Coal is the fuel that sparked Lafayette.  Today, after one hundred years the city still has a warm feeling.  A growing community situated in southeast Boulder County, Lafayette, Colorado, is a friendly place with tree-shaded older neighborhoods and bright new developments.  Lafayette once held a much different reputation as a center of violence, strikes and turmoil.
Although it brought unrest and rough times, coal mining was the foundation of Lafayette, luring hundreds of people and turning an agricultural area into a prosperous mining community.  Remnants of the coal mining era can be found today in some of Lafayette’s buildings, residences and the Miners Museum.
Mary Miller, founder of Lafayette, arrived in Colorado from Iowa with her husband, Lafayette, in 1863.  After operating a stage station along the Overland Trail between Denver and Cheyenne at the present Rock Creek Farm, the couple moved to the present site of Lafayette.  They purchased the land and began to farm it.  In 1874 they moved to Boulder.  Lafayette died suddenly in 1878.
Returning to the farm, Mary Miller became interested in the prospect of coal deposits on her property.  Coal had been mined at Marshall, Colorado, since 1859 and it was discovered on Miller’s farm and in 1887 the first shaft was sunk on the land by John Simpson, heralding the start of coal mining in the area.
Included in this one hundred year history volume, written in 1989, are a great many pioneer families with a 2,400 name index.

By The Lafayette Historical Society

Page Count: 394

9x12 Hardcover

First Printing 1989, Reprinted 2025

ISBN: 978-1-68593-253-4