Coronavirus Update
Public Health References
CDC * Colorado * Jefferson County * City of Golden
The governor is asking everyone to wear a mask that covers the nose and mouth when leaving the house. The State-Wide Stay-at-Home Order is in effect through April 11, 2020. City and County fire restrictions are also in place.
Jefferson County’s case count page says that as of 3PM yesterday, there were 531 (up from 516) “confirmed, probable, suspected, or under investigation” cases in Jefferson County. There have been 17 deaths (up from 15) and 132 are hospitalized (up from 126). There are 41 known cases in Golden (unchanged since yesterday!).
Virtual Golden
Today’s Community Center Classes
9-10AM – Virtual Power Training
9-9:55AM – Virtual Low Impact
11-11:20AM – Virtual Fit Family Fun
The Golden History Museum will be posting a new lecture today–the second half of the lecture about Golden–the Stolen Capital. Watch this space!
The Railroad Museum and Foothills Art Center have also been generating videos to keep us educated and entertained. One of the Quilt Museum’s fans has posted a video about their current exhibit, The Boys are Back in Town.
Tuesday Preview:
12PM I’ll be giving part 3 of 4 in my Golden History lectures. This time I’ll cover the first half of the 20th century: “Transportation, Tourism, and Two World Wars.” You can catch up on the first two: Part 1 – The Gold Rush, and Part 2 – Growth and Civilization.
7PM Golden City Council Candidate Forum – register here
A Golden History Moment
For those of you who don’t read email over the weekend, on Saturday, I reported on Golden’s celebration at the end of World War II. On Sunday, I reported on the advertisements in World War II-era Colorado Transcripts.
We’ve heard a lot lately about the land swap between Martin Marietta and Jefferson County Open Space. While reading 1960s and ’70s Transcripts, I learned something about the origin of that mining operation.
Quarrying began at that site in 1965. At that time, the property was not part of the City of Golden, so was under the jurisdiction of Jefferson County. The land was zoned commercial, but the County gave them a five year permit to operate a quarry and rock crusher on the site. In 1970, the owners asked to be annexed into the City of Golden, with the understanding that they planned to develop the property for housing. Golden gave them a two-year variance to allow them to continue quarrying.
Local residents, environmental groups, the League of Women Voters, and the merchants at Heritage Square objected to the quarrying operation and did not want it to continue. One neighbor who did not object was the owner of the Old Heidelberg Inn, a restaurant that was perched on the hill between Heritage Square and the quarry. The owner of the restaurant was one of the partners in the extraction operation.
In 1972, the property owners asked for an extension to their variance, because they had a contract to provide rock to build Chatfield Dam. Golden’s Planning Commission asked the quarry owners for more details on their plan to build housing on the spot. The owners responded that they now wanted to keep quarrying for another ten years, and then they planned to build “low profile office type buildings compatible with the usage of the area and the setting.” They promised to create a Planned Unit Development with 20 acres of streets, 15-20 acres of backslopes, and 75-90 acres of undisturbed land. They said that as they completed each section of quarrying, they would reclaim the land, adding soil and landscaping. Golden granted permission for them to continue quarrying until 1984, by which time ten million yards of material would have been excavated.
What happened next? I don’t really know, because the online Transcripts only go through November of 1974, but clearly they didn’t turn the area into an office park!
Thanks to the Golden History Museum for providing the online cache of historic Transcripts, and many thanks to the Golden Transcript for documenting our history since 1866!
