In 1957, a group of investors in Denver became convinced that a theme park would increase tourism and be a financial boon. The group contacted Marco Engineering, a company run by C.V. Wood. Mr. Wood advertised himself as the man who built Disneyland. Marco engineering employed Dick Kelsey from Disney and Wade Rubottom from MGM as well as other Disney artists to design the park. The park was constructed on a site outside of Golden Colorado. The western front of the park was built with plans to finish the park in later years. Due to financial difficulties the park was not completed and the park closed in 1960. Many of the rides that were there ended up at Six Flags Over Texas. The buildings that had been constructed remained and re-opened as an arts district named Heritage Square. In addition, a local theater company started producing Melodramas in the Opera House. One of the shops was the first year round Christmas shop. The end of this story is that Heritage Square will be closing at the end of 2015 with the fate of the buildings still undetermined. Based upon the closing, I took a trip about a month ago to snap some images of the architecture. It is sad that this part of theme park history is being lost. Here are some of my images, and for those who want to look at all the images, you can see them here:
Heritage Square Images
4 comments:
Lovely series of photos, thank you so much for sharing!
Thank you for your photos of Heritage Square. I practically was raised up there working with my dad at the rides and the Opera House. I was referred to your site by another blogger gorillas don't blog . All one word actually , he also had some extensive info on the early history of Heritage Square. I actually was going to send him some present day pictures, he told me about your site. I could give a short history of the shops that used to be in those soon to be demolished Victorian building fronts.Alot has changed up there since the 70s- early 80s.
Linda if your interested in some other history of Heritage Square, I can send you a link to info. I agree this blogger did a great job of bringing Heritage Square history to light.
Hi, I was able to look thru all your pictures, it took awhile to do it..lol..lots of clicking each picture. It is awesome that you captured the detail in the carpentry . I will remember those pictures. I took pictures when I was up in September of this year, but I didn't capture the detail..again thanks.arthurverrierjr67@gmail.com.
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