Arvada

Arvada is its own home rule city on the west side of the metro, mostly in Jefferson County with a slice in Adams County. Westminster borders it to the north, Wheat Ridge to the south and Denver to the east, and it reaches west to the edge of Rocky Flats, about 39.6 square miles in all. Olde Town is the historic downtown.

A gold find on Ralston Creek, then celery

On June 22, 1850, a Georgia prospector named Lewis Ralston pulled about a quarter ounce of gold out of the creek that now carries his name, near where it meets Clear Creek. That spot is Gold Strike Park today. The Colorado Central Railroad laid track through in the summer of 1870, and on December 1 that year Benjamin Wadsworth and Louis Reno platted a townsite beside it. The name honors Hiram Arvada Haskin, Mary Wadsworth's brother-in-law. Farms around town grew Pascal celery that was shipped as far as the White House. Arvada incorporated in 1904.

Olde Town and the blocks beside it

The downtown historic district covers 15.1 acres between Ralston Road and Grandview Avenue, from Yukon to Teller, and went on the National Register in 1998 with 42 contributing buildings. Walk it and you'll pass the 1903 First National Bank of Arvada at 7530 Grandview, the red-brick A.L. Davis Block from 1916 at 5600 Wadsworth, older houses tucked between storefronts, and the oldest Grange hall in the state.

Rheinlander Bakery has been turning out European pastries since 1963 and was Westword's best store in Olde Town back in 2008. School House Kitchen and Libations fills a two-story former school on Olde Wadsworth, with more than 2,000 whiskies and a rooftop patio. A few doors away, New Image Brewing is known for its hazy New England-style IPAs.

The single-family streets next to downtown include the Reno Park Addition, a historic district with its own design guidelines. Any change inside the Olde Town district or zone needs a Certificate of Compliance with the Olde Town Design Guidelines before construction starts. If you're buying near Grandview with an addition in mind, build that review into your plans.

Post-war ranches, then Candelas

Most of Arvada is much younger than its downtown. The city had 2,359 people in 1950, 19,242 in 1960 and 49,844 by 1970, and Colorado's first supermarket opened at 57th and Webster in 1947. Alta Vista and Allendale are two of the ranch-house subdivisions from those years, so expect a lot of one-story ranches on the streets from that era.

Way out in the northwest corner, Candelas sits north of Highway 72 between Highway 93 and Indiana Street, with its whole northern edge along the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge. Two metro districts, Cimarron and Vauxmont, cover Candelas. Vauxmont handles landscaping, parks, design review and covenant enforcement, and its mill levy is capped at 50 mills (a mill is $1 per $1,000 of assessed value). Ask for both districts' current levies before you make an offer, because they land on top of the regular tax bill. Rocky Flats itself was a plant that made nuclear weapon triggers from 1952 to 1992 before it became a refuge.

Ralston Creek, Two Ponds and the Arvada Center

The Ralston Creek Trail starts at the Clear Creek Trail and follows the creek upstream about 14.5 miles to Tucker Lake and the Arvada Reservoir. On the way it passes Gold Strike and North Jeffco parks and crosses a suspension bridge near I-70 and Sheridan. Two Ponds National Wildlife Refuge is 72 acres right in town and free to enter. The Arvada Center, at 6901 Wadsworth, has two indoor theaters, an outdoor amphitheater and three galleries.

Getting to Denver

Wadsworth Boulevard is the main north-south road, with Kipling Street farther west, and I-76 starts at I-70 in Arvada. Highways 72 and 93 cover the northwest side. RTD's G Line commuter rail stops three times in Arvada (60th & Sheridan/Arvada Gold Strike, Olde Town Arvada and Arvada Ridge) on its 11.2-mile run to Union Station, with trains every 30 minutes.