Milestones Icon: Callahan House

With its painted gables, turreted balcony and immaculately landscaped Italian garden, it’s easy to see why the Callahan House was once one of the premier meeting spots in Longmont.

The couple for whom the house is named – Thomas and Alice Callahan – moved to the area from Missouri in 1889 and opened a dry goods shop on Main Street called The Golden Rule, which they expanded into a chain of general merchandise stores.

Interestingly, it was Thomas Callahan who gave James Cash Penney a start managing one of his stores. Penney eventually purchased three of the Golden Rule franchises, leveraging them…