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

Alexander Film made movie ads on North Nevada

A North Nevada Avenue plant made the short ads that played before theater features, employing hundreds in Colorado Springs from the late 1920s.

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History and culture

Aurora History Museum gives the city a public memory center

Aurora's official city history museum collects and cares for the historic and cultural resources behind a sprawling, layered place.

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History and culture

Baker's old streets show Denver's South Side growing up

Baker grew up as a middle-class South Side neighborhood, stitched from 20-plus subdivisions during Denver's streetcar era before the 1893 Silver Crash.

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History and culture

Boettcher Mansion began as a Lookout Mountain lodge

Boettcher Mansion on Lookout Mountain began as Charles Boettcher's 1917 Lorraine Lodge, a foothills retreat tied to early mountain-road tourism.

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History and culture

Brighton's old courthouse explains why the county seat landed there

Adams County split from Arapahoe in 1902 and chose Brighton as its seat in 1904, building the first courthouse at 4th and Bridge.

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History and culture

Camp George West put military training on South Table Mountain

Camp George West began in 1903 as a Colorado Army National Guard training ground near South Table Mountain above Golden.

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History and culture

Centennial began as a self-determination city

Centennial grew from a 1998 pancake breakfast through a Supreme Court fight and a vote, becoming a city of resident choice in 2001.

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History and culture

Coal and the railroad drove Walsenburg's growth

Walsenburg is older than the coal boom, but coal mining and the rail lines that hauled the coal out drove the town's growth and still shape the towns and land you see in Huerfano County today.

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History and culture

Creede grew up around a silver rush, and the town still shows it

Creede began as a late-1800s silver boomtown, and that mining past explains the town's setting in a narrow canyon and the old workings in the hills above it.

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History and culture

Crowley County is a Colorado lesson in 'buy and dry'

Crowley County's water story is one of Colorado's most studied, and it's a big part of what gives this Arkansas Valley community its identity today.

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History and culture

DeLaney Farm keeps an older Aurora farmstead in view

DeLaney Farm preserves an older Aurora farmstead on Chambers Road, with a round barn, community garden, trails, and open space.

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History and culture

Douglas County is one of Colorado's original territorial counties

Douglas County was one of Colorado Territory's 1861 original counties, named for senator Stephen A. Douglas and once far larger.

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History and culture

Douglas County rhyolite helped build the Front Range

After gold failed to deliver, Douglas County turned to rhyolite quarrying, supplying building stone for Denver and the Front Range.

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History and culture

Durango exists because of a railroad and the mines it served

The narrow-gauge railroad between Durango and Silverton was built to move ore from the San Juan mines, and it helps explain why Durango sits where it does.

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History and culture

Englewood's city story starts with gold on Little Dry Creek

Englewood began with gold found near where Little Dry Creek meets the South Platte, drawing mid-1800s prospectors to the south side of Denver.

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History and culture

Every July, Fairplay races burros over a 13,000-foot pass

Fairplay's Burro Days festival each July features the World Championship Pack Burro Race, where runners and their burros climb over Mosquito Pass on a course of more than 29 miles.

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History and culture

Fort Lewis College began as a fort, then an Indian boarding school

Fort Lewis College traces back to a U.S. Army post first established in 1878 that later became a federal Indian boarding school, a difficult history tied to a tuition-free promise for Native students.

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History and culture

Frisco's name and museum come from its railroad and mining past

Frisco grew as a silver-mining and railroad town in the late 1800s, and the Frisco Historic Park & Museum keeps that story in a cluster of original old buildings.

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History and culture

Glen Eyrie keeps Palmer's story in Queen's Canyon

Glen Eyrie, General William Jackson Palmer's estate in Queen's Canyon, gives Colorado Springs' founding story a specific stone-and-canyon setting.

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History and culture

Hiwan shows how Evergreen grew from retreat to ranch to town

Hiwan Heritage Park in Evergreen preserves a log lodge and ranch story tracing the foothills' shift from summer retreat to year-round town.

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History and culture

Hugo is the county seat, where Lincoln County's offices and court sit

Lincoln County was created in 1889 with Hugo as its county seat, and the county's main government offices and courthouse are still in Hugo today.

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History and culture

Island Grove has been a Greeley gathering ground for a long time

Island Grove in Greeley was a Ute and Arapaho campground, then a Union Colony park, and is still where the county gathers for fairs and festivals.

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History and culture

La Raza Park is more than a small northside park

La Raza Park at 1501 West 38th Avenue is a recognized Historic Cultural District and a Northside symbol of community and unity.

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History and culture

Littleton's early growth was tied to ditches and farm water

Early Littleton grew from the gold rush, nearby farms, and the ditches dug to carry water across dry land toward the South Platte.

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