CROWN HILL OPEN SPACE PARK – A BRIEF HISTORY
What we know today as Crown Hill Open Space Park wasn’t always a public venue. One year before the end of the American Civil War, in 1864, a young man named Henry Lee sojourned west from Iowa to join his brother, William, who had a farm east of Golden, on the south side of Clear Creek.
The land was rich, fertile enough to support wheat fields (Wheat Ridge), fruit orchards (Fruitdale) and further to the north, the farms that would one day become the city of Arvada.
While William worked the farm, Henry traveled on the narrow gauge railroad up Clear Creek Canyon to the mining camps in Gilpin, Clear Creek, and Park counties, selling vegetables to the residents.
In less than 10 years from the time of his arrival, Henry had met and married Jennie Paul, another Iowa ex-pat, and settled down to a married and family life on land that Henry was now farming. Read more
Twenty-five years ago, a group of volunteers formed an organization called the Jeffco Open Space Foundation, whose purpose was (and is) to raise funds for programs and initiatives that align with its vision, mission, beliefs and its focus areas.
If you’ve recently been out to Alderfer/Three Sisters Park recently, you’ll notice that there’s a lot of forestry activity happening, especially in the eastern one-third of the park.
Have you seen a moose in our Open Space parks yet? If you haven’t, you may soon. Moose, which was a rarity in Colorado only 50 years ago, are now routinely sighted in Clear Creek and Jefferson Counties since their introduction in 1978 — transplants from Utah and Wyoming. The transplants have delighted in their new home state. According to biologists from Colorado Parks & Wildlife, there are an estimated 3500 moose roaming the Rockies between Red Feather Lakes and Pagosa Springs. 
If you’re a regular — or even an occasional — visitor to our Jeffco Open Space Parks, you’ll know about the mud season routine. Walk through, not around the mud.
