Two dozen homes manufactured by National Homes were assembled in Lafayette Heights from 1954 to 1958.
An interesting and unique Old Town neighborhood is Lafayette Heights, located west of Public Road and south of Kimbark Street. The neighborhood was established in 1954 and is Lafayette’s first subdivision containing mass-produced homes.
The Hecla Casino pictured about 1911 at the Hecla Mine, located at what is now the northeast side of Louisville, Colorado. Courtesy Lafayette Public Library.
In the last few months, Balfour Senior Living of Louisville, Colorado, demolished and hauled the historic Hecla Casino to the landfill.
The grain silos from Mary E. Miller’s Farm were torn down in 1993. Despite developers’ promises, nothing was ever built at the site where the silos once stood — it’s still a vacant lot in 2018. Photo by the late Jim Hutchison and contained in the 1990 book “Lafayette, Colorado History: Treeless Plain to Thriving City.”
The pressing need to preserve Lafayette’s coal mining and agricultural heritage was kick-started in 1993 after Boulder-based developers J.B. Telleen and Raymond Joyce callously demolished the Miller Farm grain silos, the last remnants of town founder Mary E. Miller’s pioneer farm formerly located on what is today’s Lafayette City Center Circle. At the time, an office park complex known as City Center was planned.
A nondescript garage on the alley of 500 E. Cleveland St. is Lafayette’s first jail and town hall. The building, built about 1894, is 15-feet wide on the gable ends and is constructed of soft bricks that are now covered with stucco. It has a corrugated roof placed on top of cedar shingles. There are anti-splay bolts showing on the exterior near the eaves on the north and south side. Anti-splay bolts are common in brick buildings that are/were showing signs of instability.
An expensive bronze plaque that memorializes the Vulcan mine in Lafayette, Colo. is chock-full of errors.
In 2016, the Peaks at Old Laramie Trail Senior Living residence in Lafayette, Colo. placed a bronze interpretive sign commemorating the Vulcan mine on Coal Creek trail right-of-way about 1/2 mile west of S. Public Road. The plaque reads: