Fort Chambers / Poor Farm Management Plan

The City of Boulder is partnering with Tribal Representatives and involving community members to design the interpretive experience at the site along the proposed "Healing Trail," to share history and provide spaces for learning and reflection.

Through March, 2025, the City of Boulder invited community members to share ideas for what stories should be told and interpreted at the Fort Chambers / Poor Farm site. Thank you to everyone who shared their ideas and perspectives online and at the community workshop!

We received many ideas, which are broadly categorized below:

Indigenous Perspectives and Connection to Sand Creek Massacre

• Indigenous history
• Context surrounding injustices to Tribes
• Contemporary Indigenous perspectives
• Exploring Indigenous identities

The Land and Ecosystem at the Fort Chambers/Poor Farm Site

• Nature’s beauty and destruction
• Agriculture and native plants on the site
• History through agriculture on the site

Fort Chambers, Company D, and Connection to Sand Creek Massacre

• History and narrative about Fort Chambers, Company D and the Sand Creek Massacre
• Misinformation and false narratives
• Reinstalling the monument

Poor Farm and Early History of Boulder

• Early settlers
• History of the Queen Anne House/ Poor Farm
• Agriculture

Other Ideas

• Reflection on white privilege / continued benefits to Boulder residents
• Rotating stories/historic focuses at the site
• Native American dance and song/ programming
• Funding, oversight, and insurance
• “Healing” at a different site

A more detailed summary of the input PDF received, and a full compendium PDF, that includes all input are available.

Common threads from the input shared included:

• Historical Acknowledgment: Participants called for transparent storytelling about Company D, the Sand Creek Massacre, and historical misinformation.
• Reflection: Many stressed the need for the site to foster reflection and education around past injustices to Indigenous peoples.
• Indigenous Representation: Participants expressed a desire for the design to prioritize Tribal voices and accommodate Tribal needs.

We look forward to discussing these ideas further with the community and Tribes this summer. In the next engagement opportunity, we will explore what information is most important and desired to share along the trail. Learn more about Engagement Opportunities in the section below and stay tuned for more detailed information on the upcoming engagement opportunity this summer!

The idea for the healing trail was developed in collaboration with the Arapaho and Cheyenne Tribal Representatives and is a key component of the concept plan, a guide for how the city will care for this land.

This planning process is anticipated to take approximately 15-18 months with five engagement windows:

1. Listening and Learning. Goal: Hear all potential experiences and stories people desire for the site.
   
   
2. Identifying Themes & Priorities. Goal: Understand the most important stories to share out (prioritize) and the reasons why.
   
   
3. Identifying a Vision for the Interpretive Experience. Goal: Create a vision for the Healing Trail.  Explore and identify how the stories will unfold along the Healing Trail (i.e.  flow of the interpretive experience and order of themes/stories). Explore potential design features/elements.
   
   
4. Designing the Interpretive Experience. Goal: Understand level of support (or not) and why for a staff/consultant developed draft design(s) including interpretive elements/features to inform the development of a final design.
   
   
5. Finalizing the Interpretive Experience Design. Goal: Finalize and share out the Interpretive Experience design.

The process will involve the community throughout, with engagement windows that include both in person and online options. Sign up for our “Field Notes” e-newsletter to receive the latest updates about this community and Tribal Nation engagement effort!

The city acquired the Fort Chambers – Poor Farm property in 2018 to fulfill open space purposes in the city charter, and it is located near Boulder Creek east of 63rd Street and south of Jay Road. It is currently closed to the public while the concept plan recommendations are being implemented.

This unique property has important historical, ecological and agricultural features. This story map includes details on:

• The history of the area, including historic maps and aerial photographs, to see how the land uses changed over time.
• Information about Fort Chambers, Company D, and a historic marker that was located on the property.
• The Queen Anne Victorian home on the land. The house and the adjacent area are on the National Register of Historic Places. 
• A "poor farm" that Boulder County operated between 1902 and 1918. The county used the "poor farm" to help feed, house and care for older and sick community members, along with people experiencing physical and mental disabilities. 
• The property’s ecological values. Today, it provides habitat for more than 100 wildlife species and 90 plant species PDF. It also has 48 acres of wetlands and open water.
• The land's agricultural uses and agricultural structures, irrigation water and fertile soils that have supported agricultural operations on the land for decades.

In July 2022, Open Space and Mountain Parks staff began collaborating with Tribal Representatives from the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, the Northern Arapaho Tribe and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe to understand their desired long-term relationship with this site. The concept plan provides a broad foundation for how the city – with continuing guidance from Tribal Representatives – will steward land where Fort Chambers likely stood.

