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.
Homestead for the Holidays 2021
photo: Andrew Terrill
Homestead for the Holidays helps you experience the winter season just like the pioneers did. This family-friendly event will have you strolling through the Golden History Park, taking in the colorful lights and decorations, making a craft that you get to take home, and basking in the season. It’s time to go homestead for the holidays!
Our valued volunteers make this event possible and will serve as interpreters within the historic structures to answer questions and guide your experience.
Advance registration via eventbrite is required.
Event highlights
- woodstove cooking and authentic blacksmithing
- hands-on crafting (including a tin ornament you’ll take home)
- drawing silhouette portraits of your friends and family
- learning fun historic dances
- do-it-yourself “photo booth”
- the Mizel Museum will be presenting their program ‘4,000 Year Road Trip: Gathering Sparks’ and will highlight the Jewish pioneer experience in Colorado and their winter traditions
- and more!
Details and pricing
Member adult: $5
Member child: FREE
Non-member adult: $10
Non-member child: $5
Children ages 4 years old and younger: FREE
All event revenue goes to the Golden History Museum & Park. We appreciate your support!
Membership
Membership pays for itself with just a few programs for your family. Join us.
Golden History Park
Golden History Park (formerly Clear Creek History Park) is home to many of the original buildings from the Pearce Ranch in Golden Gate Canyon. Thomas and Henrietta Pearce raised eight children on their ranch. It was one of the largest in the area by 1912.
Stroll around and imagine yourself growing potatoes or raising chickens as part of a homesteading family. Peek through the windows of real 1800s cabins and see other buildings from the ranch like the barn, chicken coop and two-seat outhouse.
You’ll also see the 1876 Guy Hill schoolhouse at the park. It was moved to Golden in 1976.
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: Then & Now
In-person event. Register on eventbrite.
“Then,” for the most part, is the last quarter of the 19th Century; “now” is the first half of 2021. While perusing historical photos of Golden online, Stuart Sipkin came across a collection of photos that were mostly taken during the last quarter of the 19th Century. The variety and number of photos were perfect for a project he had been thinking about for a while – trying to recreate historical photos as precisely as possible in the modern day. Given the changes in the urban landscape, finding the exact location that the original photographer stood to take each photo was sometimes easy, but sometimes quite challenging. Join us at the museum to learn how Stuart used modern mapping and Geographic Information Systems to determine some of these locations and see the finished images of Golden’s changing landscape.
About the presenter: Stuart Sipkin
After working for the U.S. Geological Survey as a Research Geophysicist for 30+ years, Stuart retired to pursue a second career in photography. For the last dozen years, he has worked as a freelance photojournalist representing several European news agencies. While many of his photos have been licensed for use in print and online publications around the world, his likely most viewed photo appeared in Hillary Clinton’s book “What Happened.” Since the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic, he has been scaling back professional activities to devote more time to personal projects.
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.
Getting Started – Tracing Your Family Tree
In-person event. Register on eventbrite.
Overwhelmed by all of the tools that are available to do genealogy research? Can’t get your brain wrapped around how to get started and wish someone would explain the basics and help? Join genealogy research enthusiast Lora Knowlton as she presents all of the basics to get started. She will review Ancestry, Family Search and other helpful tools. Bring your laptop and be prepared to start your family tree. If you don’t have a laptop, no worries! Lora will still help you get started.
About the presenter: Lora Knowlton
Lora Knowlton is owner of Current Events LLC, an event management business specializing in outdoor festivals and events. She’s also the Programs & Events Manager for the Golden Chamber of Commerce. Lora’s mom caught the genealogy bug when Lora was in high school and ever since, Lora has heard all of the many stories about their family members. About 5 years ago, Lora caught the bug – and now spends whatever time in between events looking for long lost ancestors for family and friends. During COVID, she completed the Boston University’s Genealogical Principles online course. Lora is a founding member of the Columbine Memorial Foundation, is the chair of the Meetings Industry Council and serves on the board of directors for her radio-controlled airplane club – the Jefco Aeromod’lers RC Club at Chatfield State Park.
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.
Cannon Ball Creek, Coors, and Kayaks: A History of Water in Golden, Colorado
“Golden, Colorado, and Entrance to Clear Creek Canon [sic], from Castle Rock Mountain Scenic Incline Railway. Denver Mountain Parks.”
