation, including the No. 3 ditch off the Cache la Poudre, called the first US ditch built to grow food.
Read note ->History and culture
How limited-stakes gaming reshaped Central City and Black Hawk
Colorado voters approved limited-stakes gaming in Central City and Black Hawk in 1990, tying casino revenue to historic preservation in these old mining towns.
Read note ->History and culture
Mount Falcon's ruins tell a big-ambition foothills story
Mount Falcon Park near Morrison preserves John Brisben Walker's castle ruins and the cornerstone of a planned summer White House.
Read note ->History and culture
Picture Canyon holds rock art worth treating with care
Picture Canyon in Baca County's Comanche National Grassland holds ancient rock art on its walls, and visiting it respectfully helps protect it.
Read note ->History and culture
Railroads tied Weld County to Denver, Cheyenne, coal, and farms
Erie coal, the Denver Pacific line, and the Greeley corridor wove Weld County's farm towns into the wider plains.
Read note ->History and culture
Tesla's Colorado Springs lab was real before it became legend
Nikola Tesla came to Colorado Springs in 1899 for high-voltage and wireless experiments, leaving behind a real local lab and a much larger legend.
Read note ->History and culture
The local NAACP story starts at Payne Chapel
Black residents founded Colorado Springs' NAACP branch at Payne Chapel in 1918, rooting the city's civil-rights story in real places.
Read note ->History and culture
The Weld County Courthouse was built as a Jewel of the Plains
The Weld County Courthouse in Greeley was built as a marble-and-limestone Classical Revival landmark after the old courthouse outgrew its space.
Read note ->History and culture
Van Briggle made Colorado Springs an art pottery town
The old Van Briggle Pottery building near Monument Creek ties Colorado Springs to art pottery, health-seeker migration, and a local architecture.
Read note ->History and culture
A 1929 suspension bridge that hung over the Arkansas before there were power tools to help
The Royal Gorge Bridge near Cañon City went up in about seven months in 1929 and held the world record for highest suspension bridge for roughly 74 years.
Read note ->History and culture
A French hotel in a silver town: the Hotel de Paris
The Hotel de Paris in Georgetown is a French-styled hotel and restaurant that Louis Dupuy created from an earlier building during the silver boom, now run as a museum.
Read note ->Related topics