Boulder – first known as the “Boulder City Town Company,” was founded in 1859 by 54 men who had crossed the Great Plains to seek their fortunes in gold. One of the prospectors, Alfred A. Brookfield, wrote a letter home to his wife. “We thought that as the weather would not permit us to mine, we would lay out and commence to build what may be an important town.”

Boulder did become important – as a supply town to the mountain mines, and as a county seat, agricultural center, and a railroad hub. Before long, Pearl Street’s frontier-style buildings were replaced with permanent buildings of brick and stone. In 1877, one year after Colorado was granted statehood, the lone building of the University of Colorado opened its doors on a barren mesa south of the town.

By 1909, Boulder residents called their city the “Athens of the West.” It had grown to a city of 9,000 residents who celebrated with a pioneers’ banquet and a parade. Even the Utes came Boulder to join in the city’s Semi-centennial festivities. The city’s logo – with a book for the University, a pick and shovel for mining, and a plow for agriculture – proclaimed Boulder, after its first 50 years, as “The Place to Live.”

To encourage Boulder’s growth, local businessmen and women bought stocks in the Boulder Hotel Company which opened the doors of the Hotel Boulderado on New Year’s Day 1909. The following year, nationally known landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. prepared a lengthy Plan of Improvements, encouraging Boulder residents to plant a variety of trees and create more parks. On the hill, the University, led by President Norlin, adopted the Tuscan-vernacular architectural scheme.

Boulder County’s old courthouse burned in 1932 and was replaced with the current building that features an Art Deco bas relief sculpture of a miner and farmer. These economic interests were combined during the Great Depression into the Pay Dirt Pow Wow, a series of events that included annual parades, mining contests, and rodeos. Despite bursts of activity, Boulder throughout the 1930s and into the WWII years was known as a “sleepy college town.”

But Boulder wasn’t asleep for long. Postwar growth brought a dramatic change with the opening of the Boulder-Denver Turnpike, in 1952. Two years later, President Dwight David Eisenhower ushered in a new era of government jobs when he spoke at the dedication of the U.S. Bureau of Standards. Boulder’s population jumped from 20,000 in 1950 to 37,000 by the end of the decade. New residents drove to shopping centers instead of doing their shopping downtown.

The state of Colorado commemorated the 100th anniversary of the gold rush in 1959 with a “Rush to the Rockies” celebration. In Boulder, the festivities coincided with the city’s Centennial featuring a weeklong pageant called the “Boulderama,” beard-growing and beauty contests, and another parade.

In 1959 the citizen-initiated Blue Line preserving Boulder’s mountain backdrop was followed by other innovative land use measures such as a sales tax to purchase open space, 55-foot height limit, historic preservation ordinance, residential growth management and a joint city and county comprehensive plan. 

Three versions of a Crossroads shopping center—each controversial – opened in 1963, 1983 and 2006.  Other controversies included bathing naked at Coot Lake, city funding for a teahouse, and anything to do with dogs or land use.

1977 witnessed Boulder’s first Madame Mayor with a female council majority following in 1979. NCAR, the Pearl Street Mall, Boulder Creek Path, Bolder Boulder and a colorful shuttle system, among other attributes, contribute to Boulder’s well-deserved 21^st century reputation as a unique and quality place in which to live, work and play.