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— BACKGROUND — Gwen Kelly, a 3rd generation Coloradoan, wanted to share OUR CLUB HAS SPONSORED EVENTS the state’s rich history and heritage with others. Toward this FEATURING WELL-KNOWN EXPERTS end she organized the founding of The Colorado Heritage Club WHO EXPLORE OUR HERITAGE. SOME OF THEIR in January 2011 and has led it ever since. Over the first year PRESENTATIONS ARE SUMMARIZED HERE. the club produced events featuring professional speakers and entertainers open to all interested Anthem Ranchers. By popular demand these evening events soon became the main focus. Low price tickets ($1—$3) were sold to cover costs. High quality videos were often shown at “matinees” (free). Local town museums, libraries, and historical societies were valuable resources. An extensive club website was created, THE PAST, BOTH RECENT AND DISTANT, with active links to these information sources — accessible via OF ANTHEM RANCH & OUR NEIGHBORHOOD the club web page. In April of 2012 The Colorado History Center reopened in Denver and it also became a valuable COLORADO DINOSAURS ! resource, http://historycoloradocenter.org/ . WITH DR. MARTIN LOCKLEY Recently many new residents have requested information M, DEC 10, 2012 - 7 MP about the origins of towns surrounding Anthem Ranch. Of the 66 programs, 2011-2017, Gwen and Joe Kelly have provided Dr. Martin Lockley, a world-renowned expert in geology, summaries here of those that were specifically about paleontology, and evolution, took us far back in time to when neighboring towns. It is hoped this will bring back pleasant Anthem Ranch was under a huge inland sea and the Front memories for those who attended and interesting information for Range had a beach. The dinosaurs walked along this beach residents who are new. for ages, leaving their tracks and bones. He explained the intense 19th century rivalry of —TABLE OF CONTENTS— PAGE museum directors leading to a dinosaur bone Distant Past …………………………………….. 1 “gold rush” & “bone wars.” Dr. Lockley has been instrumental in the Introduction …………………………………….... 2 — 3 creation of the Morrison Natural–History Museum Anthem Ranch (Distant Past to Present) …….. 4 — 7 and the dinosaurs tracks unit of the University of Louisville ……………………………………..….. 8 — 9 Colorado Natural History Museum. Lafayette ……………………………………..….. 10 - 11 VISIT A MUSEUM AND/OR WATCH A VIDEO Erie ……………………………………………..... 12 -13 http://www.mnhm.org/246/Morrison-Natural-History-Museum Historic Marker …………………………….……. 14 http://www.colorado.edu/cumuseum/ ONLINE VIDEO — https://vimeo.com/143654356 - 2- — LEARNING MORE ABOUT WHERE WE LIVE — ANTHEM RANCH’S PAST By Kirk Oglesby, Code Compliance Manager, City and County of Broomfield (Originally presented at Anthem Ranch during a visit with the mayor around 2013.) You are not the first persons here on the western edge of the Great Plains. At least 7,000 years ago ancient hunters strolled the high rolling grasslands of Anthem Ranch and scouted locations of the massive herds of bison and antelope. The prehistoric butchering site along Rock Creek down in the valley has items dating to the early APPROXIMATE PATH OF THE Archaic Period 5500 – 3000 BC. These ancient hunters too were COAL SEAM renewed by the majesty of the Front Range in the morning sun. In later times, Spanish armies explored the Great Plains intending to conquer and colonize the land, but never quite made it up to Anthem Ranch. Although they conquered the peoples of Central and South America the Spanish could not extend their rule northward from While Lafayette and Louisville were both initially settled Taos through the Apache and Comanche territory. The lands north of by farmers, once coal was discovered they quickly became the Arkansas River up to Anthem Ranch were primarily Arapaho. The coal mining towns. In these towns the coal miners owned neighboring Ute tribes did not venture out very far onto the plains from their homes and lived lives independent from the mines the mountains. where they worked. Erie, however, became a company Eventually, after the Indian lands were taken following the Civil town. War, the area was flooded with farmers who broke the prairie sod and planted crops. After an 1880’s drought the families in the area banded Erie was also different in that it was isolated from together and dug ditches to carry water from the mountain streams in Lafayette and Louisville. As the mines grew and railroads the foothills onto their farms in the area. The Community Ditch running through Anthem Highlands is a remnant of these historic ditches and arrived Erie became oriented toward Denver, Boulder, and is still active today. The ditch can be seen crossing Sheridan Blvd east Longmont. of Sienna Reservoir lying east of Lowell Blvd. Following the drought and the dust bowl of the 1930’s, farmers along the northern