Virtual Golden
9AM Public Art Commission
The Public Art Commission plans to hire a consultant to help them produce a Public Art Master Plan. They will also discuss an opportunity to add more downtown murals, in partnership with Foothills Art Center.
10AM Mid-Morning Meditation
10:15AM Preschool Time
2PM, 3PM, 4PM Jeffco Free Legal Clinic provided by the Library
Talk to a lawyer about your legal concerns. You must register for a time: 2PM, 3PM, or 4PM.
3-5PM Hard Times Writing Workshop
6PM Qs andBrews Trivia
7PM Parks, Recreation and Museum Advisory Board
The PRAM board will discuss their work plan for the year. It lists several items, including creation of an Open Space Master Plan, identifying ways to make Parfet Park more resilient as it is used for so many public events, deciding what to do with the Lubahn Trail, developing DeLong Park, providing input on the Heart of Golden project as it relates to the Clear Creek Master Plan, and track creek usage during peak tubing season.
Upcoming Art Class
This Saturday, Foothills Art Center is hosting a one day pastel workshop with Jane Christie.
Golden History Moment
A Ton of Bricks
By Guest Historian Donna Anderson
A ton of bricks comes from about a ton of brick-clay, without which bricks would not exist. Humble brick-clay has been used for the last 10,000 years to build homes, monuments, and other remarkable buildings. Beginning 6000 years ago, it has been used to make water and, yes, sewer pipe, i.e., plumbing, essential for public health and welfare. Brick-clay contains iron and magnesium mixed with aluminum, making it fire at lower temperatures than aluminum-rich fire-clay; hence its use for brick and pipe-making.
Golden was a center of brick-clay mining from the 1860s to 2001. Golden brick-clay mines, such as the Rubey, Rockwell and Apex mines, were the domain of the Parfet family beginning in 1877. Initially mined like coal using underground tunnels, brick-clay mining turned to exclusively surface quarrying after World War II. Several of Golden’s mined-out quarries first became garbage dumps, followed by parking lots, Jeffco County buildings, athletic fields (Rooney Road Athletic Complex and the Mines intramural fields), a mobile home park, and Fossil Trace Golf Course. One former quarry is buried under the interchange of I-70 and C-470. Brick-clay mining is active today at the North Chieftain Mine on the southwest side of Green Mountain, north of Alameda Parkway.
Why so much brick-clay in and around Golden? Like Golden’s black diamonds (coal), brick-clay occurs in the Laramie Formation, a rock unit that trends north-south across the west side of Golden. The Laramie also contains amazing dinosaur tracks and palm-tree imprints visible today along the Weimer Geology Trail at Colorado School of Mines and Triceratops Trail west of Fossil Trace Golf Course. These features occur together because of how Laramie sediments were deposited: across an extensive delta plain, somewhat like that of today’s Mississippi River around New Orleans. Swamps with decaying vegetation like palm trees eventually formed coal, and shallow lakes with less vegetation became filled with clay during flood times. Dinosaurs and primitive mammals walked around on the soft, clayey ground among the lakes and swamps, leaving behind footprints.
Around 66 million years ago the rocks in the Laramie Formation were tilted up to vertical, eroded, and then buried for over 30 million years. About 2 million years ago ancestral Clear Creek and its tributaries, like Kinney Run Gulch, began carving out today’s landscape, re-exposing the Laramie Formation. Euro-Americans settling Golden in 1859 saw the coal and clay in the Laramie Formation as resources and began mining operations in the early 1860s. The rest is modern history.
All this for a ton of bricks.
Guest Columnist Donna Anderson and Paul Haseman are writing a book called “Golden Rocks!” about the geology and mining history of Golden, to be completed in early 2021 (delayed due to COVID!).
Coronavirus Update
Public Health References
CDC * Colorado * Jefferson County * City of Golden
Jefferson County is at Level Orange, “High Risk.” Here’s the most recent Coronavirus report from Jeffco Public Health’s Case Summary Page:
Cases in Jeffco – Tues: 30,701 | Weds: 30,928 (+227)
Deaths in Jeffco – Tues: 658 | Weds: 660 (+2)
Currently Hospitalized in Jeffco – Tues: 81 | Weds: 74 (-7)
Known Cases in Golden – Mon: 1127 *
Recovered – Tues: 27,883 | Weds: 28,418 (+535)
* Golden cases are updated on Monday and Thursday. The other stats are updated Monday through Friday.
Mines COVID Testing | Jeffco Fairgrounds COVID Testing | School of Mines COVID-19 case page. | Stage 1 fire restrictions | Sign up for exposure notifications.
