Colorado Chautauqua Informations

The Colorado Chautauqua, located in Boulder, Colorado, United States, and started in 1898, is the only Chautauqua west of the Mississippi River still continuing in unbroken operation since the heyday of the Chautauqua Movement in the 1920s. It is one of the few such continuously operating Chautauquas remaining in the United States, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006. According to its governing body, the Colorado Chautauqua Association, it is also unique in that it is the only year-round Chautauqua.

The Colorado Chautauqua Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization formerly known as the Texas-Colorado Chautauqua Association, presents a variety of lectures, live musical performances, and silent films on a year-round schedule, although the summer months are emphasized. The operation also includes the Chautauqua Dining Hall. Short-term lodging is also offered. The Association manages 26 acres (110,000 m2) leased from the City of Boulder, including the historic Chautauqua buildings, all of which are still in regular use:

Between these 26 acres (110,000 m2) of Association land and Baseline Road lies a 14-acre (57,000 m2) Boulder city park called Chautauqua Park. This area is marked "Chautauqua Green" on the map published by the Colorado Chautauqua Association. Both the park and the Association land are open to the public without an entry fee.

The entire 40-acre (160,000 m2) site, including both the Association land and the adjacent Chautauqua Park, was designated a National Historic Landmark on February 10, 2006. The site is bounded on the north by Baseline Road, on the northeast by residential back yards on 10th Street, and on the southeast, south, and west by the City of Boulder Mountain Parks.

Residents of Boulder generally refer to the entire 40-acre (160,000 m2) site by the single word Chautauqua. In the early years, the site was known as "Texado Park".

The Texas-Colorado Chautauqua Association was incorporated in Austin, Texas in September 1897. This organization was for the purpose of conducting a summer school and lecture series for Texas school teachers at a Colorado location to be determined later. A cooler summer climate than Texas was desired.

In February 1898, the Texas-Colorado Chautauqua Association and the City of Boulder entered into an agreement to locate the Chautauqua near Boulder, subject to the city providing sufficient area and suitable facilities. A city bond election was held on April 5, 1898 and the necessary bonds and expenditures were approved to purchase the land and build the first buildings.

On April 18, 1898 the Boulder City Council appointed a "Committee on Parks," the earliest beginning of the city's Parks Department. Later in April, the Bachelder Ranch site was selected and purchased for the Chautauqua; the grounds, one mile (1.6 km) south of the city, were named Texado Park. On May 12, 1898 construction of the Chautauqua Auditorium commenced; the Dining Hall construction started one week later. Both buildings were completed in time for the opening of the first Chautauqua season on July 4, 1898.

However, the two greatest disappointments of the initial season were first, that no residential cottages had yet been constructed; and second, that the electric streetcar line from downtown Boulder to Texado Park had not been built in time for the opening. In the first season, Colorado Chautauqua attenders were housed entirely in tents. They traveled the 1.5 miles (about 2 km) from the Boulder railway station to the Chautauqua on foot or in horsedrawn vehicles, via dirt roads that were alternately dusty and muddy.

The 1898 fee was $75 for the entire six-week season, including tuition, admission to all lectures and entertainments, all boarding and lodging, and round-trip rail fare to Boulder from any location within a 100-mile (200 km) radius of Fort Worth, Texas.

The first year's six-week program featured no fewer than 94 scheduled speeches, including addresses from the well-known evangelist T. Dewitt Talmadge, the Kentucky orator Henry Watterson, the governors of Colorado and Texas, the mayor of Boulder, and the president of the University of Colorado. Various clergymen also delivered sermons each Sunday.

The Kansas City Symphony Orchestra was in residence for the entire season, and would return many times in future years. They played a sacred concert each Sunday, and incidental music as requested, often several times a day. Various bands, pianists, and vocalists also performed.

Music classes were offered including cello, guitar, mandolin, piano, singing and chorus. The Collegiate Department of the Chautauqua offered 51 different classes in mathematics, chemistry, botany, physics, psychology, education, as well as English, Latin, Greek, French, and German language and literature.

From that first season, the Colorado Chautauqua also presented motion pictures in the Auditorium. The evening program for July 21, 1898, was "Edison's Genuine Projectoscope, Colorscopic Diorama and Wargraph, with Music, reproducing scenes of the war with Spain."

Other activities included burro and horseback rides, hikes to the nearby Flatirons on Green Mountain, stagecoach rides to Boulder Falls and Eldorado Springs, and mountain railway excursions to destinations as far away as Ward.

The activities of the 1898 Chautauqua season were to continue and expand from that date to the 1920s, except for the Collegiate Department, which was largely supplanted by the summer session of the University of Colorado beginning in 1904.

The Electric Street Railway from downtown Boulder to Texado Park was started in late April 1899 and completed on June 24, 1899, ten days ahead of the opening of the second Colorado Chautauqua season. Cars ran every 15 minutes from 6:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., and the fare was five cents.

The first cottages were built in the spring of 1899. At the opening of the second season, between 30 and 40 cottages were available, with the other attenders still residing in tents. Construction of additional cottages continued in later years, although some would stay in tents until 1916.

William Jennings Bryan, the biggest celebrity of the Chautauqua movement, first appeared at the Texas-Colorado Chautauqua on July 12, 1899, drawing a capacity crowd to the Chautauqua Auditorium, with thousands more thronging the adjacent hillsides. The total attendance was about 13,000.

The Academic Hall was constructed in June 1900. Cottages built in 1900 included the Women's Christian Temperance Union cottage, which offered rooms to members at 50 cents per night. The prohibitionist cause was a continuing theme in the early days of Chautauqua lectures, as were women's suffrage, Populist politics, and a nondenominational Christian message of self-improvement.

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