What’s Happening in Golden Today?
6-6:55AM HIIT (Virtual)
8:30-9:30AM Power Training (Virtual)
10-10:55AM Barre (Virtual)
10-11:30AM NREL – Virtual Public Campus Experience
10:15-10:45AM Toddler Time @ Golden Library
12-12:55PM All Levels Yoga (Virtual)
1-1:45PM Silver Sneakers Yoga (Virtual)
1-2PM The Friday Tour – Galloping Goose @ Colorado Railroad Museum
2-4PM Weedbusters @ DeLong Park
2PM Golden Author Charles Monlezon will sign copies of his book, Becoming Charlie, this afternoon at Bank of the West (map).
3PM Vaccine, License & Microchip Clinic @ Foothills Animal Shelter
6:30PM Fall Choir Concert @ Golden High School
7PM and 8PM The Talking Dead Haunted Pub Crawl
Live Music
5-8PM Human Kind @ Goosetown Station
6PM Blaze of Corey @ Dirty Dogs Roadhouse
6PM Good For Nothin’ Thunder Mountain Boys @ Over Yonder
6PM Live Music @ Wrigley’s
7-10PM Will Whalen @ Buffalo Rose (Sky Bar Stage)
9PM Karaoke @ Ace Hi Tavern
Golden History Moment
The third stop on this year’s Golden Cemetery tour, which focused on Famous Farmers and Ranchers in the Golden area, was a visit to Paul and Anna Lee White.
Paul White was born in 1891 and grew up on a farm in Arvada. When he was 21, his parents offered to give him 40 acres of irrigated land in Arvada and set him up as a farmer. He refused, saying he would rather ride a horse than walk behind one, plowing.
Instead, with financing from his older brother, he bought his first 880 acres in Golden Gate Canyon for $5000. In 1916 he married Anna Lee Davenport, who was six years younger. The two of them ran the ranch and raised four children. They raised their own food, were uninterested in engine-powered equipment (such as tractors), and put their money into buying adjacent parcels of land. By the time Paul died in 1969, they owned more than 3000 acres, including a uranium mine. The mine was sold to an energy company.
All four of their kids were ranchers, but none of them were interested in taking over their parents’ spread, so Anna Lee sold it to Jefferson County Open Space. Open Space couldn’t afford the fair market price, but Anna and her children wanted the ranch kept intact, so she sold it to Open Space for about $1 million less than it was worth, making the difference a gift from Anna Lee White to the people of Jefferson County, in memory of her husband, Paul White. It is now White Ranch Park.
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! Historically Jeffco – Summer 1990, published by the Jefferson County Historical Commission, provided a lot of great background information for this article.
