Events
Programs and Events
Did you miss any of our live programs?
Some recordings are available to the general public at no cost, while some are only available to members. Now is a great time to join, as we’re constantly releasing new and exclusive material. Call 303-278-3557 if you have any questions or if you want to join by phone. You can also reach us electronically.
What are we really arguing about? Environmentalism in the 21st Century
This is a virtual event. Register on eventbrite.
Climate change has emerged as the central environmental problem facing humanity in the 21st century. According to NASA, 97% of climate scientists agree that climate change is occurring. There are daily news items featuring truly stunning facts about hurricanes, melting glaciers, increased turbulence during trans-Atlantic flights, etc. Many Americans, however, remain unpersuaded or even infuriated by this barrage of bad news. This lecture uses philosophical tools to unpack the competing claims that surround environmental issues, and to provide new ways of looking at the arguments that continue to pit us against each other.
About the presenter: Sandy Woodson
Sandy Woodson
Sandy Woodson teaches ethics and environmental philosophy at the Colorado School of Mines. She holds degrees from North Carolina State University, Colorado State University, and the University of Montana. She has been teaching at Mines since 1999.
Pricing
Free for members; $10 plus online registration fee for non-members
Membership
Membership pays for itself with just a few programs for your family. Join us.
More Golden history
Check out the Golden History Museum & Park blog for the latest behind the scenes videos and stories, personal memoirs, and history tidbits about Golden.
Colorado Water and the American West
“Golden, Colorado, and Entrance to Clear Creek Canon [sic], from Castle Rock Mountain Scenic Incline Railway. Denver Mountain Parks.”
This is a virtual event. Register on eventbrite.
Please join us for a discussion dedicated to Colorado’s most precious resource: water. Matthew S. Makley, Professor of History at MSU Denver, will offer a lecture and conversation about the history of water in Colorado and the American West. This sweeping exploration begins with a look at how First Peoples used water on the Colorado Plateau and concludes with a brief examination of how Denver has developed its water infrastructure. This session will offer participants a basic understanding of Colorado water law, along with a few quick case studies, including the story of the Civil War veteran Rueben Coffin and his battle with the Lefthand Ditch Company for water rights in the late 1800s. If you have ever been curious about water in Colorado, this lecture will help quench your thirst.
About the presenter: Matthew S. Makley
Matthew S. Makley, PhD, is a Professor of History at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He is the author of two books. His most recent, The Small Shall be Strong: A History of Lake Tahoe’s Washoe Indians (2018), won an American Library Association’s award for “Outstanding Academic Title.” Born and raised at Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Makley has lived in Golden since 2007. While his heart is in the canyons and valleys of the Sierra Nevada, he has come to call Colorado and the Rockies home.
Pricing
Free for members; $10 plus online registration fee for non-members
Membership
Membership pays for itself with just a few programs for your family. Join us.
More Golden history
Check out the Golden History Museum & Park blog for the latest behind the scenes videos and stories, personal memoirs, and history tidbits about Golden.
Excess to Extremism: How Colorado’s National Guard Spoiled Denver’s Kitchens 1903-1917
This is a virtual event. Register on eventbrite.
In the wake of violent labor disputes in Colorado’s two-year Coalfield War (1903-4) and a final climactic attack on miners and their families at Ludlow (1914), actions by Colorado’s national guard led to a domestic rebellion in the homes of Denver’s elitist Capitol Hill women. Leading the charge was a young woman and single mother named Jane Street who resolved to change the status quo. Unfortunately, antics within the National Guard dogged Street even as the housemaid rebellion made local and national news. Join author and presenter Jane Little Botkin to uncover the hidden stories behind the 1903-1917 domestic rebellion.
