It’s quiet hour at the Colorado Chautauqua, that almost eerie, old-fashioned, two-hour step back through the decades between 1 and 3 p.m. when every summer resident at the vacation community returns to their cabin for a siesta. Some sleep; others play cards or read. The sounds of the mountain meld into a sonorous silence: a combination of faraway chatter, the purr of cars on the curves up Flagstaff Mountain, and the symphony’s tuneful cacophony as it warms up in the historic auditorium for the night’s performance. A tradition at this mountain playground in Boulder for most of Chautauqua’s 126 years—or at least as long as anyone can remember—quiet hour is honored as a sacred practice. “Don’t you dare scream during quiet hour,” says 78-year-old Mary Ann Edson from Beaumont, who has spent summers at Chautauqua since she was a baby. In case someone forgets, a timeless sign stands by the community tennis court as a reminder.
During the summer, at any time of day except quiet hour, a joyful din envelops the time-proved, cottage-peppered Colorado retreat—and much of it wafts through the enclave with a Texas accent. Abundant with Texans who summer at the National Historic Landmark haven beneath the monumental Flatirons (massive red sandstone formations that mottle the mountains), the Colorado Chautauqua lies a half-hour walk from both downtown Boulder and the University of Colorado. It’s part of the hip college town’s identity, a place where hordes of hikers flock each day and a vista residents look toward for their morning moment of zen. But few locals know that the Colorado Chautauqua (and its vast expanse of unspoiled nature) is a product of the Lone Star State—and that it continues to be a beloved summer travel destination for generations of Texans.
I grew up three blocks from the Colorado Chautauqua, on Tenth Street. The landmark venue and its trove of options served as my personal backyard, and it wasn’t uncommon for me to get lost in the trees atop a mountain with a good book—or walk up the hill to hang out with the Texans. I didn’t know it then, but the Texan families who traveled to the retreat every summer were following a tradition established in the nineteenth century. Founded in 1898 as a collaborative project between the University of Texas at Austin, Texas teachers’ associations, the city of Boulder, and the Colorado and Southern Railway, the Texas-Colorado Chautauqua (as it was originally called) was created as a place for Texan educators and other learners of any profession to experience intellectual enrichment and spiritual repose. The founders drew inspiration from the popular nationwide chautauqua trend, which began in New York in the 1870s. So widespread that it had some 12,000 outposts in various communities at its zenith (around 1915), the movement created outdoor retreats—sort of like summer camps for adults—that mixed educational lectures with entertainments such as concerts and vaudeville. Across the nation, chautauqua programs shared a coterie of traveling speakers and performers. Famed orator Williams Jennings Bryan was one—as was my own grandfather for a time.
When educational leaders at the University of Texas sought to start their own summertime chautauqua, they wanted to avoid Texas’s sweltering heat. In search of cooler climes, they looked to Colorado, scouting various locations and proposing partnerships. When Boulder (and the Gulf and Southern railway) offered a package that included the promise of land, infrastructure, utilities, and a railroad track that would run from Texas to northern Colorado, UT couldn’t resist. Boulder lawmakers passed a bond issue posthaste, formed a committee, and bought a mountainside ranch on Boulder’s then-outskirts. With uncanny alacrity, those bygone Boulderites built the auditorium and dining hall in less than two months in preparation for a festive July Fourth opening. More than a hundred tents were pitched for the first season, in 1898, with Craftsman-style cottages erected by Boulderites the following year. Texans came in droves for the opening. They were not only educators, but also Texans of various professions and provenances who learned about the holiday spot via school district propaganda, advertisements, word of mouth, and doctors who hyped Colorado’s healthy, pure alpine air.
By the third season, however, UT had realized an uncomfortable truth—its chautauqua wasn’t making money. Boulder took over ownership, and “Texas” was dropped from the name. But the Texans were hooked—they kept coming, and they’ve never stopped. In the past (as well as today), most visitors rented cottages. But over time, some Texas folks bought homes, and a few built residences when some parcels of land opened up in the 1950s. While the city of Boulder retains possession of the land, many of the dwellings are still owned by the Texas families that built them. Today, eclectic restored cottages hug a crisscross of lanes across the Colorado Chautauqua, edging gardens, grassy knolls and lawns, Arts and Crafts–style common buildings, the renovated auditorium and dining hall, a residents-only tennis court, and hiking paths galore.
