ZIP Code 80026

Lafayette is a home rule municipality located in southeastern Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 24,453 at the 2010 United States Census. Mary E. (Foote) Miller filed the original Town of Lafayette plat in January 1888 and sold the first residential lot in March 1888 to Hugh Hughes. In February 1889, the town of Lafayette was incorporated. Lafayette was a part of the coal-mining boom that all of eastern Boulder and southwestern Weld counties were experiencing. In 1913, members of the United Mine Workers walked off the job in the Ludlow Massacre, which is nationally noted for being the longest-running strike in U.S. history. By 1914, Lafayette had two banks and four hotels. It was also the location of one of the nation's first distributed electrical grids powered by the Interurban Power Plant that served Louisville, Boulder, Longmont, and Fort Collins. The town's business district burned in January 1900, and Mary Miller continued to be a leader in the community. She was elected president of the bank, and according to a Denver Post article reprinted in the Lafayette News and dated December 13, 1902, was the only woman known to be president of a bank. She died in 1921 at her daughter-in-law's home at 501 E. Cleveland Street in Lafayette, Colorado. She is buried at the Lafayette Memorial Cemetery in the town's downtown area, along with her husband, Lafayette Miller, who died in 1878, and their six small children.

Geography

Lafayette is located in southeastern Boulder County at 39°5942N 105°62W (39.995, 105.100556). It is bordered by the town of Erie to the north and east, by the city of Broomfield to the east and south, and by Louisville to the southwest. U.S. Highway 287 is the main road through the city. State Highway 7 leads east from Lafayette to Brighton and west to Boulder. According to the United States Census Bureau, Lafayette has a total area of 9.3 square miles (24 km²), of which 9.2 square miles is land and 0.15 square miles, or 1.50%, is water. The city has a population of 2,816. It is located on the Colorado River, which runs through the center of the city and into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The town is home to the University of Colorado at Boulder, which was founded in 1894. The university is a member of the Colorado State University System. It was founded by the Colorado School of Mines in 1891. The University of California at Boulder was the first college in the state to admit women in 1883. It has been the site of the National Institute of Women and Gender Studies since 1884. It also has a chapter of theaughters of the American Revolution, which dates back to 1887. The state's motto is "I am a woman, and I will always be a woman"; the motto is also the motto of the University.

History

Lafayette was founded in 1888 by Mary E. (Foote) Miller. She filed the original Town of Lafayette plat in January 1888 and sold the first residential lot in March 1888 to Hugh Hughes. Lafayette was part of the coal-mining boom that all of eastern Boulder and southwestern Weld counties were experiencing. By 1914 Lafayette was a booming town with two banks and four hotels. It was also the location of one of the nation's first distributed electrical grids powered by the Interurban Power Plant that served Louisville, Boulder, Longmont, and Fort Collins.Until about 1915, residents of the city were largely caucasian Midwestern transplants and Western European coal miners who'd immigrated from England, Wales and Ireland. Coinciding with the Long Strike of 1910-1914, the coal operators began recruiting Latino workers who were immigrants from Eastern Europe and Mexico. The Long Strike is nationally noted for the Ludlow Massacre of miners' families by the National Guard in the Southern Coal Field near Trinidad, Colorado. Entering the Lafayette Local 1388 at the September 25, 1913, meeting, Latinos realized the necessity of forming labor alliances with native-born and immigrant labor-born Latinos. The meeting minutes show scant traces of Latino membership from September 1903 until September 1913, when membership was banned from membership in Lafayette. The first Latino members of Lafayette Local1388 were initiates Frank Gonzales, A. Guy Dominguez, Jesus Guzman, Gabriel Guzman and Teofila Domingo.

Transportation

The Cherokee Trail/Laramie Road was a principal travel corridor to the west from 1864 to 1868. The Overland Mail and Express Co.'s 600-mile Denver to Salt Lake City Division was composed of 46 stage stations spaced every 10 to 15 miles. The Front Range portion of the Southern Route went north from Denver to LaPorte and Virginia Dale where the trail rejoined the Central Overland Route in Laramie, Wyoming. The Mason & Ganow stagecoach company launched on October 17, 1868, to compete with Wells Fargo and promoted daily overnight service fromDenver to Cheyenne, about 100 miles. By early 1869, Wells Fargo had sold all of its stagecoaches operations, including the Denver to CheYenne run, which was acquired by John Hughes. Robert Spotswood and William McClelland bought the stage line from Hughes and continued running the Denver-to-Cheyenne stage until November 27, 1869. In 1871, Lafayette and Mary Miller operated the Miller Tavern Ranch, a saloon and stage stop for the Mason and Ganow Stagecoach at the former Stearns Dairy north of Dillon Road on U.S. 287, today known as the Rock Creek Farm. The Burlington House in what is now Longmont became an Overland Stage Line home station a few years later. The two-story stage stop on Coal Creek was a meal stop and not a swing station, but it, too, was a eatery.