About the presenter: Jane Little Botkin
Jane Little Botkin turned to historical investigation and writing upon her teacher retirement. Now she melds personal narratives of American families with compelling stories of labor radicals, miners, lawmen, and outlaws in settings rich with a history that transitions into the New West. Though a Texas native, her family’s roots are entwined around Colorado’s mining camps, including the Central City-Black Hawk mining district and Louisville. She is the author of Frank Little and the IWW: The Blood That Stained an American Family, which won five awards, including two Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America and the Caroline Bancroft History Prize. Jane’s newest release, The Girl Who Dared to Defy: Jane Street and Denver’s Rebel Maids, is about a young woman who attempts to orchestrate a domestic mutiny against Denver’s elitist Capitol Hill women. Jane’s own grandmother was such a servant in Boulder in 1916.
Pricing
Free for members; $10 plus online registration fee for non-members
Membership
Membership pays for itself with just a few programs for your family. Join us.
More Golden history
Check out the Golden History Museum & Park blog for the latest behind the scenes videos and stories, personal memoirs, and history tidbits about Golden.
Buffalo Bill: How his Tumultuous Past turned into Box-office Gold
This is a virtual event. Register on eventbrite.
Buffalo Bill has gone down in history as one of the greatest showmen who ever lived. However, before Bill Cody was famous (and even afterwards), he had a few of his own demons to put to rest. Led by returning presenter and historian, Randi Samuelson-Brown, this talk will focus on Buffalo Bill’s earlier years as the west opened, his enduring support of social justice and his later years when a rather tumultuous past turned into box-office gold, despite a rather precarious business sense. He can probably thank his wife for that last part.
Randi Samuelson-Brown is a native of Colorado, originally from Golden. Her ancestors came to the state in the 1880s/1890s, a fact she is proud of. She is the author of The Beaten Territory, an award-nominated historical fiction set in a vice-riddled Denver and Leadville during the 1890s. She lives in Denver, CO.
Pricing
Free for members; $10 plus online registration fee for non-members
Membership
Membership pays for itself with just a few programs for your family. Join us.
More Golden history
Check out the Golden History Museum & Park blog for the latest behind the scenes videos and stories, personal memoirs, and history tidbits about Golden.
The Coors Beer Boycott: How a Hometown Industry Met Modern Activism
This is a virtual event. Register on eventbrite.
The Coors family ran their business according to Joe Coors’ beliefs about what his workforce should be and how they should behave. He was anti-union, pro-white male labor and was unbending in his desire to control his workers. In the 1960s this began to bump up against civil rights movements, causing increasing tension that led to a multi-decade boycott of Coors products. Come hear Dr. Rebecca Hunt tell the story of this challenging era in the history of Coors brewing.
Dr. Rebecca A. Hunt is a retired Associate Professor C/T in history at the University of Colorado Denver. She taught gender, immigration and American Western history as well as museum studies. Rebecca’s books include A Century of Healing: Swedish Medical Center (2005) and Wyoming Medical Center: A Centennial History (2011). Natrona County: People, Place and Time (2011) and Casper Chronicles II (2016). Rebecca was the historian for A Woman to Match a Mountain (2008) a documentary on Neal Forsling, Casper, Wyoming homesteader, artist and writer. Her current projects are Urban Pioneers: Continuity and Change in Two Denver Immigrant Neighborhoods and Snow Stories: Skiing in Central Wyoming.
Pricing
Free for members; $10 plus online registration fee for non-members
Membership
Membership pays for itself with just a few programs for your family. Join us.
More Golden history
Check out the Golden History Museum & Park blog for the latest behind the scenes videos and stories, personal memoirs, and history tidbits about Golden.
Colorado School of Mines, The Early Years
This is a virtual event. Register on eventbrite.
The Colorado School of Mines has been part of the fabric of Golden since its earliest days, becoming a territorial institution in 1874 and a Colorado State institution when Colorado was granted statehood in 1876. Join presenter Lee Katherine Goldstein to learn about the early days of this historic institute of higher learning.
Lee Katherine Goldstein is the Chair of the Jefferson County Historical Commission (2019-2021). She is an attorney who lives in Lakewood and enjoys researching and sharing the stories that tell the fascinating history of Jefferson County.