Though I joined the Texans in games of dodgeball and kick the can each summer, I can’t recall anybody’s name. Once I started bringing my own children to stay at Chautauqua, I began to recognize neighbors from Austin—and realized how deep the place’s Texas roots ran. Austin-based Grayson Cecil has spent 82 of her 90 summers at Chautauqua; her great-grandfather hauled his family to the original convocation, and for generations, his heirs have followed suit. John “Marc” Greer’s grandmother received her teaching certificate from SMU, studying at Chautauqua for at least one summer. When she married, her husband (from Pittsburg, Texas) asked her where she wanted to honeymoon. She said, as Greer tells it, “I’ve only been one place besides Texas in my life. Boulder—and I loved it. Let’s go to Chautauqua.” For Greer’s family, now five generations in, the rest is history. “I’ve been coming here all of my life. The people we see here each summer are like a second family,” he says, noting that when his father died, the first people the family members called were their “Chautauqua friends.”
As the nationwide chautauqua movement subsided in the 1920s, the Colorado Chautauqua changed gears, leaving much of the educational programming behind. While most other chautauquas around the country shuttered, the Colorado Chautauqua persevered. The Texans, forever loyal, never faltered. They continued to come for the nature, the cooler weather, the slower pace, the cherished traditions built over the years, and the storied camaraderie. The decades after the Jazz Age smacked of simple pleasures: cookouts, hiking, campouts. The dining hall, affectionately known as the Greasy Spoon, served up cheap hamburgers, candy, and suicide snow cones (horrid mixtures of all the flavors that we kids would eat as a challenge).
In the fifties, a Texan from Graham named Edwin Bruce Street, nicknamed “Papacita” by the other Texan regulars, took over the job of unofficial summertime mayor. “He was at the center of everything,” says Cecil, remembering how he’d lead the children on nighttime hikes to Tomato Rock (a twelve-foot-high rock just off Mesa Trail) to share ghost stories, and how he’d marshal tennis tournaments, sort group campouts, and pull lemon drops from bottomless pockets to give to lazy kids who needed sugar to fuel their uphill treks. An icon, not just among Texans but also among Boulderites who understand how he embodied Chautauqua’s community spirit, Street, who died at age 92 in 2005, has a statue in his honor at the top of Kinnikinnick Road, just where a path leads up toward the hiking trails.
When I was growing up in the seventies, I ran with an evolving crowd of rabble-rousing kids who sometimes slowed down long enough to make hollyhock dolls from blossoms during quiet hour. Chautauqua was a Tom Sawyer kind of world, evocatively secure and idyllic—though I’ve seen a bear just off a trail there, but it wasn’t until I was forty years old. I continue to return each summer. Since our family no longer has the Tenth Street house, we stay at Chautauqua in a cottage, where I gleefully recharge and relive my childhood. Things have changed, of course—much for the better. In the old days, the place was simpler and more rustic. We’d watch movies on summer nights in the auditorium, the light seeping through the old building’s cracks, the uncomfortable chairs pinching our behinds. The ancient film releases, whether The Pink Panther, Casablanca, or The Parent Trap (the original one, with Hayley Mills, mind you), are ingrained in my mind. Later, in high school, we’d manage to have keg parties on the huge lawn until we were chased away, play Frisbee for hours on hot afternoons, or simply run up the mountain like carefree wood sprites. Now my children love Chautauqua as much as I do—as do their children. My daughter even got married there on the immense lawn, with the majestic Flatirons as a backdrop. It’s a nostalgic, slow-paced destination that reminds me of what matters in life, one that inspires mindfulness and replenishes my soul. That’s part of the Colorado Chautauqua’s magic. The Texans know that well.
See + Do
A National Historic Landmark, the Colorado Chautauqua vaunts miles of hiking trails, wilderness, wildlife, and the locale’s legendary dining hall, auditorium, and academic hall. The host of the Colorado Music Festival, Chautauqua presents symphonies, speeches, and bands—even barbershop quartets—each summer. The retreat also boasts an “experiences calendar” full of historic walking tours, yoga sessions, and Bollywood dance classes.