Recreation

Waneka Lake Park features playground structures, shelter facilities, picnic tables, benches, fishing areas, and a 1.2 mile fitness trail. The lake was built by Lafayette pioneer Adolf Waneka in 1865 to hold water coming out of a nearby spring. Northern Power expanded the lake, which was later called Plant Lake, in 1906 to store 28 million cu. ft. (790,000 m3) of water for its steam generators. Northern Colorado Power Company constructed a 6,000 kilowatt Northern Colorado and Interurban Power Plant on the south edge of Plant lake in 190506. It supplied alternating current to the electric-powered Interurban passenger trolley service that connected Boulder to Denver. The power plant was last used in the 1920s and was torn down in 1963. The City of Lafayette bought "Henry Waneka Reservoir" from J.B. Telleen in October 1972. Several years later, the State of Colorado deemed the reservoir unsafe, but the city of Lafayette made repairs and brought the reservoir up to muster. When town founder Mary Miller owned the lake, it was known as the Millar and Harmon Reservoir. Mary Miller and the power company split 50/50 the rights to the additional water stored. In 1904, Mary Miller bought the reservoir in 1904 from William, Frank and Guy Harmon. The Harmons retained rights to some of the water flowing into Miller and Harmon. Reservoir's original name of Waneka Lake was "HenryWaneka No. 1 Reservoir.".

Government

The Lafayette City Council serves as the community's legislative body. The council consists of seven members who are elected on a non-partisan basis in odd-numbered years. The mayor and mayor pro-tem are selected by the City Council for two-year terms. As of December 2021, the current mayor of Lafayette is JD Mangat and the mayor Pro-tem is Brian Wong. The three councilors with the most votes serve four-year term and the fourth receives a two- year term. The current mayor isJD Mangat, who will be in office until 2019. The city's last mayor was Lafayette Miller, who died in office in 1878. The last mayor to resign from office was Richard W. Morgan, who was removed from office in 1907 for accepting a $700 bribe. The town's last city council resignation was Walter Moon, in 1891 (an alderman); Joe Mathias, 1935; Roy "Ham" Roberts, 1959; Tom Lopez, 1975; Carl Williams, 1980; John Drennen, 1986; Candy Fox, 1996, Bryan Olson, 1996; Mike Romero, 1999; Dennis Buck, 2000; Mark Hoskins, 2001; Tom Anderson, 2002; Dave Schneller, 2003; Tom Hogue, 2003, Alex Schatz, 2005; Kerry Bensman, 2010; Chris Cameron, 2010, Tom Dowling, 2016; Gustavo Reyna, 2018; Christine Berg, 2019; Merrily Mazza, 2019.

Events

Lafayette has a variety of events each year, including a peach festival, wine festival, and Lafayette Days. Every January an oatmeal festival in cooperation with the Quaker Oats Company is held with a fitness run around Waneka Lake. Festival Plaza is a gathering place in Old Town Lafayette on Public Road and Chester Street. The Plaza is composed of a series of four smaller interconnected plazas, each designed with features to promote various events. It is located in the heart of Lafayette, on the corner of Chester and Public Road. The plaza is open to the public, and has a number of activities for children and adults, as well as the opportunity to buy tickets for the Festival of Arts and Crafts, which runs through the end of the year.

Education

Lafayette public schools are part of the Boulder Valley School District. The main public high school in Lafayette is Centaurus High School. The elementary schools are Lafayette, Alicia Sanchez, Bernard D. 'Pat' Ryan STEAM school, and Pioneer Elementary. Alexander Dawson School is a private K-12 college prep school in the north part of town. The public middle school is Angevine Middle School, which feeds into Centaurus. Peak to Peak Charter School offers kindergarten through high school, as well as a charter school for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. The high school has approximately 1,600 students, and the middle school has about 1,500 students. It is located in the center of the town, near the intersection of Interstate 70 and I-70. The town has a population of about 6,000 people, according to the city's 2010 census. The school district has a budget of $1.2 million. It has a total enrollment of about 7,000 students, with 1,200 of them in high school. The district has an enrollment of approximately 6,500, with the majority of those students in the middle and high school years. It also has a number of charter schools, including a charter for high school and a private school for college prep. The city's high school is located on the edge of the city, in the town's north part, and has approximately 2,200 students. The middle school feeds into the high school; it has about 2,000 pupils.

Demographics

As of the census of 2010, there were 24,453 people, 9,632 households, and 6,354 families residing in the city. The racial makeup of the city was 85.6% White, 1.1% African American, 3.8% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 5.4% some other race, and 3.2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 18.2%. The estimated median income for a household in theCity in 2010 was $66,202, and the median incomes for a family was $79,212. About 9.3% of families and 12.5% of the population were below the poverty line. The city is home to the U.S. Air Force Academy and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The U.N. Academy is a member of the International Council of Exact Sciences, a non-profit organization that promotes the study of science and the arts. It is one of the largest universities in the United States, with more than 4,000 students. The University of South Carolina at Greensboro is the largest university in the state, with over 2,500 students. It has a population of 9,000, making it the second-largest city in South Carolina. The state's largest city is Greenville, where the population is 6,000. It was the site of the World War II-era Battle of the Bulge, which saw the death of more than 3,000 people.

