In the early 1960s, Governor John A. Love and other business leaders worked to bring the 1976 Winter Olympics to Colorado. Despite winning the bid from the International Olympic Committee in 1970, the voters of Colorado decided not to fund the winter…

Adolph Coors (1847–1929) immigrated to the United States in 1868 after serving as a brewery apprentice in western Germany and then in the Kingdom of Prussia. After working in Chicago breweries, he moved to Colorado in 1872 and purchased a bottling…

Arthur Lakes (1844–1917) was an English naturalist who discovered dinosaur bones near Morrison in 1877, setting off the “dinosaur bone rush” in Colorado and the American West. Additionally, his research on mineral deposits and extraction methods proved…

The Bradford-Perley House was originally built in about 1860 to serve as a station house along Robert Bradford’s wagon road to mining areas in the Rocky Mountains. Located in what is now Ken-Caryl Ranch southwest of Denver, the house later became the…

Charles Deaton was an influential western American architect best known for his Sculptured House (better known as the Sleeper House) in the hills around Denver. Deaton is remembered as a pioneering Colorado artist whose work was an example of…

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a New Deal program aimed at reducing unemployment among young men by giving them steady work improving the nation’s landscape, public lands, and infrastructure. When it was implemented in 1933, the CCC was the…

Clear Creek flows from the Continental Divide at Loveland Pass, eastward through a deep and wide glacial valley down to Idaho Springs, where the valley narrows and the stream gradient increases as it enters narrow, relatively undeveloped Clear Creek…

The Colorado Mountain Club (CMC) has been a potent force in shaping environmentalism in Colorado. Its members developed an intimate relationship with nature through the CMC’s conservation work and recreational activities. The CMC’s appreciation of…

The Denver Ordnance Plant in Lakewood produced ammunition during World War II. The plant was the largest federal project in Colorado history before its conversion into the Federal Center, which today houses dozens of government agencies. Beginnings …

Stretching north from Morrison to just south of Golden, Dinosaur Ridge became famous for the dinosaur fossils and tracks discovered there in 1877. The discoveries, which included the world’s first known Stegosaurus and Apatosaurus fossils, helped launch…

Like most places in the arid American West, Denver could not possibly sustain itself without water from irrigation systems. While easy to overlook, disputes over water rights began with the onset of irrigation and persist to the present day. Today,…

Genesee Park is a Denver Mountain Park that stretches from Clear Creek Canyon to Genesee Mountain in the Rocky Mountain foothills about five miles southwest of Golden. In addition to the 8,424-foot summit of Genesee Mountain, attractions at the 2,413…

Now a small pocket city in the suburbs of Denver, Golden was once the most powerful city in the state and the capital of the Colorado Territory. Today, Golden is known for the Coors Brewery and the Colorado School of Mines and as the seat of Jefferson…

Settled by Frank Hildebrand in 1866, Hildebrand Ranch was a large cattle ranch and farm along Deer Creek southwest of Denver. After remaining in the hands of the Hildebrand family for more than a century, the ranch was condemned by the Army Corps of…

Jefferson County, commonly referred to as “Jeffco,” is named after former president Thomas Jefferson and covers 774 square miles in central Colorado west of Denver. Jeffco is bordered to the north by Boulder and Broomfield Counties, to the east by Adams,…

Located just north of Deer Creek in the valley between the hogback ridge and the foothills west of Denver, the Ken-Caryl South Valley Archaeological District contains rock shelters that were used by prehistoric peoples from at least the Late Paleo-Indian…

Planned and built by William “Cement Bill” Williams from about 1910 to 1914, the Lariat Trail Scenic Mountain Drive winds roughly five miles and 1,500 feet from Golden to the top of Lookout Mountain. One of the earliest scenic mountain drives in Colorado…

First excavated in 1956–57, the LoDaisKa Archaeological Site south of Morrison is a rockshelter that contains evidence of about 7,500 years of human occupation, from the Paleo-Indian period (before 6000 BCE) to the Early Ceramic (150–1150 CE). The site…

Charles Boettcher (1852–1948), one of Colorado’s most important early businessmen and philanthropists, built Lorraine Lodge (now known as Boettcher Mansion) in 1917 as a summer retreat at the top of Lookout Mountain, west of Golden. It stands as a…

Named for a nearby amusement park now known as Heritage Square, the Magic Mountain Archaeological Site south of Golden was excavated in 1959–60 by Cynthia and Henry Irwin. Because it was one of the first foothills sites to be professionally excavated,…

Morrison is a small tourist-oriented town of restaurants and antique shops located along Bear Creek in the valley south of Red Rocks, about fifteen miles southwest of Denver. Established in 1872, the town relied on George Morrison’s quarrying industry in…

The town of Mount Vernon was established in 1859 at the base of Mount Vernon Canyon, west of Denver. The town is best known as the home of Robert W. Steele, who made it the de facto capital of the unofficial Territory of Jefferson while he was governor…

Located just west of Denver near the town of Morrison, Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre combines awe-inspiring natural scenery with natural acoustic splendor. The 868-acre park stands 6,450 feet above sea level between the Great Plains and the Rocky…

The Romano Residence is a one-story Craftsman-style bungalow on South Golden Road in the Pleasant View neighborhood southeast of Golden (16300 S Golden Rd, Golden, CO 80401). Built in 1927, the cobblestone house has been in the Romano family since 1929…

Established in 1861 between Green Mountain and the hogback known as Dinosaur Ridge, Rooney Ranch is the oldest property continuously operated by the same family in Jefferson County. It was also the county’s largest cattle ranch ever and has one of the…

Located north of Shaffers Crossing about forty-five miles southwest of Denver, Staunton Ranch was a 1,720-acre ranch owned by the doctors Archibald and Rachael Staunton. The Stauntons used the ranch as a second home and also operated a sawmill and hosted…

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, the City Beautiful movement sought to create a livable urban environment with healthy and agreeable conditions and an abundance of recreational facilities in the midst of rapidly industrializing cities. Cities…

The Fort, an adobe restaurant just south of Morrison, was modeled on historic Bent’s Old Fort and built using traditional Hispano methods and materials. Designed by William Lumpkins, an architect internationally known for his work in the adobe and Pueblo…

Colorado enjoys a proud public lands heritage and a prominent place in US Forest Service (USFS) history. The state hosts many of the first forests reserved under federal law, which today are some of the most popular destinations within the national…

William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody (1846–1917) was neither born in Colorado nor lived in the state. In death, however, he became one of its most famous residents. Cody’s first experience in Colorado came in 1859, when he was a thirteen-year-old participant…

William “Cement Bill” Williams (1868–1945) was a prominent contractor, political agitator, and personality in Golden during the early 1900s. Williams’s tireless campaigning brought crucial road construction to Golden, much of which he built himself…