Recently I was walking a section of the Broomfield Trail just east of 287 and south of the Broomfield Depot Museum. (You can check out a map of the extensive trail system in town at the link below.)
As you well know, it has been absolutely beautiful this week. It was cool in the morning, and the crisp cloudless sky was a rich blue. As I enjoyed being outside and strolling down the Trail, I couldn’t help but notice my surroundings. With apartment complexes on one side and industrial and retail buildings on the other, I felt like I was nestled in the heart of a modern, thriving suburb. But Broomfield has not always been such.
The Arapahoe and Cheyenne people used this land for hunting and habitation, and more recently, farmers grew broomcorn and raised cattle and hogs. When I walk through unfamiliar places, like I was that day, I often look for evidence of what a place might have been like in the past. I try to visualize what that old barn looked like when it was freshly painted. Or I imagine what the rolling hills outside of Gettysburg might have felt like on that hot July day when two enormous armies clashed there in 1863.
The past accretes over time, and we live our lives with pieces of the past constantly intruding themselves upon the present. What part of Broomfield’s past might I stumble on here along this Trail? At this section of the Trail, it follows along an old irrigation ditch—evidence that farmers had once tried to coax crops out of this arid land. The ditch is a fairly unremarkable, huge piece of evidence. But I also found this beautiful old fence post (see the picture below) with some rusty metal still clinging to it. Serendipitous moments like these, when the past comes alive through a tangible reminder that history is not dead, but is in fact with us all the time, are precious. The post stands alone on the edge of an apartment complex, a reminder that this place has not always been what it is now and will continue to change and evolve ever onward into the uncertain future.