The fort was built northeast of Boulder in the summer of 1864 amid exaggerated and false claims of coordinated Indigenous violence that helped fan anti-Indigenous hatred in Colorado during the summer and fall of 1864. In August 1864, more than 100 Boulder-area men mobilized into Company D of the Third Colorado Cavalry Regiment at Fort Chambers.

The men of Company D attacked a Cheyenne camp near present day Sterling (“Buffalo Springs”) on Oct. 10, 1864, killing 10 Cheyenne People. They later participated in the killing of 230 peaceful Arapaho and Cheyenne People at the Sand Creek Massacre on Nov. 29, 1864 – the deadliest day in Colorado history.

Discussion and collaboration with Tribal Representatives led to a concept plan that is based on a shared vision to “Heal the Land; Heal the People” and focuses on these key elements:

• Healing Trail: Create a trail with areas for education, reflection and gathering to foster healing and help the Boulder community acknowledge and communicate its role in the Sand Creek Massacre.
• Ecological Restoration: Heal the land from past ecological disturbances to help sustain the area’s rich natural diversity.
  
• Visitor Access: Enhance visitor access with a new entrance, parking and bus drop-off.
  
• Agricultural and Farmstead Enhancements: Sustain ongoing agricultural operations and conduct restoration of the home and farm structures on the land.

In March and April of 2024, the city and Tribal Representatives  welcomed community feedback on the draft concept plan through an online questionnaire, with 86% of respondents supporting the concept plan and its recommendations.

Last July, the city’s Open Space Board of Trustees recommended the city move forward with the concept plan and include Tribal Representatives and community histories in the development of content for the healing trail and other interpretative elements on the property. Learn more about this unique land and the concept plan.

Read more about OSMP work to fulfill these key elements in a January 2025 memo PDF shared with the Open Space Board of Trustees.

• Contact the project team

The City of Boulder honors Tribal sovereignty and conducts government-to-government consultations with Representatives appointed by elected leaders of Tribal Governments that have historic and enduring connections to the Boulder Valley and share agreements with the city. The city recognizes that Tribal Nations are sovereign governmental entities whose special relationship with the United States is recognized under the Constitution of the United States, treaties, Supreme Court decisions, federal laws and presidential Executive Orders.

Given the land's connection to the Sand Creek Massacre, City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) staff prioritized receiving guidance from Tribal Representatives – including Sand Creek descendants – designated by elected leaders representing the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, the Northern Arapaho Tribe and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe to help develop concept plan. Throughout this project, the city has collaborated with Arapaho and Cheyenne Tribal Representatives to:

• Learn the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, the Northern Arapaho Tribe and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe's desired long-term relationship with the land.
• Understand how best to interpret the land's history and its connection to the Sand Creek Massacre and accurately describe Boulder residents’ role in the massacre. 
• Identify opportunities to incorporate the intergenerational trauma that the Arapaho and Cheyenne Nations have endured from both the colonization of Indigenous lands in the Boulder Valley and the Sand Creek Massacre into Boulder history.

May 2025: A written update PDF was provided to the OSBT to share community ideas for potential stories, perspectives, and experiences people desire for the planned "Healing Trail" at the site.

January 2025: OSMP staff provided the Open Space Board of Trustees with a memo outlining the planned engagement process PDF for designing the interpretative experience along the healing trail included in the Concept Plan. Watch and listen to a OSMP staff presentation at the January 2025 Open Space Board of Trustees meeting.

Previous Open Space Board of Trustees Updates:

• July 10, 2024 PDF
• March 13, 2024 PDF
• Dec. 6, 2023 PDF
• Sept. 13, 2023 PDF
• March 9, 2022 PDF

Read a broad compilation of timeline information that city staff have developed to provide community members context on colonization of Indigenous lands in the Boulder Valley, Fort Chambers, Company D and the Sand Creek Massacre. We ask community members to go beyond our broad overview and take time to learn more about the Sand Creek Massacre by:

• Visiting the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in Eads, Colorado. Take time to reflect on the site, how Boulder community members participated in the massacre and the intergenerational harm it caused for generations of Arapaho and Cheyenne Peoples.
• Going to History Colorado's exhibit, “The Sand Creek Massacre: The Betrayal that Changed Cheyenne and Arapaho People Forever.” History Colorado developed the exhibit with guidance from the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, the Northern Arapaho Tribe and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe.