The legend of Pearl Street dates back to the late 1850s, after Boulder was established as a go-between for gold miners working in the mountains and supplies in the east.
Who claimed the land we now know as Boulder? From archaeological evidence as well as oral histories, we know that Indigenous people have lived in Boulder for more than 13,000 years. All told, some fifty modern tribes were in Colorado before white settlement. For hundreds of years, Ute territory and hunting grounds spanned all of […]
Cities
Nestled in a valley at the base of the Rocky Mountains, Boulder, Colorado, looks more like a national park than a city. Its compact, low-slung buildings follow trails and a walkable downtown from greenery to greenbelt, where its undeveloped plains evoke the Old West. Farther out still are the Ls sprawling suburbs like Lafayette, Louisville, and Longmont but in Boulder’s center, they feel a world away. The hip coffee shops and breweries along downtown’s Pearl Street are practically clichéd now, but Boulder’s dichotomies aging strip malls beside thriving offices for Google and Twitter, hiking stores blending into the Italianate campus of the University of Colorado–Boulder are striking.