In-person event. Register on eventbrite.
Even people from Tonapah, Nevada know that Golden, Colorado is home to Coors Brewery, and that Coors is so good because it is brewed with “Rocky Mountain water.” In the American popular mind Golden is linked to fresh, clean water. Our job, over the course of an evening together, will be to try and trace the history of water in Golden from the earliest days of native use to Euro-American trapping, irrigation farming, and eventually the creation of a kayak park and tubers’ paradise. The conversation will be set against the larger backdrop of the present drought in the American West that underscores the importance of Clear Creek and fresh water for the future of Golden.
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.
Golden – Colorado’s Territorial Capital
In-person event. Register on eventbrite.
Join returning presenter Randi Samuelson-Brown to uncover the stories of the Golden of yesteryear when the west was wild and the population was scarce. We examine some of the famous/infamous that passed through the town with an eye toward the off-kilter inhabitants.
About the presenter: Randi Samuelson-Brown
Randi Samuelson-Brown is the author of The Beaten Territory (Colorado Historical Fiction) and The Bad Old Days of Colorado: Untold Stories of the Wild West (finalist of the Colorado Book Awards 2021 – History). Originally from Golden, Colorado, Randi has always been passionately interested in Colorado history. A C-SPAN author, she now lives in Denver. One of the best parts about publishing books for her is sharing Colorado’s little-known history and speaking at museums, libraries, and book clubs.
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.
Isabella Bird’s Visit to Colorado
In-person event with costumed interpretation. Register on eventbrite.
Isabella Bird was a traveler and a writer with a wonderful ability to describe her surroundings in great detail so that one feels as if they were there. Come hear about Isabella’s lively adventures on her first trip to Estes Park in 1873 and of her arduous climb of Longs Peak (she was the third woman ever to climb Longs Peak) as well as of her romance with the rogue, Rocky Mountain Jim. She was dazzled by the Rocky Mountains and enthralled by the “blue hollow at the foot of Longs Peak” – Estes Park – which is written about in her book, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains.
Costumed Interpretation
About the presenter: Linda Batlin
Linda Batlin is a storyteller and author from Boulder, Colorado where she has lived for over half of her life. She enjoys sharing her love of the mountains and of Colorado with audiences. She tells stories filled with wisdom and mirth for all ages in schools, libraries, festivals, museums, senior centers, campfires and other events. Her entertaining and educational living history presentations of important women characters from Colorado history such as Isabella Bird bring them to life and are often requested. Her repertoire is also filled with multicultural folktales from around the world such as nature stories, Asian stories, animal stories, ghost stories, Jewish folktales, puppets, etc. She is a member of the National Storytelling Network.
Pricing
$5 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.
Autumn Fest 2022
Ever wonder what makes Golden so special? Well, it’s you of course! At Golden History Museum & Park, we feel grateful to have such a wonderful community to serve. Come join us at our first Autumn Fest to celebrate all of the things that make Golden a bright and shining community.
Rush down to the Golden History Museum (923 10th St.) from 10-3 for a packed afternoon of fun, proudly sponsored by:
Golden Downtown Development Authority
Golden Kids Dental and Orthodontics
Free Family Activities
- incredible chalk art
- hourly puppet shows (plus hands-on stations to make your own show)
- 4-H petting zoo
- craft stations
- BIG TRUCKS (Streets, Fire, and Police Departments)
- costumed Civil War interpretation
- karate demonstration
- hands-on paper-making station
Other Fun
- Westernaires pony rides ($3 per ride)
- CODA Brewing Company beer garden
The best part? It’s fun for the whole family and a great way to welcome the fall season. Now that is just pure gold.
Partners
- Colorado Volunteer Infantry Group
- Westernaires
- 4-H
- GoFarm
- Mines Museum of Earth Science
- Coda Brewing Company
- Golden Library
- Foothills Art Center
- Golden Street, Police, and Fire Departments
- Public Art Commission
- Lane Academy of Martial Arts
Sponsors
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Location and Pricing
Golden History Museum and Golden History Park
Free
Registration
Unlike most GHM&P programs, there is no registration for Autumn Fest.
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.