Religion

Lafayette's first established church was the Congregational Church, which was established in 1890. Lafayette town founder Mary E. Miller paid for the construction of the church circa 1892. Flatirons Community Church was founded in Lafayette in 1997. The church's first pastor was J. M. Van Deren and Laura Kimbark, who were married in 1892 and 1894, respectively. Lafayette is home to the U.S. Air Force Academy, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and the College of Southern Institutions of Technology, which were founded in 1998. The Lafayette Public Library is located in the town's downtown area. The library is open seven days a week and has a collection of more than 2,000 books. It is also home to a number of non-profit organizations, such as the Lafayette Library Foundation and the Lafayette Museum of History and Art. The museum's collection includes more than 1,000 photographs of Lafayette's history and culture, including many of the city's historic buildings. It also has a large collection of rare books, including some of the first ever printed in Lafayette. The town's first public library was opened in 1891 and is located on the corner of Main and Main streets. It was later moved to its current location on the second floor of the Lafayette Town Center, which is also the site of Lafayette High School. The city's first post office was opened on the third floor in 1894. The first public high school was established on the fourth floor in 1896.

Air Quality, Water Quality, Superfund Sites & UV Index

The Air Quality index is in Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado = 75. These Air Quality index is based on annual reports from the EPA. Higher values are better (100=best). The number of ozone alert days is used as an indicator of air quality, as are the amounts of seven pollutants including particulates, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, lead, and volatile organic chemicals. The Water Quality Index is 100. A measure of the quality of an area’s water supply as rated by the EPA. Higher values are better (100=best). The EPA has a complex method of measuring the watershed quality, using 15 indicators such as pollutants, turbidity, sediments, and toxic discharges. The Superfund Sites Index is 60. Higher is better (100=best). Based upon the number and impact of EPA Superfund pollution sites in the county, including spending on the cleanup efforts. The UV Index in Lafayette = 5.8 and is a measure of an area's exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays. This is most often a combination of sunny weather, altitude, and latitude. The UV Index has been defined by the WHO (www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/radiation-the-ultraviolet-(uv)-index) and is uniform worldwide.

Employed

The most recent city population of 15,238 individuals with a median age of 36.9 age the population grows by 4.05% in Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado population since 2000 and are distributed over a density of 3,200 residents per square mile of area (1,200/km²). There are average 2.6 people per household in the 9,266 households with an average household income of $68,821 a year. The unemployment rate in Alabama is 5.30% of the available work force and has dropped -5.88% over the most recent 12-month period and the projected change in job supply over the next decade based on migration patterns, economic growth, and other factors will increase by 22.94%. The number of physicians in Lafayette per 100,000 population = 328.8.

Weather

The annual rainfall in Lafayette = 14.3 inches and the annual snowfall = 43 inches. The annual number of days with measurable precipitation (over .01 inch) = 73. The average number of days per year that are predominantly sunny = 246. 89 degrees Fahrenheit is the average daily high temperature for the month of July and 19.2 degrees Fahrenheit is the average daily low temperature for the month of January. The Comfort Index (higher=better) is 64, where higher values mean a more pleasant climate. The Comfort Index measure recognizes that humidity by itself isn't the problem. (Have you noticed nobody ever complains about the weather being 'cold and humid?) It's in the summertime that we notice the humidity the most, when it's hot and muggy. Our Comfort Index uses a combination of afternoon summer temperature and humidity to closely predict the effect that the humidity will have on people.

Median Home Cost

The percentage of housing units in Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado which are owned by the occupant = 72.47%. A housing unit is a house, apartment, mobile home, or room occupied as separate living quarters. The average age of homes = 20 years with median home cost = $247,000 and home appreciation of 0.92%. This is the value of the years most recent home sales data. Its important to note that this is not the average (or arithmetic mean). The median home price is the middle value when you arrange all the sales prices of homes from lowest to highest. This is a better indicator than the average, because the median is not changed as much by a few unusually high or low values. The property tax rate of $6.52 shown here is the rate per $1,000 of home value. If for simplification for example the tax rate is $14.00 and the home value is $250,000, the property tax would be $14.00 x ($250,000/1000), or $3500. This is the 'effective' tax rate.

Study

The local school district spends $4,670 per student. There are 20 students for each teacher in the school, 511 students for each Librarian and 338 students for each Counselor. 6.22% of the area’s population over the age of 25 with an Associate Degree or other 2-year college degree, 28.92% with a master’s degree, Ph.D. or other advanced college degree and 17.16% with high school diplomas or high school equivalency degrees (GEDs).