History
“I realized that the story of even so small a place can never be completely told and can never be finished. It is eternal, always here and now, and going on forever.”
Practice Knowing History
Visit the local library. Look for books written about your neighborhood and city.
Meet with city staff. Ask what they know about the history of the community.
Talk with older neighbors. Listen to the stories of those who have lived here for years.
Read and Research. Use online archives to study history. historycolorado.org, coloradohistoricnewspapers.org
(Suggestions from Joel Newton, founder of Edgewater Collective)
The place you call home has a history. The geography where you live has a story. To know your neighborhood begins with the practice of knowing the history of your neighborhood. Learning the history of the place you and your neighbors live is a spiritual practice.
The story of God is the story of God, People, and Place. Geography is at the origin of our spirituality. The Christian faith is rooted in the history of place. Daniel Grothe in his book, “The Power of Place”, points out the importance of place as the first gift in Scripture; and the first curse in Scripture is place-less-ness. From Creation to the Cross to the New Creation the story of God is a story of place.
What is the story of your place? What are the earliest written histories of the land you now live on? What was on the land before homes were built? When was the land developed to the way people live on it today?
The neighborhood I’ve lived in for 23 years is Virginia Vale. It was built in the 1950’s as a post-WWII neighborhood and named after the developer’s wife Virginia. The 180 acres were developed to include 550 homes, a shopping center, a park, and an elementary school. The houses originally cost $15,500, and all 500+ homes were constructed with only four different floor plans.
Before it was annexed by the city as a neighborhood, the land I live on was a dairy farm. Seven dairies were located nearby. In the 1940’s the dairy farming community worked together to make the area family-friendly and actively opposed a saloon opening in the area.
Before the dairy farm, the land was part of the Booth Ranch. Less than a mile from my home is believed to be the oldest standing building in Denver. It was built in 1858, and named Four Mile, as the stagecoach stop located four miles from the center of Denver. The history before the 1850s is sparse. I know the water in Cherry Creek has flowed through this place I call home long before anyone built anything.
The practice of knowing the history of your place is an important reminder of how we form places and how those places form us. Learning the history of your place can provide insight into how and why your neighborhood looks the way it does today. Learning the history is a practice of knowing and loving your neighborhood.
