From the 1890s through the 1950s, Boulder actively encouraged growth. The city laid out the welcome mat — luring tourists and new residents with slogans, signs and even a traveling slide show.
Boulder — “The Place to Live” — has a long history of self-promotion.
A group of gold-seekers founded Boulder in 1859. The University of Colorado was established in 1876, and the cultural and educational summer resort of Chautauqua lured out-of-state visitors beginning in 1898. By then the dusty frontier town had grown into a small, sophisticated city. Promotional literature for the Colorado & Northwestern railroad praised the city’s scenic beauty, climate, and culture and even referred to Boulder as the “Athens of the West.”
A poem titled “Boulder Beautiful” was included in the railroad company’s promotional literature. A long-forgotten author once wrote, in part:
Where the mountains kiss the valleys,
In a clime supremely blest,
Boulder smiles a royal welcome —
Queenly Athens of the West!
Then, in 1905, a group of business owners known as the “Boulder Boosters” established the Boulder Commercial Association — the forerunner of today’s Boulder Chamber. As a newspaper reporter explained at the time, “One of the principal objects of the Boulder Commercial Association is to broadcast the advantages and attractiveness of Boulder as ‘The Place to Live.'”
The Boulder Commercial Association wasted no time designing its logo. At the top of a shovel-shaped outline sat an open book representing the University of Colorado. Underneath it were the words “BOULDER The Place to Live,” and at the bottom were a pick and shovel to represent the mining industry and a plow for the farmers.
The association splashed its logo all over Boulder. Used in correspondence, it also showed up on a large banner that greeted every arriving passenger at the Union Pacific Depot on 14th Street. Merchants put signs with the logo in their shop windows, and the Boulder Band proudly displayed it on its bass drum.
In the early 1920s, after the arrival of the automobile era, Boulder also promoted itself as the “Gateway to the Rockies.” At the intersection of Arapahoe Road (Colorado 7) and U.S. 287, Boulder’s American Legion association put up a billboard in an attempt to divert northbound motorists to drive to Boulder (and into the mountains) instead of continuing on to Longmont and Estes Park. At the time, Arapahoe Glacier in western Boulder County was a tourist destination.
One of the biggest “boosters” was pharmacist and civic leader Eben G. Fine. The locals gave him the honorary title “Mr. Boulder” as he traveled around the country giving his lecture and slide presentation, “Rambling Through the Rockies.” Fine’s intent was to encourage people to visit (and hopefully move to) Boulder. His name lives on in Eben G. Fine Park off Arapahoe Avenue.
In the 1930s, Boulder further extended its hospitality when the Chamber of Commerce (formerly the Commercial Association) hung a “Welcome to Boulder” sign from an irrigation pipe over 12th Street (now Broadway) between Linden and Norwood avenues.
Meanwhile, the Boulder Chamber of Commerce updated a Boulder County map and painted a list of “Interesting Facts” on the side of the Boettcher Building at the southwest corner of 12th (Broadway) and Pearl streets. When this photo was taken in 1940, Boulder had a population of 12,980. Below the listing of the number of men on the police force (8), the total of hotel rooms (240), and the number of hospital beds (145) was the Chamber of Commerce’s then most-recent slogan, “Come To Play, Come to Stay.”
Beginning in the 1950s, local “Welcome Wagon” women — loaded with baskets of free samples, coupons and business brochures — visited newcomers in their homes. They also extended their welcome to mothers of new babies, teenagers on their 16th birthdays, and newly engaged young women.
The “Interesting Facts” painting survived into the 1960s. By then, Boulder’s population had exploded. In reflecting on the slogan a few decades later, one Boulder old-timer suggested another line: “Now go away.”
In this history are several ideas for our new flag. The old shield logo is good, the book at top okay, but the mining tools and plow would have to go. Add a bicycle. We’ll also need a new motto, perhaps “Boulder the place to play, but go away.”
The possibilities are endless. The miner and the farmer over the entrance of the courthouse are outdated, too, but I, anyway, am very fond of them as they are part of our history. What 2 occupations would you suggest if that sculpture were to be replaced?
Thanks for another terrific story, Sylvia! It made me think of the 1910 report on “The Improvement of Boulder Colorado”, by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. for the Boulder City Improvement Association. The report addressed the question: “What physical improvements within the reach of the city will help to make it increasingly convenient, agreeable and generally satisfactory as a place in which to live and work?” It highlighted “Boulder’s Opportunity” to attract Easterners whose “eyes are opened to a wiser philosophy of life” and are “in search of places where they may find rest and enjoyment of life.”
Thanks for bringing up Olmsted, Jr.’s report… it’s worthy of a whole story in itself.
I agree, Silvia. The report’s been criticized harshly over the years, but it’s fascinating to see how Boulder today mirrors key elements of it.
I always love Ms. Pettem’s writing about Boulder’s history. When I moved here, the sign on the Broadway irrigation pipe had an addendum of “Stay Awhile, Play Awhile, You’ll like Boulder.” And, I did.