Milestones Icon: Chautauqua

On July 4, 1898, more than 4,000 people gathered for the opening day of the Colorado Chautauqua in Boulder.

The Chautauqua movement was an artistic and educational development in the United States Orators, performers and educators traveled a national Chautauqua circuit of more than 12,000 sites, bringing lectures, performers, concerts, classes and exhibitions to people in small towns and cities.

“The citizens in Boulder were very supportive of bringing a Chautauqua here,´ said Susan Connelly, executive director. “I looked in old newspapers and read the civic initiatives. They voted on a bond issue to acquire the land and to build two critical buildings, the auditorium and the dining hall. One hundred and eleven years later, those buildings are still being used for their original purpose.”

The dining hall and community house are open all year, as well as 99 cottages, which have all been winterized. Fifty eight are rentable year round. The auditorium is open May through September. The community house, pavilion, missions house lodge and auditorium are used for group meetings, weddings and business events.

“That’s a big deal,” Connelly said. “Once, there were hundreds of Chautauquas in the U.S. Now perhaps there are only a dozen, but none of those are open year-round.”

The Boulder Chautauqua has been designated as a national historical landmark because most of its buildings have remained intact and are being used as they were originally intended.

The 40 acres of land where Chautauqua is located are owned by the city and have been since Chautauqua was established. The Colorado Chautauqua Association, a 501(c)3, leases 26 acres of land from the city of Boulder on which are situated the auditorium, the dining hall and the academic hall administrative offices.

“This is still a breathing, living, evolving place,” Connelly said. “It’s not a museum. Our focus is to create a sustainable future for the Chautauqua so that it remains relevant to people. We’re just beginning to define what it means to be environmentally friendly and what we’re able to do with that in the confines of a historic preservation practice. But preservation is the ultimate form of a sustainable practice.”

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