Step back in time with the
23rd Annual Walker Ranch Special Event, September 21 and 28, 2008
Event highlights
Every September, Parks and Open Space hosts an annual special event
that takes visitors back in time at the Walker Ranch Homestead. Bring your family and friends to learn
more about ranch life in the 1880s!
At each Annual Walker Ranch Special Event, costumed men, women and
children demonstrate life on a working western ranch. Men hew logs, plow
fields with Belgian Draft horses, demonstrate calf roping and tend
livestock, make iron tools in the blacksmith shop, and split shingles to
repair roofs. Women stock the root cellar, churn butter, do laundry with
a washboard wringer, mend clothing, stuff sausage and cook dinner on a
wood-burning stove.
 Visitors of all ages are welcome to help with some of the ranch
chores. You'll be invited to make wooden shingles, churn butter, and
wash laundry using only a tub, washboard, soap and wringer. In addition
to helping with chores, children visiting the ranch can play historical
games and learn how to rope a calf using a training dummy just like real
aspiring cowboys use.
Homestead tours are offered every hour on the day of the events, from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm.
Barn dances will take place on both Sunday afternoons beginning at 1:00
pm when visitors can hear historical music and learn historical dance
steps.
A vintage baseball game is also played.
You'll learn about the different base ball rules that existed in the
1880s, including the one-bound rule which allowed ballists (players) a
chance to get to the ball without having to dive for it since a ball
caught on one bounce was an out.
The event is free and reservations are not required. Dogs (except
service dogs) and
bicycles are not permitted on the ranch site; bicycles must remain in the
parking lot. Concessions are not provided, but visitors can enjoy
picnic sites at the Walker Ranch open space nearby. Please bring
drinking water.
Donations from Great Harvest Bread Company (bread) and Longmont Dairy
(cream to make butter) help sponsor this special event.
Walker Ranch
retains much of its original character. James Andrew and Phoebe Fidelia
Walker filed a homestead claim on the original site in 1882 and built it
into one of the largest cattle ranches in this region of Colorado. James
Walker was a Missouri farmer and veteran of the Civil War, who on orders
from his doctor, came to Colorado in 1869 to recover from an illness,
probably tuberculosis. Three generations of the Walker family lived at
the ranch before Boulder County purchased the property in 1977. Walker
Ranch is one of Colorado's largest single-site listings on the National
Register of Historic Places. Listed as a 'Historic Cultural Landscape,'
the ranch reflects a distinct story of how men, women and children
impacted the western frontier and how they were changed by it.
For more information about Summer Days at Walker Ranch Homestead or
the Annual Special Event, please call
(303) 776-8848.
Parking for the Special Event will be in a
designated field near the Homestead, accessed of Flagstaff Road, about
7½ miles west of Baseline Road in Boulder.
Walker Ranch can be accessed from
either the Meyers Homestead Trailhead on the west side of Flagstaff Road,
or the Walker Ranch Loop Trailhead on the east side of Flagstaff Road,
about 7½ miles west of Baseline Road from Boulder. The Walker Ranch Loop
can also access the via Eldorado Springs State Park to the south. The
gates to the homestead close at 4:00 pm sharp, so arrive at least an
hour before then.
Walker Ranch
Kiosk Maps are available on the Walker Ranch information page.
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