Pricing
Free for members; $10 plus online registration fee for non-members
Membership
Membership pays for itself with just a few programs for your family. Join us.
More Golden history
Check out the Golden History Museum & Park blog for the latest behind the scenes videos and stories, personal memoirs, and history tidbits about Golden.
Golden Cemetery Tour 2021
Register now on eventbrite
Visit the graves of legendary Golden characters. Hear stories about their lives from famous storyteller, Dennis Potter, Museum volunteer since 2008 and retired Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department Captain. Read Dennis’s profile.
Tours begin and end at the Golden Cemetery. This program sells out every year, so get your tickets early. This is a rain-or-shine event; weather will not force a cancellation.
You will select your tour time on the Eventbrite page.
Two tours are available:
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10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
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12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Registration is required. Program will be canceled if minimum attendance number is not reached 24 hours prior to start time.
Register on eventbrite.
Pricing
$0 members; $10 non-members, plus online registration fee
Membership pays for itself with just a few programs for your family. Join us.
About Golden Cemetery
The City of Golden owns and operates the Golden Cemetery. Among the historic notables buried here is George West. West, a Golden founder, started the Colorado Transcript newspaper in 1866.
Additionally, Seth Lake, builder of Astor House in 1867, is buried in the Golden Cemetery. Many other pioneers and characters of the early west are at rest here.
Membership
Membership pays for itself with just a few programs for your family. Join us.
Seesaw: How November ’42 Shaped the Future
This is a virtual event. Register on eventbrite.
By late 1942 the world had been fighting for years, with no end in sight. The five weeks from late October to early December saw campaigns, battles and developments which decisively turned the war to the Allies’ favor. Author and returning presenter, Stan Moore takes a fresh look at the personalities and events that led up to this critical period. He then examines five campaigns around the world through the month of November. Moore also discusses how the campaigns and events are inter-related in new and interesting ways. His sources are interviews, oral histories and previously unavailable diaries, photos, and letters.
About the presenter: Stan Moore
Stan Moore is a husband, father, and grandfather; a third generation Coloradan; a graduate of the University of Colorado; an author and historian; a Vietnam veteran; a retired small business owner; an amateur blacksmith, and an avid mountaineer, backpacker and desert rat. Moore and his wife make their home near Denver with a cat that lets them stay there. More information can be found at stanmoorewriter.com.
Pricing
Free for members; $10 plus online registration fee for non-members
Membership
Membership pays for itself with just a few programs for your family. Join us.
More Golden history
Check out the Golden History Museum & Park blog for the latest behind the scenes videos and stories, personal memoirs, and history tidbits about Golden.
How to register
Click the green ticket button in the upper left of each event to buy tickets online. 
Click “read more” in the lower right of each event for details. 
Event and Program Ticketing Policies at Golden History Museum & Park
(updated 11-20-18).
Please note: Tickets will only be available at the door if the program reaches its preregistration minimum.
Weather: All events are rain or shine. Tickets will not be refunded for any inclement weather including but not limited to snow, wind, rain or extreme temperatures.
Cancellation: GHM&P reserves the right to cancel a program for any reason. A full refund will occur automatically and notification sent if GHM&P cancels a program for any reason.
Refunds: Participants will not receive a refund except in the event that GHM&P cancels the program.
Facilities: Restrooms are not available on-site at the Golden History Park or Golden Cemetery. If at the Golden History Park, participants may use public restrooms located on 12th Street. Please call ahead to ask about accessibility concerns and mobility recommendations.
Additional details: Please note the minimum age requirements of some of our programs. Excessive disruptive behavior and any safety risks may result in a participant being asked to leave a program at the instructor’s discretion. Pets are not permitted at programs; service animals are permitted.
To purchase tickets, cancel your registration, or learn more about our events and ticketing policy, please call the Golden History Museum front desk during business hours at 303-278-3557.