Every Boulderite knows that Chautauqua is up on 900 Baseline Road in Boulder, but how did it get there? And what is a Chautauqua anyway? The Chautauqua movement of the late 19th century was an effort to educate rural communities who lacked access to the mass culture being developed in cities. The movement lasted from the 1870s all the way into the 1920s. Rural peoples were hungry for entrainment and brain food, but lacked a way to easily travel because automobiles weren’t widely available until 1910. The “Mother Chautauqua” (which sounds a bit like a spaceship name to me) was... Read More

With the holidays over, we figured we should refresh our minds with something different today. Boulder has a very interesting architectural history, especially the university campus. We will touch on some defining Boulder architectural projects which you have probably seen around town. Next time you’re out and about, maybe you’ll encounter some of these oh-so-Boulder building projects. The University Campus Of course we cannot skim Boulder’s architectural past without bringing up the University of Colorado campus. It began with the all-brick Old Main and soon grew into several... Read More

While she never lived in Boulder, Margaret “Molly” Brown benefited from the same incredible good fortune as Boulder itself due to the mining industry in Colorado. Molly grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, the daughter of poor Irish immigrants. From ages thirteen to eighteen, she worked in a tobacco factory to help support her family. The harsh working conditions there inspired her interest in reform and labor movements later in life. Molly and her brother Daniel moved in Leadville, Colorado in 1886, where Molly went to work in a department store. There, she met and soon married mining engineer... Read More

The story goes that “Boulder” was discovered by Anglo-Americans when gold was first discovered in Gold Hill in the fall of 1858. Chief Niwot, of the Southern Arapahoe tribe, came down to the camp on Boulder Creek, and asked the men to leave his land (oddly enough Chief Niwot spoke English! His sister had married an English speaking fur trader, and he learned it from them). They said they were just staying for the winter, and then going deep into the mountains. Of course, you can deduce what really happened. By 1859, one hundred thousand people came to the Rocky Mountains looking for gold.... Read More

Most people know the name “Mary Rippon” from the spectacular outdoor theater where the Colorado Shakespeare Festival performs the works of William Shakespeare every summer. But did you know that Mary Rippon was actually the first female professor at CU Boulder? She taught German there between 1878 and 1909, making her not only the first female professor at CU, but one of the first educators to work there as well there as well. Although born in Illinois, Rippon was offered a teaching position in Boulder after she graduated from university herself. Eager to explore the West and its fascinating... Read More

Up until 1858, few people from the East Coast had any interest in the area that would one day be the state of Colorado. It was not until the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush that settlers came to the region and laid the roots of the town that would become Boulder. Even though small amounts of gold were discovered in Colorado as early as 1850, they went largely ignored; the country was too caught up in the potential wealth to be had in the California Gold Rush. But when the gold of California was exhausted, heads began to turn towards Colorado–or what was then known as the Kansas Territory. The gold... Read More

A Boulder resident in the 1940s remarked that Pearl street is “a good place to buy a pair of socks.” I think this adage holds true today, and that Pearl offers Boulder exponentially more to go along with those socks. Pearl Street is supposedly named for one of the wives of the original 54 founders of Boulder. However, I have also heard whispers that “Pearl” was a madam of a brothel once located near what is now Pearl Street. The first explanation is more likely, though I find the second more provocative and appealing. If I had to describe Pearl Street, I would say it’s an intermingling... Read More

What on earth are we talking about today? Only the coolest festival in Colorado. Every year thousands gather in Nederland to celebrate our state’s most famous frozen grandpa with games, beer, music, and coffin races! Did we mention most events are free? A little backstory first: Back in 1993 it was discovered that Trygve Bauge and his mother Aud were storing Trygve’s grandfather with dry ice in the shed behind their unfinished house in Nederland. They wanted the body cryonically frozen in the hopes that someday grandpa would be resurrected by future technologies (nanobots, etc.). The... Read More