13 Years Ago
On November 3, 2011, What's Happening in Golden? reported that the downtown merchants were celebrating First Friday. These monthly events began in about 2008 and lasted through 2019. To attract some of the Friday night restaurant traffic, the stores stayed open late. Free carriage rides added to the "date night" appeal.
On that particular night, the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum (which was located on Washington Avenue at that time) was holding an opening reception for their latest exhibit. The CSM Ski Team was hosting a film at the Mountaineering Center. ("Every admission ticket comes with a free lift ticket to Monarch Mountain, plus there will be a raffle at the end with fabulous prizes!")
For several years, the summer First Fridays expanded to include a street fair on Washington Avenue. These featured entertainment, music, local food vendors, carriage rides, and (of course) beer, which was sold by the Chamber as a fund-raiser. The street fairs were popular and well-attended, but the merchants found that visitors tended to stay in the street and not go into the stores. In 2017, they decided to discontinue street fairs and go back to the regular First Fridays.
During the COVID shut-down, some of the merchants who had been most enthusiastic about First Fridays decided to retire, so the tradition ended with the pandemic.
Thank you to Wendy Weiman for sponsoring Golden History Moments for the month of November.
