History Lost: Louisville’s historic Hecla Casino razed by Balfour Senior Living

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.

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History Lost: The Miller Farm silos

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.

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