Virtual Golden
8:30-9:30AM Golden Women in Business Book Club
Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals by Michael Hyatt
10:15-10:45AM Toddler Time with the Library
2:30PM Local Licensing Authority
(This appears on the meetings page but no agenda is posted, so it may not be happening.)
6:30PM Golden City Council Study Session
Fire Chief Welch will go over an assessment of the fire department’s performance and needs, and will discuss the feasibility of combining operations with Fairmount and Pleasant View Fire Districts.
The City Manager will present the latest draft of Council’s Strategic Action Plan. This document includes an interesting list of things that Council wants to accomplish, with some actions labeled “Top Priority” and some labeled “High Priority.”
Top Priority Items:
* Advance the Heart of Golden 2020 Project (remodeling the Creek front)
* Identity and Conduct a Review of Visitor Impacts
* Create and Adopt Plan to advance Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (JEDI) initiatives in Golden
* Review, develop and implement creek management protocols
* Review and analyze the need and purpose for establishment of a lodging tax
High Priority Items:
* Sustainability Goals-Renewable Energy
* Sustainability Goals-Energy Efficiency and Transportation
* Sustainability Goals-Water Conservation
* Develop Resources for Understanding Housing Affordability Needs
* Develop Resources for Understanding Living Affordability Needs
* Review Parks and Recreation Cost Recovery and Program Affordability
* Develop Intergovernmental Agreement with Colorado School of Mines to provide clarity and certainty to future development and campus operations
* Evaluate opportunities for strategic projects to build out broadband fiber ring
7-8PM Darren Rogers-Mountain Tops From Around the World
Free program from the Colorado Mountain Club
Real World Golden
4-10PM The Buffalo Rose has started offering a prime rib special on Tuesday nights. For $25, you get a 10 oz prime rib with gouda mashed potatoes, green beans, and a roll. The special is available until they run out!
Golden History Moment
Fossil Trace was not Golden’s first golf course. In 1930, a local group of golf enthusiasts decided to form a club, purchase land in or near Golden, and have a 9-hole golf course built. The membership would be limited to 100. Each member was to contribute a $25 initiation fee with annual dues to be determined later. Fifty men immediately indicated interest in joining.
Several sites were considered, including the land west of the Mines football field and a spot north of town near Golden Gate Canyon Road. They chose land at the base of Lookout Mountain, south of 19th Street.
Their timing was unfortunate: the Great Depression was bad at that time and getting worse. By the spring of 1931, the club realized they couldn’t recruit enough members and raise enough money, so they disbanded. However, three local businessmen decided to pursue the idea and built the course as a for-profit venture.
The course was popular during its first summer in business. It was rough: there was no irrigation system, so the “greens” were the natural brown of our native vegetation. The owners made improvements as time and finances allowed, but other, finer golf courses were being built in the metro area and the Golden Golf Course failed as a business.
In 1936, the 53 acre course was offered at a bankruptcy sale. There were no immediate takers. The Golden Junior Chamber of Commerce talked to the Works Progress Administration about working with them to fix up the course and make it a municipal asset. The WPA was a government program that provided federal funds to employ workers. Local governments had to provide all non-labor expenses. The Junior Chamber tried to persuade the City to buy the land, which could be had for $1,050. They continued to work on their proposal and negotiations for several months. In the meantime, Dr. Coolbaugh, the Mines President, said he would be interested in taking over the golf course.
Mines did acquire the land, in 1937, but they did not use it as a golf course. Instead, they built student housing on the site. The Junior Chamber continued their efforts to build a golf course with help from the WPA, hoping to use land south of the new student housing, but the project didn’t come together.
The dream of having a municipal golf course never died. Thirty years later, the July 15, 1965 Transcript cites a conversation at City Council. One councilor remarked that the City had spent a lot for youth recreation facilities, and wasn’t it time that we built a golf course? The City Manager replied that, as a rule, a city could support one golf hole for each 3,000 residents. With our population at the time, that would justify a 3-hole golf course. They went on to discuss the tremendous amount of water that golf courses require. The conversation closed with the comment that night clubs are also recreational, and they require very little water.
Forty-five years after that–in 2000–voters approved a bond issue to finance a golf course, water park, and second recreation center. The satellite rec center was never built, but Fossil Trace and The Splash were.
Many 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!
Coronavirus Update
Public Health References
CDC * Colorado * Jefferson County * City of Golden
Jefferson County is at Level Orange, “High Risk.”
The next case summary update will be posted this afternoon (after the holiday) on the health department site, and will appear in tomorrow morning’s What’s Happening email.
Mines COVID Testing | Jeffco Fairgrounds COVID Testing | School of Mines COVID-19 case page. | Stage 2 fire restrictions | Sign up for exposure notifications.
