What’s Happening in Golden Today?
6-6:55AM Dynamic Circuit (Virtual)
8:30-9:30AM Power Training (Virtual)
10AM and 1PM Wild West Walking Tour
10AM, 1PM, and 4PM Wild West Short Tour
10-10:55AM All Levels Yoga (Virtual)
10:15-10:45AM Let’s Dance @ Golden Library
12-12:30PM Mondays with Mayor Weinberg (Virtual)
2-3PM Active Minds Mondays: Colorado Ballot 2022 (Virtual)
4-4:30PM Kids Martial Arts Class (Virtual)
6:30PM Downtown Development Authority Meeting @ City Hall
DDA will hear a presentation about the Visitors Center’s plan to enclose their creekside patio. The Visitors Center board may request some funding from the DDA in 2024. The meeting memo contains several city staff objections to the VC Board’s plans and points out that the City can reclaim that property after the year 2056.
City staff will brief the board on several city initiatives, including a Bike and Pedestrian plan, a Downtown Parking Management Study, policy issues regarding use of the alleys and parking lanes, and concerns about the West Downtown Streetscape plan.
Congratulations, Violet!
Congratulations to Violet Cotant on her 18th anniversary with Safeway! She asked me to thank the Golden community for helping her grow into the woman she has become.
Golden History Moment
The fourth stop on this year’s Golden Cemetery Tour was the gravesite of Charles (1868-1935) and Alice (1877-1953) Easley. If the name sounds familiar, it’s probably because Easley Road, which runs along the east side of North Table Mountain, was named for that family. It was originally the private lane that ran through their farm.
The Easley farm and orchard was established by Elwood and Deborah Easley–Charles’s parents. The family (parents and five children) came to Colorado for a visit in 1872, got hooked and stayed. They lived in Clear Creek County for six years, then purchased land on the southeast side of North Table Mountain.
It was considered debatable at that time whether fruit could be grown in Colorado, but the Easleys were talented farmers, and made a great success of it. They had 365 acres, most of it used for hay and pasture with about 40 acres cultivated for fruit and vegetables. They had apple, cherry, plum and pear trees, grape vines, strawberries and raspberries. They also kept a greenhouse for winter production. They used water from springs on North Table Mountain. They sent a wagon of fruit to the market in Denver every day during the growing season. The wagon left the farm shortly after midnight, sold fruit in the morning, and returned at about 9AM.
The large brick house with a turret was named “Orchard Home.” A 1978 Transcript article by one of the Easley descendants enumerated the many buildings that made up the farm complex:
Buildings at Orchard Home included the grout fruit cellar, the ice house, the woodshed, the coal house, the cow barn, the smoke house where annual meat that had been raised and butchered on the place was put up for winter use; and the wagon shed which in the twenties held a Model T Ford. There was not a nail in the horse barn which burned to the ground in 1973. It was all put together with mortise and tenon. There were lightning rods on both this barn and the house.
Golden Transcript – January 10, 1978
Son Charles liked farming, but aspired to becoming a minister. He attended Golden High School, spent one year at the School of Mines, then transferred to CU in Boulder, where he earned a B.A. Afterwards, he enrolled in the Divinity school at the University of Chicago.
When his parents–Elwood and Deborah–decided to retire in California in 1898, Charles abandoned his ministerial plans and came home to take over the farm. He married Alice Bryant in 1901, and the pair had eight children–four boys and four girls.
Charles Easley was the pioneer fruit man of Colorado, having ploughed the ground for the first commercial cherry orchard of the state in 1884, at the age of 16 years. He has been one of the most successful fruit raisers in the county, having received a gold medal at the St. Louis Exposition in 1903, for his labors in his fruit.
Charles Easley Obituary – Colorado Transcript – August 1, 1935
Alice remained on the farm for several years after Charles’s death before moving to 501 14th Street in Golden. She spent her later years busy with church activities and visiting her many children and grandchildren. She died in 1953.
Thanks to the Golden History Museum for providing the online cache of historic Transcripts, and to the Golden Transcript for documenting our history since 1866!
