Castle Rock

Castle Rock is its own town and the seat of Douglas County, about 28 miles south of downtown Denver and 37 miles north of Colorado Springs. I-25 runs through it, and Castle Pines and The Pinery are its neighbors to the north. The 2020 census counted 73,158 people, up from 48,231 in 2010.

Rhyolite and a donated townsite

Stone built the place: rhyolite quarries ran here through the late 1800s and early 1900s. Jeremiah Gould gave 120 acres for the townsite in 1874, laid out on six streets: Elbert, Jerry, Wilcox, Perry, Castle and Front. Castle Rock incorporated in 1881 and became the county seat. The old railroad depot is now the town's history museum.

Wilcox, Perry and the original downtown

Those first streets are still the core of downtown. Some early buildings are made of local rhyolite, and three are on the National Register, including the depot and a former hotel. The hotel holds Castle Café at 403 Wilcox, one of downtown's longest-serving restaurants, where the made-to-order pan-fried chicken made Westword's 2016 list of the best fried chicken in metro Denver. Expect a wait at dinner. At 210 Third Street, Scileppi's at the Old Stone Church serves Italian food inside an 1888 stone Catholic church that has housed a restaurant since 1969.

If an older house near downtown is on your list, ask the town whether it carries a historic designation before you plan exterior work.

The Meadows and the subdivisions around it

Most of Castle Rock is a century younger than downtown. The Meadows, along the Rampart Range, is a master-planned area of 30 separately named neighborhoods, from Briscoe Ranch to Feathergrass, linked by 24 miles of trails and 1,100 acres of parks and public land, including the East Plum Creek Trail.

A lot of the newer housing sits inside metro districts, taxing entities separate from the town that finance public improvements for the property owners in them. The Meadows alone is split across several, and Castle Oaks and the Villages at Castle Rock have their own. Ask for the district's mill levy on any house you're weighing, since it lands on your property tax bill.

Water shapes the newer streets too. Only about a third of the supply is renewable, and much of the rest is pumped from the Denver Basin aquifers. New developments can't plant turf grass in front yards, and landscaping has to be low-water. If a green front lawn matters to you, look at resale houses rather than new builds.

The rock, Challenge Hill and Castlewood Canyon

The butte was donated to the town in 1936, and WPA workers built a star on top that same year. It's lit at Starlighting, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and stays on until the National Western Stock Show ends in January.

Philip S. Miller Park opened in 2014 on 300 acres, about a mile west of I-25 on Plum Creek Parkway, with an activity complex, a privately run zip line and 8 miles of singletrack. Challenge Hill is the one people talk about: 200 steps gaining about 190 feet, a pocket version of the Manitou Incline. South of Franktown, Castlewood Canyon State Park has 12 miles of trail along Cherry Creek's cliffs and the remains of an 1890 dam that burst in 1933.

Getting to Denver without RTD

Castle Rock isn't part of the Regional Transportation District. Voters opted out in November 2005, so there's no bus or light rail into Denver, and the commute means driving. I-25 is the main route, and Highway 86 becomes Founders Parkway before it ends at I-25.