City Council and the Cambria Lime Kiln

Golden Eye Candy – Jen Rutter – Click to enlarge

Public Health References
CDC * Colorado * Jefferson County * City of Golden

JCPHD updates these numbers Monday through Friday at about 3 PM. Here’s the most recent Coronavirus report from Jeffco Public Health’s Case Summary Page:

Clear Creek is closed. In Jefferson County) (including Golden), masks must be worn both indoors and outdoors in public spaces where 6 feet distance cannot be maintained. The rest of the state requires masks only indoors. The Safer at Home and in the Vast, Great Outdoors protocol is in effect statewide. City and County fire restrictions are in place.

Virtual Golden

10:15-11:15AM Preschool Time with the Library
5PM Golden Women in Business Annual Cocktail Party

6:30PM City Council Meeting
The City has been running a study regarding face mask compliance. The City Manager will provide the results tonight. Council will consider an agreement with Wheat Ridge and Edgewater to establish a regional Homeless Navigator. They will consider a new contract for emergency medical services. They will discuss funding the tourism program for another 5 years. They will consider extending the merchants’ permission to use the sidewalks to facilitate outdoor dining and shopping. They will consider a request by Golden United to hang a “Black Lives Matter” banner from the Welcome Arch. They will consider forming a subcommittee to work on Golden’s anti-racism actions and policies.

The business meeting will be followed by a study session in which they will discuss their policy on requests to provide water to places outside of the city.

To learn more about any of these issues, see the meeting packet. The first page of the packet also provides info on how to watch the meeting and how to provide public comment.

Real Life Golden

12-6PM Raise a Pint, Lend a Hand – Benefiting the Golden Fire Dept
5:30-6:30PM Golden Lodge Assisted Living & Memory Care Ribbon Cutting
6PM Vinyasa Yoga in Parfet Park with Pranatonic

Live Music:
5PM VanCrueLen at Dirty Dogs Roadhouse
7PM Butter Side Down at Buffalo Rose

Golden History Moment

Lime, Mortar, and the Cambria Kiln

By Paul Haseman and Donna Anderson

*Restored Cambria Lime Kiln along Kinney Run Gulch – Photo by D. Anderson – click to enlarge*

Formed in 1879 by John Hodges, the Cambria Brick and Tile Company was located at 12th and East St, now covered by south end of the Coors Brewery and parking lot. The Cambria company promptly “leased fire-clay and lime seams near Hoyt’s ranch,” located at the south end of today’s Illinois Street [Transcript 16 June 1879].

*1886 Sanborn Fire Insurance map with rail line west of Cambria brick plant. Today’s East Street ends at 3rd, now 13th St. Click to enlarge*

Golden businessman, Charles Welch, a Cambria investor, became the company Superintendent. Welch also conveniently co-owned the “lime seams” leased to Cambria and was the President of the Golden & South Platte RR. The G&SP began laying rail in 1879 from the Colorado Central Railyard, across Clear Creek on a former East St bridge, past Cambria’s new brick plant and then across Ford to now Jackson St. The curve in the current road linking Ford to Jackson is the original rail route to Jackson St (then Miners St). The route proceeded to today’s Golden High School, where a half-right turn took the rails southeast parallel to Kinney Run. A spur of the G&SP continued up Kinney Run to the new lime kiln.

*Linear limestone trench (arrow) on Mines survey field. View to north. Photo by D. Anderson – click to enlarge*

The Cambria kiln was built in 1879 with sandstone of the Lyons Formation from the cliff behind the kiln and along Kinney Run. The kiln was conveniently located near the “lime seams” in the Glennon limestone (i.e. the “bastard” limestone descibed by geologist F.V. Hayden). Quarried in linear trenches along today’s Somerset Drive and across the Mines survey field, limestone was heated to high temperature in the Cambria kiln forming calcium oxide, or quicklime, which was then combined with water to make mortar. G&SP rail cars transported the quicklime to Hodges’ and Welch’s brickyard. An early brickyard customer in January 1880 was the School of Mines, which purchased 75,000 bricks to construct Mines’ first campus building.

The Cambria kiln operated 13 years until 1892, when the local lime seams were exhausted and cheaper and better Portland cement sidetracked the lime/mortar business in Golden.

In 2005 a City Council Resolution recognized “the unique geologic areas in the Eagle Ridge area (including the Dakota hog back, Cambria Lime Kiln, Kinney Run Trail, and riparian areas)” and designated them “as a geologic and environmental education park.” In 2009 the City and the Golden Civic Foundation restored the base of the kiln and placed interpretive signs. It is the only remaining lime kiln in Jeffco and a reminder of Golden’s mining history.

Donna Anderson and Paul Haseman are writing a book called “Golden Rocks!” about the geology and mining history of Golden, to be completed by year end.