City welcomes additional input for interpretative experience at Fort Chambers / Poor Farm site

The City of Boulder invites community members to provide input on what on-the-ground features (such as signage, art and seating) are desired for visitors to learn, reflect and share information about the city's Open Space and Mountain Parks Fort Chambers / Poor Farm site - which has a direct connection to the Sand Creek Massacre.

This opportunity builds on earlier community input. First, community members shared potential ideas, stories and perspectives for interpretation. Later, they weighed in on the importance of representing these diverse perspectives along a new 'Healing Trail' that will be developed on the site. Now, the city invites community members to share input on what on-the-ground features are desired to represent information and support visitors in learning and reflecting along the trail.

The city will use community input to help develop a draft design of the interpretive experience along the healing trail, including educational elements and features. In a fourth community-engagement phase, we will invite community members to provide feedback on-and indicate their level of support for-the draft design of the Healing Trail.

Please join us to share your input:

• Community Workshop:  Monday, Sep. 22, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Open Space and Mountain Parks Hub, 2520 55th St., Boulder. Community members will discuss ideas and preferences for the Healing Trail design.

• Online Questionnaire: Available Sept. 22 through Oct. 5, 2025.
  

Fort Chambers and the Sand Creek Massacre
The planned 'Healing Trail' is a key feature of a land stewardship plan for the Fort Chambers / Poor Farm site developed in collaboration with Arapaho and Cheyenne Tribal Representatives. The plan's vision: Heal the Land; Heal the People, includes multiple elements to support ecological health, agriculture, education, understanding and well-being.

This land is the likely site of Fort Chambers, constructed by community members in the summer of 1864. From mid-August to mid-September of that year, Boulder County men mobilized into Company D of the Third Colorado Cavalry Regiment at the fort and later participated in the Sand Creek Massacre. Before the massacre, on Oct. 10, 1864, Company D attacked a Cheyenne camp near present-day Sterling (then called "Buffalo Springs"), killing four Cheyenne women, three men, two babies and one boy.

A detailed story mapprovides background on the land's additional historical, ecological and agricultural features.

More information about this project and upcoming engagement opportunities can be found on the city website.