As Boulder gears up for next year’s 50th anniversary celebration of the Pearl Street Pedestrian Mall, now is a good time to reflect on Pearl Street’s past. In a series of articles to be spread throughout the year, we’ll go back in time and view the thoroughfare that still defines the heart of downtown Boulder.
A small group of gold prospectors arrived in what would become Boulder in October 1858. The gold-seekers set up cabins and tents along Boulder Creek, then their settlement grew into a supply town for miners in the mountains. In February 1859, one of the men, A. A. Brookfield, wrote a letter to his wife Emma, back home in eastern Nebraska. He stated, “We thought that as the weather would not permit us to mine, we would lay out and commence to build what may be an important town.”
That same month, 58 prospectors (including Brookfield) signed the “Articles of Organization of the Boulder City Town Company,” requesting a charter from the governor of Nebraska Territory. (At the time, Nebraska Territory extended west through the Boulder area and encompassed land north of the 40th parallel, now Baseline Road.)…