2001 – 9/11 attacks ruptured already leaky economy

BOULDER — In the first nine months of 2001, the helter-skelter, no-holds-barred, venture-capital-rich economic bubble of Boulder County businesses had sprung a serious leak. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the East Coast, the leaky bubble burst.

That kind of story hadn’t been told here since 1984-85, when the county’s high-tech sector almost went belly up and unemployment was hovering at 7.4 percent.

The top story of 2001 really began at the end of 2000, when many local dot-coms announced they were closing their doors. Throughout 2001 more Internet, telecomm and tech-related companies followed suit or announced layoffs. Broomfield’s Level…