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
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History and culture
Moffat County is named for David Moffat, the railroad financier
The county takes its name from David Moffat, a Denver financier whose railroad pushed into northwest Colorado, and that railroad shaped where towns grew.
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Northglenn was planned around services, parks, and a shopping center
Developer Perl-Mack laid out Northglenn north of Denver as a complete community: schools, parks, churches, a golf course, and a shopping complex.
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Otto Mears built the roads and rails that shaped Ouray County
Many of Ouray County's roads and rail lines trace back to Otto Mears, the late-1800s toll-road and railroad builder whose routes through the San Juans still underlie the modern map.
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Parker's landmark register keeps more than one old building in view
Parker's landmark register preserves a cluster of old buildings, showing the town was a working community, not one saved relic.
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San Luis's old plaza is a registered historic district built in adobe
The center of San Luis, the Plaza de San Luis de la Culebra, is a National Register historic district of early adobe buildings, with the town's commons, the Vega, and the People's Ditch nearby.
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St. Elmo is a preserved mining ghost town up Chalk Creek
St. Elmo, a mining town founded around 1880 high in Chalk Creek Canyon southwest of Buena Vista, is widely described as one of Colorado's best-preserved ghost towns, and the place lasted only as long as its mines and railroad did.
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Stanley Marketplace: Aurora's living room in an old ejection-seat factory
A 1950s aerospace plant that built fighter-jet escape systems is now an Aurora food hall and gathering place with more than 50 local businesses.
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The Adobe Chapel at Viejo San Acacio, Often Called Colorado's Oldest Church
An adobe mission chapel that Hispano settlers raised near the Culebra River in the 1850s, still gathering its community for Mass and a yearly feast day.
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The Agricultural Heritage Center keeps Boulder County farm memory hands-on
A furnished 1909 farmhouse, barns, animals, and an heirloom garden keep Boulder County's 1900-1925 farm life touchable, not just remembered.
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The Baugh House points to the 1859 Clear Creek Valley
A surviving Wheat Ridge building from Jefferson County's 1859 Clear Creek Valley settlement, marking the gold-rush era's quieter layer.
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The Broomfield Depot Museum is a 1909 train depot moved to a park
Broomfield's local history museum sits in a railroad depot built in 1909, later moved to Zang's Spur Park and run with the help of the Broomfield Historical Society.
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The Climax mine on Fremont Pass is a different mining story than silver
High on Fremont Pass at the edge of Lake County, the Climax mine has produced molybdenum for more than a century, a separate chapter from Leadville's silver boom.
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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.
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The English Ditch shows Greenwood Village's water-work past
The English Ditch carried irrigation water for ranchers and landowners east of Littleton, long before suburban Greenwood Village.
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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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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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The old Arapahoe County Courthouse still anchors Littleton history
The old Arapahoe County Courthouse in Littleton is a historic civic landmark that makes the city's long-running county-seat role something you can picture.
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The Pueblo Levee Murals: A Flood Wall That Became Miles of Paint
The concrete flood walls along Pueblo's Arkansas River carry a decades-long mural project that Guinness once recognized as the world's longest painting.
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The town of Marble and the stone in the Lincoln Memorial
Marble, a small town in northern Gunnison County, grew around the Yule marble quarry, whose stone was used in the Lincoln Memorial and the Tomb of the Unknowns.
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The Ute-Ulay Mine and the ghost camps explain Hinsdale's high country
Silver and lead mines like the Ute-Ulay, plus vanished camps such as Capitol City, are why roads and ruins reach so far up Hinsdale County's gulches.
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The Weld County Fair grew from a call for a real county fair
The modern Weld County Fair traces to a 1918 push for a steady agricultural event, distinct from the Greeley Stampede.
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The wild donkeys that wander Cripple Creek all summer
A small herd of free-roaming donkeys, tied to Cripple Creek's gold-mining past, walks the town's streets each summer under the care of the Two Mile High Club.
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This is potato country, and a research center sits at its center
Rio Grande County is part of the high-altitude San Luis Valley potato region, supported by Colorado State University's research center and Extension office in the valley.
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Thornton's city story starts on the old Eppinger farm
Thornton began as the Eppinger family farm north of Denver, where Sam Hoffman bought land in 1952 to build a planned postwar community.
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