Boulder History Museum

It's been a while since my last post, but I wanted to do another quick-history on a landmark and building that has become very dear to me, the Boulder History Museum.

The Boulder History Museum is within the historic landmark, the Harbeck-Bergheim house on the Hill in Boulder, Colorado. This beautiful house was built in 1899 for the Harbeck's of New York City. Mr. Harbeck was well known on Wall Street and owned his own dry goods business. The Harbeck's wanted this to be their summer house so they could get away from the city.

The house was later occupied by the Bergheim's who owned a clothing store on Pearl Street. They were at this residence for thirty years from 1939 to 1969. The house was used for multiple community events for a number of years until it became the home for the Boulder Historical Society in 1985 and then the home to the Boulder History Museum in 1987.

This small, local museum is a gateway to the past. Walking into the building itself sets the tone to learning the history of this old mining supply town. When you walk in to the giant foyer and notice the original wood trimmings and grand stairway, it is a beautiful sight. The museum features a two room exhibit space for the current, always changing exhibits and a learning room for children to play and learn. Upstairs has an exhibit space dedicated to Boulder's History. The hallway upstairs is adorned by another ever-changing exhibit that the volunteers work on.

Right now on display is "1968 in America" which displays the rich history of America during war, rebellion, and love. It's only on display until the end of the year so go see it while you can.

www.boulderhistory.org

Boulder and the 60's

While volunteering at the Boulder History Museum, I've been lucky enough to help out with several of their exhibit installations and breakdowns. At the moment I'm working with a small group of people to help them research for their next exhibit, 1968 in America. This is a traveling exhibit that is coming to the museum, but they wanted to supplement it with local history of information and artifacts from Boulder in 1968.

As most know, the late '60s and early '70s were a very important time for America and the rest of the world. With Boulder being the college town that it is, the home of the University of Colorado. There was a lot of political protesting and riots being produced by students of CU.

Probably one of the most notable protests to take place in Boulder during this time happened in May of 1972. In response to President Nixon's announcement of the U.S. blockade of North Vietnam and the mining of Haiphong harbor, students and other protesters blockaded U.S. 36 or the Boulder - Denver Turnpike blocking people from entering and leaving Boulder. They started gathering trees, street signs, large rocks, and anything else they could use to block the roads. This held off traffic for most of the day. For the most part the police kept out of it and remained peaceful. Tear gas was later used to clear the people out of the streets and to finally shut down the demonstration. Overall there were no serious injuries and a little over 100 people were arrested for various charges.

Boulder was alive with political protest and many anti-Vietnam War demonstrations happened on CU campus and around town. One of those was a vote to do a campus-wide strike until they brought the U.S. troops home. This vote brought about 8,000 strong to the CU campus to protest.

http://boulderhistory.org/

Doudy-Debacker-Dunn House

If you go for a hike in the South Mesa area you may find an interesting looking structure.Hike about 200 feet past the South Mesa Trail head and there it is. All that remains is a recently renovated stone building standing alone.  It's all stone with wooden covered windows and doors and a tin roof.

This site was the original homestead of Sylvester (Andrew) Doudy. He built the wooden portion of the house back around 1858. He raised cattle, operated a sawmill and a gristmill.

A few years later in 1869 John Debacker bought the house and the property for $500. He was a successful farmer and added the two-story stone structure that is all that remains to this day.

John retired in 1901 and left his property and house to his only daughter, Emma and her husband John Dunn. Emma and John lived and worked as dairy farmers until Johns death in 1953.

So if you find yourself in the area take a look around and you might stumble across this little beauty.

http://www.bouldercolorado.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2777&Itemid=1082#doudy

Quick History Blog Summary

So my idea going into this blog was to make posts about things I see on my hikes, things I read about, see on t.v. and do research and summarize their history into quick historical blurps on here. I love finding out the history of things around me, and living in a fascinating settlement town like Boulder, Co. I run into amazing buildings and dwellings on hikes all the time, and I always want to learn more about them. I'm sure some others would as well. So here we go.

Job Hunting

Job hunting as my Dad says is a job in itself. You must devote much of your time into search engines, networking, making phone calls, writing e-mails, giving blood samples, you get the picture. It's not a fun task but a necessary one. I have a job, but one that barely makes me paycheck to paycheck. It's also the type of job that you'r ready for the weekend by Monday afternoon. I know working in a museum or in exhibit design is what I want to do, and would be a job that I could look forward to and enjoy doing. Finding that job has turned out to be rather difficult. I've been graduated for about a year and a half now still working at the same place I was back in college going no where fast. I'm still unsure however if going back to school is the way to go. Is it worth it for me to go back and get my Masters? It is a question I have been pondering since my release into the wild from the safety of home that was college. I am in a massive heap of student loans, and the thought of adding more to that is mind bogeling. (Place suggestion here) So I have done everything, e-mails, website extraction, at least that's what I call it. I search through local museum websites, exhibit design company websites and search for cantact info and job availabity. Well I've applied to several jobs today, fingers crossed one will bite.