Front The line on the map above shows approximately where Range created the Northern Colorado Conservancy District and a the band of coal deposits were. Broomfield is outside this tunnel was dug underneath Rocky Mountain National Park to bring strip so it was never a coal town. water from the western slope to fill the irrigation canals of the farmers with more water. This extensive system of snowmelt diversion and In the years gone by The Colorado Heritage Club storage is known as the Colorado-Big Thompson Project. The water hosted speakers who covered the history/heritage of from Big Thompson and Windy Gap water rights owned by Broomfield Lafayette, Erie, and Broomfield as well as other is delivered to us by the conservancy district through a pipeline from Carter Lake to our water treatment plant lying to the east of Holy neighboring towns. These earlier presentations are Family High School. summarized in this booklet as is our presentation on Coal mining fueled the economy of Lafayette and Erie into the Louisville. Kirk Oglesby shares the history of the very land 1900’s, but coal mines were not a part of what is now Anthem Ranch. on which Anthem Ranch is built. Remains of a shaft from the old Blue Ribbon mine can be found on the northern portion of the Anthem Ranch open space just west of the - 3- - 4- Post Script from Kirk Oglesby Boulder County line. This was a small mine from 1933 next to the Both coal and dinosaur bones are often related to areas with oil and older Baker and Vaughn mines to the northwest. Some coal can gas. Coal is found along the western edge of the area near Louisville still be seen on the surface near the former opening of the shaft. and dinosaur bones are found throughout the Front Range where Annexation “wars” started in the 1980’s when cities around rock formations outcrop that contain fossils from dinosaurs and Anthem decided their financial health required expansion for future plants. A casting of a rock uncovered in Interlocken during commercial sales tax revenue. The natural drainage basins construction of an office building contains a large palm frond with determined boundaries for sanitary sewer service to the new dinosaur tracks and can be found in the lobby of the Broomfield development which would soon come to the area. The gravity flow library. sewer services ended up defining the eventual boundaries of these th Actually the exploration for oil and gas in the area was just beginning cities. Westminster stopped its northward expansion at W 150 in earnest in 1965. My dad was a geologist in Oklahoma and did one Avenue along I-25 once Broomfield annexed the lands to the north. of the first geologic workups for the whole Denver-Julesburg basin If you look at the map on page 5 you will see that Broomfield’s (the DJ Basin) in the 1960's. He analyzed the geologic bedding and boundaries are highly irregular, looking somewhat like a dragon identified areas likely to contain oil and gas traps. (head in the lower left corner and tail in the upper right corner). Here is some information on the D-J basin. I'm no expert but have At the time of annexation into Broomfield in 1988, Anthem knowledge of my dad's geologic analysis and have witnessed the Ranch was part of the Nordstrom family farm. Pete and Dorothy boom in our area in the 1990's and more recently. Nordstrom were the patriarchs of the farming family and lived in a small home along the north side of W 160th Ave to the east of The D-J Basin extends from Denver to Julesburg and beyond. The Sheridan Parkway. Their home is gone now. The farm extended rock strata dip dramatically downward at the foothills to dive deep eastward from the Boulder County line as far east as Huron St and under Denver. Moving eastward, the strata gradually rise. Over a ranged northward from W 152nd Avenue up to State Highway 7 mile deep, the sandstones and shales contain traps with oil and with smaller farms around the perimeter. The Nordstrom extended natural gas - remnants of the plants and animals who lived along the family drove the tractors and made a modest living from the land. great inland seaway, transformed by age, heat, and pressure deep The farm family spent their entire lives enjoying the same underground. magnificent views which renewed the spirits of the hunters on the The 1950's saw a lot of exploration with limited drilling activity in the rolling grasslands so long ago. basin north and east of Denver. In 1963 my father was a geologist The youngest son, Carl, farmed the area where Anthem Ranch with Cities Service Oil and produced a large format, hand drawn resides. Carl spent his entire life on a tractor farming the soil. He geologic work up of the basin showing the limited drilling and eventually built his brick dream home which was located to the production to date.

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