Arvada Ridge Station to Olde Town Arvada Station: A walk through the 'hoods

ducks are pairing up now...

and showing off. The fountain at Arapahoe at Village Center was host to these two when I went through on the way to the G Line. It's March and we could still have snow. Some of our deepest accumulations since I've been in the Denver area have been in April. But any break in the cold brings all the birds out .

The art installation at Arvada Ridge station by Norman Lee and Shane Allbritton is called "Chromatic Harvest". It emphasizes the historical importance of agriculture to the area. Like the lenticular "animation" once popular on cereal boxes and trading cards (made possible by a special illustration overlain by a striated lens coating) this image shifts between two scenes as one walks by.

Wheat Ridge, of course, was named for the wheat once grown there (and the northern ridge of Clear Creek Valley where it is situated), and Arvada was once known as the "Celery Capital of the World". There's very little of that to see on the G Line. The art is there, though, on the parking level of the Arvada Ridge station. You can't see it from the platform.

Most of my hike was through residential neighborhoods around Ridge Road. Here's a shot of one of the big commuter trains that serve the area.

A sign that I was nearing the end of my short hike, this water tower marks a "slice of small town America" called "Olde Town Arvada". Technically, a large area of the northwest Denver Metro area is Arvada, Colorado but there area parts of the region that are more recognizable as a town ..here and to the north near Broomfield. Sometimes it's hard to tell if it's Arvada, or Westminster, or maybe Lakewood.

Anyway, Olde Town is the only actual tourist attraction on the G Line. It's intended to capture the atmosphere of "turn of the century" (I assume early 20th Century) Main Street America. With the diverse shops and proximity to the railroad station, it does seem to draw people. I've never been there when there weren't kids playing in the street (The main street is barricaded against traffic) and folks eating outside the restaurants.

To maintain it's purpose as a historical site, there are interpretive plaques placed around that explains the importance of gold, agriculture, and the railroad for the region.

The train station itself looks pretty modern.

There's also the only public restroom I've found on the G Line at the station (except for the restrooms at Union Station.)

I ate a massive roast beef sandwich at Lloyd's and visited Scrumptious for a milk shake (there are a lot(!) of places to eat at Olde Town Arvada) and then waited for the train.

There are very few places on Earth that hasn't been touched by humanity and they all have bragging rights. Arvada holds the distinction for once being the Celery Capital of the World and the site of the first gold strike in Colorado. What is your area proud of and how do they show it?

Place names have meaning to people (if it's only "my home town"). Arvada was originally named Ralston Point for the person who made the first gold strike but was renamed Arvada after Hiram Arvada Haskin, brother-in-law of the settler Mary Wadsworth, wife of Benjamin Wadsworth, first postmaster of the area after which Wadsworth Boulevard was named. The town was renamed to distinguish it from all the other places named after Rolston.  Where did your town (or region) get it's name?

I'll get to look at that site of the first gold strike in Colorado on the next hike and there'll be a lot of Rolston.