What’s Happening in Golden Today?
10AM-noon Breakfast Burritos @ The Golden Mill
10AM-3PM Brunch at the Rose @ Buffalo Rose
10AM-5PM Opening Day – 2023 Members’ Show and Power of Process: A Jeffco Student Exhibition @ Foothills Art Center
10AM-3PM Saturday Train Rides @ The Railroad Museum
10:15AM Family Time @ Golden Library
11AM-2PM Pet Paw-ty Time @ The Eddy Taproom & Hotel
12-1PM 21 Days to a Healthier You @ Natural Grocers
7:30PM The Great American Trailer Park Musical Opens @ Miners Alley Playhouse
A friend attended last night’s performance and reported that the music was great and at times it was almost hard to hear because everyone was laughing so hard. Can’t wait to see it!
Live Music
11AM-2PM Jon Eric Farmer @ Buffalo Rose (Sky Bar Stage)
11AM-10:30PM UllrGrass Music Festival @ Parfet Park
12PM Derek Dames Ohl @ Tributary Food Hall
5-8PM Live Music @ Eddy Taproom
6-10PM Band of Brothers @ Dirty Dogs Roadhouse
7-10PM Bunny Blake @ Buffalo Rose (Sky Bar Stage)
7-10PM Jon Ham @ Morris & Mae
7PM An Intimate Evening with Dotsero @ Buffalo Rose (main venue)
Golden History Moment
Automobiles were just coming into wide use in 1915, and the newly-completed Lariat Loop Trail was an exciting new place to drive. Local business owners were feeling optimistic that the road would attract thousands of visitors to Colorado (and to Golden in particular!).
The January 28, 1915 Colorado Transcript included an article titled “Tourists Will Swarm Here Next Season.”
That Golden, the Williams Highway and the mountain park system will see a record breaking tourist travel next summer is the prediction made at the annual meeting of the Colorado Good Roads association, held in Denver last week.
The Good Roads association predicted that 100,000 “automobile tourists” would visit Colorado that year, and they were expected to spend $12,000,000.
Tourism was an emerging industry in the United States. Not many years earlier, an American who wanted to travel for leisure would have headed to Europe for the Grand Tour. The growth of railroads in the U.S., along with the new National Park System, gave Americans new and interesting places to visit. A nationwide tourism campaign appealed to patriotic pride by reminding Americans to “See America First.”
Automobiles brought a new level of freedom, so states and communities were eagerly building new roads and new attractions to entice tourists and their money. Golden resident “Cement Bill” Williams undertook the challenging task of building a road (the Lariat Loop) that would take automobilists to the summit of Lookout Mountain.
The Denver Mountain Parks system (formed in 1912) provided a wonderful new destination, and the Lariat Loop was a beautiful and amazingly convenient way to get there.
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!
