Lafayette, Colorado
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Lafayette is a city in Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The population was 25,798 in 2005.[1]
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[edit] Geography
Lafayette is located at (39.995078, −105.100527)GR1.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 23.1 km² (8.9 mi²). 22.9 km² (8.9 mi²) of it is land and 0.2 km² (0.1 mi²) of it (0.67%) is water.
[edit] History
Lafayette was founded in 1889 by Mary Miller. She and her husband, Lafayette Miller, had moved to the area to homestead sometime earlier. Lafayette was an alcoholic, and after his death from alcohol related complications, Mary, having discovered coal on her property, incorporated her property and her brother's property into a town, which she named for her late husband. Unable to become mayor as a woman, she made her 17 year old son a puppet-mayor, and proceeded to lay out the town as she saw fit. She laid out the wide streets and alleys that still characterize the Old Town neighborhood today, and named the streets after friends, family, and her favorite politicians. Deeply affected by Lafayette's death, she also banned the sale and possession of alcoholic beverages east of Public road; an area that included most of the town at its foundation. The no-alcohol tenet was still in the house title of properties in Old Town east of Public Road into the 1980s.
Lafayette quickly became a part of the coal mining boom that all of eastern Boulder and southwestern Weld counties were experiencing, with the Cannon and Simpson mines being the largest and most productive. Miller continued to be a leader in the community, becoming the first female bank president in Colorado, and possibly the United States. She eventually ran for State Treasurer on the Prohibition ticket and lost. She lost much of her personal fortune by allowing miners credit at her store and bank during a strike, as she sided with their interests. Miller died in 1921 at her daughter-in-law's home at 501 E Cleveland St.
Lafayette continued to thrive as a coal mining town. Many miners struck in the aforementioned strike in the 1910's, which was nationally recognized as a great Wobbly (Industrial Workers of the World; a radical labor group) strike; noted for the Ludlow Massacre of miner's families by the national guard in the Southern Coal Field near Trinidad, CO.
In 1927, Lafayette's coal miners struck again. This time, the mining massacre was closer to home, resulting in the deaths of 5 Lafayette resident miners just northeast of town at the Columbine Mine Massacre on November 27, 1927, in what is now the ghost town of Serene, CO near Erie, CO.
Strangely, it was another female financier who came to the miners' aid again - Ms. Josephine Roche, the daughter of the anti-labor deceased owner of the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company that owned many of the mines in the Lafayette area, used some shares of the company she had inherited from her father and bought a controlling interest in the company, and immediately began the most labor friendly mine operation in the United States. She went on to be a top assistant to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins. Back in Lafayette, life became much better for the coal miners with the more Labor-friendly management of the RMFC.
Coal mining petered out as in industry by the 1950s, and Lafayette became more or less just another small town on the plains. That began to change in the 1970s, however, as the Boulder, CO and Denver, CO metropolitan areas began to expand rapidly. Lafayette was in place to be an ideal commuter town for those working in Boulder who could not afford the cost of living there, and, before long, it also became a commuter town for Denver and the metro area. Lafayette's growth accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s, finally levelling off in the late 1990s, with little more residential development.
Lafayette barely manages to maintain a greenbelt separating it from Louisville, CO and Boulder to the west, Broomfield, CO to the south and east, and Erie to the north and east. Longmont, CO and Niwot, CO are also located some distance north of Lafayette.
Today, Lafayette is a thriving community, with the cultural and commercial center still being found in the revitalized Old Town district, especially along Public Road. The town hosts a variety of unique events each year, including an Oatmeal Festival in cooperation with the Quaker Oats Company , a Peach Festival, a Wine Festival, and a Lafayette Days Festival.
The main public high school in Lafayette is Centaurus High School , with approximately 1000 students. The recently opened Peak-to-Peak Charter school takes students from Kindergarten to High School Graduation. The public middle school is Angevine Middle School, and the Elementaries are Lafayette, Alicia Sanchez, Bernard D. Pat Ryan, and Pioneer Elementary; a bilingual school where English and Spanish are both spoken for half a day. Alexander Dawson School is a K-12 college prep school on the north end of town. Lafayette is part of the Boulder Valley School District.
The mayor of Lafayette is Chris Berry, and the Mayor Pro-Tem is David Strungis.
[edit] Demographics
As of the censusGR2 of 2000, there were 23,197 people, 8,844 households, and 5,952 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,012.0/km² (2,620.9/mi²). There were 9,115 housing units at an average density of 397.7/km² (1,029.9/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 85.53% White, 0.90% African American, 0.73% Native American, 3.32% Asian, 0.09% Pacific Islander, 6.82% from other races, and 2.61% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 16.42% of the population.
There were 8,844 households out of which 37.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.4% were married couples living together, 10.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.7% were non-families. 22.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 4.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.62 and the average family size was 3.13.
In the city the population was spread out with 27.5% under the age of 18, 7.5% from 18 to 24, 38.3% from 25 to 44, 20.9% from 45 to 64, and 5.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females there were 97.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.2 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $56,376, and the median income for a family was $64,088. Males had a median income of $44,167 versus $31,381 for females. The per capita income for the city was $27,780. About 5.2% of families and 7.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 8.1% of those under age 18 and 9.3% of those age 65 or over.
[edit] References
- ^ Community Profile. City of Lafayette. Retrieved on November 16, 2006.
[edit] External links
- City of Lafayette (official website)
- Lafayette News (Lafayette's Weekly Newspaper)
- Maps and aerial photos
- Street map from Google Maps, or Yahoo! Maps, or Windows Live Local
- Satellite image from Google Maps, Windows Live Local, WikiMapia
- Topographic map from TopoZone
- Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
