Skip to content

Search the site

Gems & Minerals, Junior Rangers, a Birthday Celebration, Films, Prom Dresses, and an 87 Year Old Temporary Museum

Golden Eye Candy – Frank Hanou – Life on the Creek – enlarge

What’s Happening in Golden Today?

10AM-noon Breakfast Burritos @ The Golden Mill
10AM-3PM Brunch at the Rose @ Buffalo Rose

10AM-5PM Colorado Environmental Film Festivalfilm descriptions
10AM-5PM DGMG Jewelry, Gem & Mineral Show @ Jefferson County Fairgrounds
11:30AM-2PM Winter Jr. Rangers @ Lookout Mountain Nature Center

Buffalo Bill Museum - Golden Colorado

10AM-5PM Free Admission to Celebrate Buffalo Bill’s Birthday @ the Buffalo Bill Museum & Gravesite
Free birthday cake and ice cream at noon!

And don’t forget tomorrow night’s event—The Culture of Celebrity: Buffalo Bill in England-Oscar Wilde in America—6:30PM Monday night at the American Mountaineering Center in Golden.

12-2PM Full Walking Tour @ Dinosaur Ridge
12-5PM Prom Swap @ Golden Library
2PM The Great American Trailer Park Musical @ Miners Alley Playhouse


Live Music

11AM-2PM Beats & Brunch with DJ Eva playing Today’s Hits @ Buffalo Rose (Sky Bar Stage)
2PM Conal Rosanbalm @ Dirty Dogs Roadhouse
2PM Pickup Band @ Over Yonder

4-7PM Derek Hall @ Buffalo Rose (Sky Bar Stage)

5-8PM Keith Hicks @ Golden Mill
8PM Karaoke @ Ace Hi Tavern


Celebrating Heart and Soul of Golden Month:
Golden History Museum

In 1936, the City of Golden celebrated its 77th anniversary. They held a parade and radio station KOA did a special broadcast airing tales of Golden history and featuring old-time fiddling.

The local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution had a unique, wonderful idea to help celebrate the anniversary. They went all over town, persuading people to get their pioneer-era possessions out of storage and put them on display in the windows of the downtown shops.

Site of the precursor to the Golden History Museum – enlarge

People showed off old photographs, ox yokes, 1860-era dresses, Civil War uniforms, a side saddle, an award made to the Golden Fire Department in 1879, a stage coach shotgun used on the Kansas City to Golden route in the 1860s, a brick made in Golden in the 1860s, a baby buggy used in Golden in the 1860s, and on, and on….

The display was so popular that the citizens collectively decided that we should have a permanent museum.

“The last time we moved I burnt up a lot of old photographs and things.” “I gave away a cartload of this junk to the Salvation Army.” “I just had to have the room so over the dump it went.” Such remarks as these heard on the street Friday convinces one that unless something is done to preserve these heirlooms from a grand and glorious past many valuable articles will be lost and gone forever.

With this in mind, the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution…is being urged to start a museum in Golden.
Colorado Transcript
– June 18, 1936

The work of soliciting artifacts and looking for a suitable (fireproof) home for a museum proceeded over the next year. At that point in the Depression, the Works Progress Administration was running full-force, and civic leaders were able to secure grant funding to get the museum up and running.

The museum was subject to availability of Federal funds, so staffing and open hours waxed and waned over the next few years. When World War II began, the museum closed for the duration. By the time the War ended, the WPA had faded away.

This is when the Daughters of the American Revolution stepped in again. They offered to re-open and operate the museum. They ran it for more than half a century—from 1953 until 2007—when the City took over museum operations.

It all started on Washington Avenue!


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!


Highlights