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 1 of 18
History and culture - June 10, 2026
A 1914 pack trip recorded Arapaho place names near Estes Park
In 1914, Arapaho men joined a Colorado Mountain Club pack trip through the Estes Park region so Arapaho place names and trails could be recorded, work later published as 'Arapaho Names and Trails.'
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
A 1929 suspension bridge that hung over the Arkansas before there were power tools to help
The Royal Gorge Bridge near Cañon City went up in about seven months in 1929 and held the world record for highest suspension bridge for roughly 74 years.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
A 1949 gathering helped reinvent Aspen as a place of ideas
After the silver bust, a 1949 cultural convocation in Aspen led to the Aspen Institute and helped turn the quiet old mining town toward arts, learning, and recreation.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
A beloved Genoa roadside landmark is coming back to life
Near Genoa off I-70, the historic World's Wonder View Tower is a 1920s roadside attraction famous for a long-standing 'see six states' claim, now reopening after a major historic restoration.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
A flood is the reason Fort Collins sits where it does
Fort Collins grew up around an Army post that was moved downstream after an 1864 flood washed out the earlier camp near Laporte, and the county seat followed the new fort a few years later.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
A free summer-only museum keeps Strasburg's railroad story alive
On the Adams County plains in Strasburg, the seasonal Comanche Crossing Museum gathers a 1917 depot, two relocated one-room schools, and thousands of everyday artifacts on a couple of landscaped acres.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
A French hotel in a silver town: the Hotel de Paris
The Hotel de Paris in Georgetown is a French-styled hotel and restaurant that Louis Dupuy created from an earlier building during the silver boom, now run as a museum.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
A hand-built stone castle rises from the woods on Highway 165
On Highway 165 in the wooded southeastern corner of Custer County, Jim Bishop spent decades hand-building a towering stone-and-iron castle that anyone can visit on a donation basis.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
A Smithsonian Ice Age Bison Hunt, Displayed in Downtown Wray
The Wray Museum on the Eastern Plains holds a permanent Smithsonian paleo-Indian exhibit built around a real Ice Age bison-kill bone bed.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
A standard-gauge railroad once climbed over the divide to Aspen
The Colorado Midland Railway reached Aspen in the late 1880s by tunneling under the high country near Hagerman Pass, helping the silver town boom before the line was abandoned.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
A steam train climbs out of Antonito and over a 10,000-foot pass
The Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad runs a coal-fired narrow-gauge steam train 64 miles from Antonito over Cumbres Pass, on a line so intact it was named a National Historic Landmark.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
A summer theater helped Creede survive after the mines slowed
The Creede Repertory Theatre began in 1966 when college students answered the town's call for a new draw, and it grew into a professional company that anchors the local summer economy.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
A whole city's stages gathered under one downtown roof
The Denver Performing Arts Complex packs more than a dozen venues and four resident companies onto twelve downtown acres under an 80-foot glass canopy.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Adams State University: a teachers' college built for the valley
Adams State in Alamosa began in the 1920s as a teachers' college meant to train teachers for the rural San Luis Valley, and it is named for the local rancher-turned-governor Billy Adams.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Akron: a railroad town on the high edge of the plains
Washington County's seat began in 1882 as a Burlington railroad stop and sits near the highest point on Colorado's plains, roughly 4,663 feet above sea level.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Alamosa County sits inside a national heritage area
Alamosa County is part of the Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area, a congressionally designated region that honors the layered Indigenous, Hispano, and other cultures of the San Luis Valley.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Amache, near Granada, is a place to visit with care
Near Granada in Prowers County, Amache is the site of a World War II incarceration camp for Japanese Americans, now part of the National Park System.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
An Easy, Free Afternoon: The Washington County Museum in Akron
Akron's free, year-round county museum keeps Washington County's pioneer and Native American story under one roof.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Animas City came first, then Durango, then they became one
Animas City was an older settlement just north of Durango that lost out when the railroad chose a new townsite in 1880, and the two eventually merged into modern Durango.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Animas Forks is a real ghost town, kept by the BLM
Animas Forks above Silverton is a preserved mining ghost town on the Alpine Loop, managed by the Bureau of Land Management, where the standing buildings are protected and meant to be left as found.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Arapahoe County carries the name of the Arapaho people
Arapahoe County is named for the Arapaho people, who lived across the eastern Colorado plains long before the county was drawn.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Art on the Corner: downtown Grand Junction's open-air sculptures
Since 1984, Grand Junction's Main Street has doubled as a free outdoor sculpture exhibit, the centerpiece of downtown's state-certified creative district.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Ashcroft is a preserved ghost town up Castle Creek
Ashcroft was an 1880s silver camp in the Castle Creek valley that briefly rivaled Aspen, and its remaining buildings are now a cared-for historic site.
Read note ->History and culture - June 10, 2026
Aspen began as a silver mining camp
Aspen grew out of a 1880s silver boom in the Roaring Fork Valley, and the 1893 silver crash that followed shaped the town long before skiing arrived.
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