Page 44 - AreaNewsletters "Sept2022" issue

I hope that you enjoyed my August article about Hangman’s Gulch--county lore about a couple of travelers who killed a local homesteader, were tracked down by an impromptu posse and hanged, one near Palmer Lake and the other north of Castle Rock. But is the story true? We may never know, but good commentary was written by Shaun Boyd, a local archivist with the Douglas County Libraries. What’s your conclusion?
Did You Know This About...
Continental Divide Raceways in Castle Rock
by Lora Thomas
Douglas County Commissioner and former State Patrol O cer assigned to Castle Rock in the 1980’s
In August, Castle Rock Town Council approved initial plans for Dawson Trails, a development of over 5800 housing units, 3.2 million square feet of commercial space including a Costco and 750 acres of open space. This location is east of Interstate 25 and south of Territorial Road on the southern end of Castle Rock.
But was anything there before Dawson Trails?
I remember as a young girl riding with my family, going from Denver to Walsenburg to visit my grandparents regularly, and seeing a racetrack on the west side of I-25 near Castle Rock. I remember the sounds...
But let’s start at the beginning.
In December 1955 the local paper announced a $25 million sports center that would include “a world-class 75,000 seat auditorium, a 30,000 seat eldhouse, a lake for water sports, a golf course, a major hotel, an airstrip, and almost as an afterthought, some sort of race track,” to be completed by October 1958 (Racing at Altitude). This impressive plan (for 1955!) was to be built on 1520 acres west of U.S. Hwy 85-87, two miles south of Castle Rock, on land sold by John and Beatrice Lowell for $140,300.
September 2022 • Castle Rock “AreaNewsletters”
In April 1957 the groundbreaking ceremony for the Columbine Sports Center was announced in The Denver Post by the International Land Company even though construction was already underway! The racetrack was started rst, to be followed by a 263-acre earthen dam to create a lake for water sports. But the funds for this ambitious plan never materialized, leaving behind a few dirt roads around the site.
By the spring of 1958 a new organization,
Colorado
Motor
Raceway, Inc. (CMR), took over the 430 acres required for
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CASTLE ROCK HISTORY