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 9 of 18
History and culture - June 10, 2026
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.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Monte Vista's downtown is a recognized historic district
The heart of Monte Vista is a listed historic district, which means its older downtown buildings carry recognition that can affect how they are changed.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Monte Vista's Ski Hi Stampede has run since 1919
Monte Vista's Ski Hi Stampede, billed as Colorado's oldest pro rodeo, has gathered the San Luis Valley each July since 1919.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
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.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Montrose grew up around the railroad in the 1880s
The town of Montrose dates to the early 1880s, when the Denver and Rio Grande narrow-gauge railroad reached the Uncompahgre Valley and turned it into a regional shipping and supply hub.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Montrose's old railroad depot is now the county history museum
The Montrose County Historical Museum is housed in the historic Denver & Rio Grande depot in Montrose, a Mission Revival building on the National Register that tells the valley's settlement and railroad story.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Most of Silverton sits inside a National Historic Landmark district
Much of the town of Silverton is a National Historic Landmark district recognized for its mining-era buildings, which is worth knowing if you own or change a property there.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Mount Antero is where Colorado's state gemstone comes out of the rock
Aquamarine, Colorado's state gemstone, is found high on Mount Antero in Chaffee County, but the gem-bearing ground is largely staked with mining claims, so collecting there is not a free-for-all.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Much of downtown Lake City is a listed historic district
Lake City's downtown is a National Register historic district with dozens of original mining-era buildings, many rebuilt in brick and stone after an 1879 fire.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Much of Park County sits inside the South Park National Heritage Area
Congress designated the South Park National Heritage Area to recognize and help interpret the mining, ranching, and railroad history spread across much of Park County.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Near Eads, the Sand Creek Massacre site is sacred ground the National Park Service cares for
The Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in Kiowa County is a place of mourning for the Cheyenne and Arapaho people, and the National Park Service is the agency that protects and explains it.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Near San Luis, some mountain land carries old shared-use rights
The mountain land east of San Luis, long known as La Sierra, is tied to historic common-use rights that courts have addressed, and they are a real factor in local land questions.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Nevadaville: the quiet ghost town just above Central City
A couple of miles above Central City sits Nevadaville, an early gold camp that emptied out and now makes a free, easy, photogenic side trip.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
New Castle was a coal town, and an old mine fire still smolders underground
New Castle grew as a coal-mining town, and after a deadly 1896 mine explosion, an underground coal-seam fire has burned in nearby Burning Mountain for over a century.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Northwest Colorado was Ute homeland, and that history deserves care
The land that became Moffat County was long the homeland of Ute people, and their removal in the late 1800s opened it to settlement — a history worth learning from official and tribal sources.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
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.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Old Threshers Day in Yuma: a harvest run on steam
Each year the weekend following Labor Day, Yuma fires up antique steam engines and threshing machines and works real wheat the old way, twice a day.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Old Town Fort Collins is a listed historic district, not just a name
The Old Town district at the heart of Fort Collins is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it is the city's own historic preservation review that keeps its old brick storefronts looking the way they do.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
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.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Ouray is named for a Ute leader, and the county carries the name too
The town and county of Ouray are named for Ouray, a nineteenth-century leader of the Tabeguache (Uncompahgre) band of Ute people, and early accounts say the townsite was first known as Uncompahgre City.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Ouray's hot springs pool and Box Canyon are run by the city
The Ouray Hot Springs Pool and Box Canyon Falls Park are both owned and operated by the City of Ouray, which is why they have set hours, fees, and rules rather than open access.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Ouray's Main Street is a listed historic district
Much of downtown Ouray is the Ouray Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with late-1800s buildings like the county courthouse and Wright's Opera House.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Pagosa's old waterworks is now its history museum
The San Juan Historical Museum in Pagosa Springs sits in the town's former waterworks building and keeps Archuleta County's local history.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Paonia is named for the peony, with a vowel lost along the way
The North Fork town of Paonia takes its name from the Latin word for peony, shortened from Paeonia when the post office balked at the extra vowel.
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