Milestones Icon: University of Colorado

The University of Colorado at Boulder started with 44 students and three instructors and since has morphed into one of the pre-eminent educational institutions in the world.

Right along Old Main Street, CU was formed in 1876 – the same year the state of Colorado was formally established. As the years passed, the university and the city of Boulder grew – hand in hand.

Today, CU – the state’s flagship university – has more that 24,000 undergraduates, a respected faculty of more than 2,000 and takes up 786 acres in the middle of Boulder. It has produced Nobel Laureates and MacArthur Fellows, and 17 astronauts have been affiliated with the university.

Not only is the University of Colorado a good place to study comparative literature, aerospace or law, but it is also home to some of the prettiest campus architecture in the United States

Two of its buildings, Old Main and Macky Auditorium, put CU on the map of architectural sites to visit while in Boulder.

Old Main, with its distinctive exterior spiral staircase and ginger-bread style rooftops, was the first building on campus, completed on April 18, 1876, a few months before Colorado became a state.

The top floor of Old Main houses the CU Heritage Center, detailing the university’s history through photographs, displays and changing exhibits. The gallery is home to a Nobel Prize, photographs of the first graduates, accounts of notable alumni and reminders of CU’s long history of space research and exploration.

Macky Auditorium is a 2,000-plus seat historic concert hall featuring Gothic architecture and impressive lacy windows. Though it celebrated its groundbreaking in 1909, it wasn’t completed until 1922 due to legal delays.

Macky has hosted a variety of events, including classical music performances, operas, lectures, contemporary artists and films. Many speakers and performers have delighted audiences there, including Itzhak Perlman, Yo Yo Ma, the Dalai Lama, Roger Ebert and Jane Goodall.

Macky Auditorium was named for its donor, Andrew J. Macky, a Boulder pioneer who went on to found First National Bank of Boulder. Although Macky did not have a college education, he believed very much in education and bequeathed $300,000 to the university for the auditorium. At the time, his gift was the second largest ever given to a Colorado university or college.

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