{"id":397,"date":"2026-06-15T06:03:03","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T06:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bouldermovingguide.com\/?p=397"},"modified":"2026-06-15T06:03:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T06:03:03","slug":"the-mystery-of-pearl-street-nobody-knows-how-boulders-most-famous-street-got-its-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bouldermovingguide.com\/?p=397","title":{"rendered":"The mystery of Pearl Street: Nobody knows how Boulder\u2019s most famous street got its name"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

As Boulder gears up for next year\u2019s 50th anniversary celebration of the Pearl Street Pedestrian Mall, now is a good time to reflect on Pearl Street\u2019s past. In a series of articles to be spread throughout the year, we\u2019ll go back in time and view the thoroughfare that still defines the heart of downtown Boulder.<\/p>\n

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A small group of gold prospectors arrived in what would become Boulder\u00a0in October 1858. The gold-seekers set up cabins and tents along Boulder Creek, then their settlement\u00a0grew into\u00a0a\u00a0supply\u00a0town\u00a0for miners in the mountains.\u00a0In February 1859, one of the men, A. A. Brookfield, wrote a letter to his wife Emma, back home in eastern Nebraska. He stated, \u201cWe thought that as the weather would not permit us to mine, we would lay out and commence to build what may be an important town.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That same month,\u00a058 prospectors (including Brookfield) signed the\u00a0\u201cArticles of Organization of the Boulder City Town Company,\u201d requesting a charter from the governor of Nebraska Territory. (At the time, Nebraska Territory extended west through the Boulder area and encompassed land north of the 40th parallel, now Baseline Road.)<\/p>\n

The early settlers were not surveyors. One of the charter signers simply drove a\u00a0stick into the center of today\u2019s intersection of 12th (now Broadway)\u00a0and\u00a0Pearl\u00a0streets.\u00a0Then, to determine a straight line for Pearl Street, he sighted across the stick to Valmont Butte to the east. The rest of the streets in the \u201coriginal town\u201d were laid out in a southwest-to-northeast orientation, parallel to and perpendicular to Pearl Street.<\/p>\n

No one in modern times seems to know why\u00a0Boulder\u2019s first settlers\u00a0chose the name \u201cPearl.\u201d Several theories have been proposed, including that the street was named for early Boulder resident Hannah Pearl England, but she had no connection with Boulder until the 1870s. A more likely speculation (without an explanation) was suggested in 1944 by a\u00a0longtime Boulder resident who wrote in a letter to a newspaper editor, \u201cThe name of Pearl Street was given in honor of the wife of one of the organizers of the town.\u201d Perhaps so, but which one? No one knows.<\/p>\n

In December 1859, ten months after Boulder\u2019s founding, the town\u2019s population had grown to 200 men and 17 women. Only one cabin had a wooden floor, which was put to good use for the frontier town\u2019s first Christmas dance.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Between 1860 and 1880, Boulder grew from 300 to 3,000 people. Its wooden sidewalks and dirt streets looked like those in films of the old West. Unlike the Hollywood versions, however, there was little crime and no reported gunfights. Drunks, though, were a common sight.<\/p>\n

At the time, little was done to improve the streets.\u00a0Early Boulder resident William Burger once wrote, \u201cAfter rains\u00a0or\u00a0melting snows, Pearl Street was deep in mud. In\u00a0summer\u00a0it\u00a0was deep\u00a0with\u00a0dust,\u00a0and\u00a0the streets\u00a0were\u00a0thick\u00a0with\u00a0droppings\u00a0from horses and mules, and millions upon millions of flies abounded everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Architecture left something to be desired, as well. Likely, the town\u2019s residents smarted from Englishwoman Isabella Bird\u2019s comment on a then-recent visit to Boulder when she wrote that the town was \u201ca hideous collection of frame houses on the burning\u00a0plain.\u201d\u00a0The only trees in the early days were boxelders and willows that grew wild along the creeks.<\/p>\n

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Colorado was granted statehood in 1876. Six years later, on the Fourth of July in 1882, a local newspaper reporter commented on the holiday. \u201cIt was ushered in by all manner of shooting and noises,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthe youth of the city having ample opportunity to vent their fiery patriotism and to spend their money to an extravagant extent.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That same day, crowds witnessed the laying of the cornerstone for the Victorian-era Boulder County Courthouse. (Following a fire in 1932, the building was torn down and replaced with today\u2019s Art Deco-style courthouse.)<\/p>\n

By the 1880s, additional buildings of brick and stone had begun to replace downtown Boulder\u2019s rough wooden structures, bringing a look of permanency to Pearl Street.<\/p>\n

Along with dry goods and other merchandise, trees were shipped in by train. Downtown, the whole city block known as \u201ccourthouse square\u201d was lined with maple saplings. As they matured, they provided beauty and shade for shoppers and visitors. Horses pulling wagons and carriages eagerly drank from city-provided water troughs.<\/p>\n

At night, downtown visitors carried lanterns or hung them on their carriages. By 1888, the city had provided three carbon arc lamps that ran on electricity generated by a small power plant located on the northwest corner of Spruce and 13th Street, now the location of the Hotel Boulderado.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By the end of the 19th century, Pearl Street had become a busy mix of pedestrians and horse-drawn vehicles. Open irrigation ditches ran along both sides of the still-dirt street, but permanent buildings of brick and stone had replaced the older wooden structures. Boulder had grown from a dusty frontier town into a still dusty, but established, small city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As for the Brookfields, A. A. spent his last days in the Colorado State Hospital (then referred to as \u201cthe insane asylum\u201d) in Pueblo. Hopefully, he\u2019s resting peacefully today, next to Emma in Boulder\u2019s Green Mountain Cemetery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Perhaps one of the other 57 founders had a wife named Pearl.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gold prospectors first arrived in 1858, with Boulder’s “original” streets mapped by 1910. 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