A Village Within Boulder

Boulder’s Chautauqua is more than meets the eye

By Brad Weismann

Thank you, Texas!

In 1897, a large group of Texas educators sought out a temperate Colorado location to conduct a summer school and lecture series far away from the heat and humidity of home. The Texas-Colorado Chautauqua Association was incorporated, and the search began. The group chose Boulder, and the city leased 75 acres to the organization at the foot of Boulder’s distinctive Flatirons. 

The association built a cavernous wooden auditorium and a dining hall (which still serves breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week). On July 4, 1898, the Colorado Chautauqua was born and offered 51 classes and scheduled 94 lectures. Chautauqua showed early, crude silent films, perhaps projected for the first time in Colorado history. The Kansas City Symphony Orchestra played concerts, and the venue hosted music lessons and slates of Sunday sermons.

The first-year attendees had to walk a mile and a half uphill to the site from the Boulder railroad station. They summered in tents. 

“I think one year after that—the very next year—they started building cottages,” says Liza Purvis, director of marketing and communications for the Colorado Chautauqua Association, which celebrates its 127th season this year. Tent-building persisted until 1916.

Although its prime Boulder real estate has dwindled to 26 acres, the Chautauqua complex contains many features, some of which may be unfamiliar to the casual visitor and even the long-time resident. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006, this iconic locale has been preserved in its turn-of-last-century quiet, green, pastoral quaintness. Many may not know that the Chautauqua Association still owns a substantial number of properties on the site and rents them out to visitors and locals alike. 

“We now have a mix of nearly sixty cottages and several larger lodges for either short- or long-term stays,” Purvis says. “It is remarkable that people have been coming to stay with us for generations. Their parents have been coming to stay in the cottages, and then they brought their children; their children are bringing their children. And for them, Chautauqua is the destination, even more so than Boulder. It’s a special, beloved place for these families.” The location, just minutes from downtown Boulder, offers visitors a link to nature and easy access to top-notch shopping and dining.

The centerpiece of the site is still the auditorium. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, it can hold more than 1,000 people and host dozens of concerts and film screenings each summer and into early fall. The incredible venue has hosted such speakers as William Jennings Bryan (13,000 turned out to hear him speak there in 1899) and bands such as John Philip Sousa’s. This year, it will host musical performers as diverse as Gillian Welch, Steve Earle, Dave Mason and Ani DiFranco.

The Colorado Music Festival, an ad hoc gathering of classical musicians for five weeks of intense music-making in July and August, has called the auditorium home since 1978. Additionally, a popular silent-film series continues each summer, presented with live musical accompaniment by local luminaries, pianist Hank Troy and multi-instrumentalist Rodney Sauer and his Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

“The auditorium is still the original structure,” Purvis says. “And that’s extremely special. But if you’ve been in the auditorium, you can see the light coming through, and in the summer, that’s what brings nature into the experience. Many of our guests find it amazing to be in that space; it’s such a special barn-like space. But of course, once you get to mid-October, it’s starting to get cold.”

By that time of the year, the focus at Chautauqua moves to the adjacent (and heated) community house, a sturdy structure built in 1918. Its more intimate confines can hold up to 120.

“The community house is known as Chautauqua’s living room,” Purvis says. It hosts concerts, small films and talks, plus private events, including bar mitzvahs, office parties and corporate meetings. 

If you’ve ever driven to Chautauqua, you know parking is at a premium. Such is the high-traffic love for the place. Purvis notes that Chautauqua records two and a half million visitors a year, and during the summer, handy shuttles from nearby New Vista High School transport visitors up that steep mile-and-a-half incline. 

“It’s important for people to know that every concert ticket, every meal at the dining hall, every ice cream at the General Store, every lodging stay, all of that those funds are going into preserving and protecting the buildings, the grounds and the programming that we put on, year-round,” Purvis says. It’s how the lovely little village preserved amid Boulder still serves as a hub of culture and community.