Events

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 genealogist Carol Darrow as she presents all of the basics to get started. She will review Ancestry, Family Search and other helpful tools. You’re welcome to bring your laptop or just a pencil and paper. Carol will help you get started on your family search.

About the presenter: Carol Cooke Darrow

Carol Cooke Darrow has been a professional genealogist for more than 20 years. She served as president of the Colorado Genealogical Society from 2008-2021. In 2007, she published The Genealogist’s Guide to Researching Tax Records. She currently teaches genealogy classes through Zoom at OLLI@DU, the College Hill Library in Westminster, and beginning genealogy classes on Zoom on the second Saturday of each month from 10 AM – noon. She also facilitates the WriteNOW family history writing group, currently meeting on Zoom on the second Sunday of each month from 1:30 PM – 3:30 PM MST. Carol graduated from the University of Texas with a dual major in English and history.  

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.

Lost Ski Areas of Colorado

Hybrid virtual and in-person event. Register on eventbrite.

Coauthors Peter and Caryn Boddie share the story beneath the story of Colorado skiing through tales and historic photos. It’s a fun and informative talk on over 130 lost areas and hills in our state and the people who created and skied them. The Boddies’ books, Lost Ski Areas of Colorado’s Front Range and Northern Mountains and Lost Ski Areas of Colorado’s Central and Southern Mountains, will be available for purchase and signing after the talk. Those who attend virtually may purchase books on the authors’ website and receive signed copies.

The Golden History Museum currently has a Colorado ski area painting on display.

About the presenters: Peter Boddie and Caryn Boddie

Peter Boddie is a local hydrologist and natural scientist. He was the geographer of the team, located the lost hills and areas, and provided GPS coordinates for the books. Also, Peter’s skills as an extrovert led the team down many trails to people with knowledge of the lost areas.

Caryn Boddie is a professional author and journalist with six books, numerous articles, and various other communications to her credit. She was the researcher, writer and editor of the team, located photos and got permission to use them, and blogs on the platform for the lost ski areas books at lostskiareasofcolorado.com.

The couple also wrote statewide hiking guides and live in South 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.

The Ute Indians in Colorado

In-person event with refreshments. Register on eventbrite.

photo credit: Montrose Press

The Golden History Museum and the Colorado Women’s Day conference (March 9-11, 2022) have teamed up to present a most fascinating talk from one of Colorado’s most interesting women: Native American historian and author CJ Brafford. She will give a special presentation on the Ute Indians on Wednesday, March 9, at 6:30 pm at the Golden History Museum. Refreshments will be provided. 

Space is very limited for Brafford’s talk, so don’t wait to get tickets. For more Colorado Women’s Day events, visit: ColoradoWomensDay.org.

About the presenter: CJ Brafford

Brafford, who comes from the Lakota Oglala Sioux Indian tribe, is the director of the Ute Indian Museum in Montrose, Colorado. Her participation in honoring the legacy of the American Indian is long. She was one of the special participants in the Native Nations Procession leading up to the opening ceremony of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C. in 2004.

She wore her buckskin dress with a bone-breast plate, fully beaded moccasins and leggings as part of her outfit. More recently she was presented the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Public Service. In the same year, the Ute Indian Museum itself was also honored during Colorado Preservation Inc.’s Dana Crawford Awards dinner. The museum operates under the auspices of History Colorado. It reopened in 2017 after a $3.3 million expansion.

Pricing

free for members; $5 for Colorado Women’s Day event ticket holders; $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.

A Walk Through Time on South Table Mountain: The Paleontology, History, and Fight Against a 75-Year Quarry

In-person event. Register on eventbrite.

Attorney Carl F. Eiberger Jr. was instrumental in protecting and preserving South Table Mountain, the “Gateway to the Rockies.” He provided over 24 years (10,000 hours) of free legal work to preserve STM from becoming a 75-year quarry (1975-2050). Carl’s Point on the northeast corner is named in honor of his work. Carl was the leader of “The Coalition to Preserve South Table Mountain,” which consisted of Golden neighbors and citizens. Together they used their expertise to fight for and preserve this historic landmark. South Table Mountain holds much significance in its history, paleontology, and geology. Take a walk through time and learn about the past 62 million years to the present day.

Carl F. Eiberger Jr. and South Table Mountain, Golden, Colorado.

About the presenter: Mary Elizabeth Eiberger

Mary Elizabeth Eiberger is Carl Eiberger’s daughter, and she is from Golden, Colorado. Mary Elizabeth inherited 17 boxes of legal work and documents about her father’s and the “Coalition of Citizens” work to preserve South Table Mountain from becoming a 75-year quarry. Mary Elizabeth has taught science, math, and outdoor education in high school. She now loves to tutor not only math and science but English and history. Mary Elizabeth is the quintessential Colorado girl, spending much of her time in the mountains and rivers of the state. Her husband, Tito Salas, runs Fiske Planetarium in Boulder, and they love to take trips with their two dogs, Lucky and Shadow, to the mountains, especially in the summer, to hike and mountain bike.

For more information, visit www.carleiberger.com or www.mary4tutor.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.

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.

Golden: Then & Now

Hybrid virtual and in-person event. Register on eventbrite.

This is a rescheduled event from January 2021.

“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.

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 second annual Autumn Fest to celebrate all of the things that make Golden a bright and shining community.

Rush down to 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 and Low-Cost 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
• Westernaires pony rides ($3 per ride)

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
• Golden Library
• Foothills Art Center
• Golden Street, Police, and Fire Departments
• Golden Public Art Commission
• Lane Academy of Martial Arts

Sponsors

Autumn Fest Gallery

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.