Virtual Events
6-6:55AM Virtual Dynamic Circuit
8:30-9:30AM Virtual Power Training
10-10:55AM All Levels Yoga Virtual
10:15-10:45AM Virtual: Cuentacuentos
11-11:55AM Find Your Balance
2-3PM Virtual/Call In: Active Minds Mondays – Harriet Tubman
4-4:30PM Kids Martial Arts Class
5:30-6:30PM Step Circuit
Real World Events
12-4PM Crochet Class Series – Level 1 @ Golden Quilt Company
4-5:30PM Monthly Maker: Light Up Tulips @ Golden Library
6-9PM Golden Game Guild Meet-Up Mondays @ Golden Game Guild
Golden History Moment
According to the City’s website, Golden has 253 acres of parks, 24 miles of trails, and 402 acres of open space. The Jefferson County Open Space site says that the county has 56,000 acres of open space, 261 miles of trails, and 27 parks. For all of this, we can be thankful to the people of Jefferson County who approved a one half percent sales tax for the purchase of Open Space in 1972.
Golden had been aspiring to develop parks for several years, and had begun requiring developers to dedicate a portion of new subdivisions to parkland. The Open Space program earmarked a certain percentage of the funds for use by municipalities. This gave Golden its first reliable source of parks funding, and in the years since, the City has used that money to develop many parks.
48 Years Ago
The February 7, 1974 Golden Transcript reported that the City had approved Jefferson County’s purchase of the land that became the Apex Trail. Normally, the City’s approval wouldn’t be necessary for an Open Space purchase, but Golden had only recently annexed that land into the City, with the understanding that it would be developed as residential property.
The developers had planned to build 25 high-end houses and leave the rest of a 520 acre parcel as private open space, to be shared by the 25 home owners.
Instead, the company decided to offer the excess land to the County as an Open Space purchase. Golden agreed to the County’s purchase provided that the deal would have “absolutely no effect on Golden’s share of any open space funds available, and only if it is in no way construed as an open space allotment of the City of Golden.”
The article went on to say that Golden intended to use its share of Open Space Funds to purchase 10 neighborhood parks.
In 1974, Apex was considered to be a “pedestrian-horse trail.” Since that time, mountain bikes have become wildly popular. The steep trail is so well-suited for mountain biking that Jeffco Open Space now designates which days of the month the trail is reserved for mountain biking (even calendar dates) and which are open only for pedestrians and horses (odd dates).
Thanks to the Golden History Museum for providing the online cache of historic Transcripts, and to the Golden Transcript for documenting our history since 1866!