Venture outside Chautauqua to explore Boulder, which buzzes with an outdoorsy vibe. A mecca for outdoor enthusiasts, it has hundreds of miles of public hiking and biking trails and 43,000 acres of open space. Hike, explore the canyons, fish, or tube the creeks. Biking reigns here, with more than three hundred miles of bike lanes and plentiful e-bikes for rent. Beyond Boulder Bike Adventures is a well-oiled guiding company for pedal lovers. It rents bikes and offers a variety of hiking and biking tours around town, including happy hour–centric Bike-N-Brews cruises and panoramic jaunts. For hikers, a trip to Boulder Falls, part of gorgeous Boulder Canyon, remains a must.
If you want a more laid-back way to spend your time, meander along the Pearl Street Mall, a multiblock pedestrian expanse downtown with shops, galleries, bars, restaurants, and performers. And don’t miss a summer evening at the acclaimed Colorado Shakespeare Festival, which takes place on the CU Boulder campus from June through August.
For Instagram lovers and art buffs, Boulder celebrates street art with more than a hundred murals, ideal for photo shoots and as endpoints for bike trips. Download the Artivive app and use your phone camera to watch the murals come to life.
Love tea? Celestial Seasonings hails from Boulder, and tea aficionados can take a behind-the-scenes tour at the manufacturing facility. Don’t miss the Mint Room.
Dine + Drink
Long before the Michelin guide included some Boulder restaurants in its Colorado guide and Bon Appétit named Boulder “America’s Foodiest Town,” the city had a reputation for wholesome eating and seasonal cuisine, as well as “food adventures.” Various working farms offer alfresco dinners with wine pairings, unique events that fill up fast.
For more traditional dining, tuck into breakfast lovingly prepared by people I’ve known all my life at the Buff, an institution since 1995. After an early morning hike, sip a 99-cent (on tap) mimosa, Bloody Mary, or tequila sunrise as you gorge on fat, veggie-packed omelets and decadent white chocolate–filled pancakes. The Kitchen American Bistro at the Pearl Street Mall set the city standard for farm-to-table fare two decades ago, while the newer River and Woods, ensconced in a century-old cabin, serves up classic comfort food with gastronomic flair. The Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse, a gift from Boulder’s sister city in Tajikistan (it arrived in pieces to be reconstructed on-site), captivates with its exotic exteriors. The outlet has a unique global menu and its own brand of tea. Finally, the Chautauqua Dining Hall, much fancier than when it was the Greasy Spoon (but still casual enough for hikers wearing mountain gear) welcomes diners for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Shop
With its college-town vibe, animated populace, and understated affluence, Boulder woos shoppers with a range of independent boutiques and galleries—many of them at the Pearl Street Mall and its offshoot streets. Browse classy kitchenware at Peppercorn, or delight your inner child at Into the Wind (a kite and toy store) or Grandrabbit’s Toy Shoppe. Drape yourself in jewelry at Classic Facets, and find that date-night outfit at Cedar & Hyde Mercantile. Stationery buffs will be wowed at Two Hands Paperie, while bibliophiles will find the consummate cure for their passion at Boulder Bookstore. Grab outdoor gear at Neptune Mountaineering.
You can join the epicureans for the see-and-be seen Saturdays (April through November) at the vivacious Boulder Farmers Market. Showcasing only Colorado producers, this hot spot a few blocks from the Pearl Street Mall sells crafts, plants, produce, flowers, artisan creations, and more. Food stands feed the throngs.
Stay
Colorado Chautauqua spreads out across forty acres at the base of the Flatirons, just off Baseline Road at Kinnikinnick Road. Choose from nearly sixty distinctive cottages (and two lodges) with various room configurations, from studios to three-bedroom accommodations. Each cottage features cozy furnishings and a kitchen, and most have screened-in porches. There’s no gym, but the mountain’s just outside your door.
Colorado Chautauqua’s facilities are open to the public, so it’s possible to stay in a variety of hotels or motels around town and still enjoy the park. An upscale option, St Julien Hotel & Spa, sits amid the bustle of the pedestrian-only Pearl Street Mall. It’s beloved for its 10,000-square-foot spa and specialty “adventure concierges,” who pride themselves on their insider info on trails. For a slice of history, check into Hotel Boulderado, pampering guests since 1909. One block away from the Pearl Street Mall, this halcyon-style hotel emits comfortable, vintage vibes. Basecamp Boulder, a contemporary boutique hotel reimagined from an old-school motel, with mountain views and a laid-back ambience, has cool-kid amenities such as a climbing wall and a firepit for s’mores.
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