Most importantly, we worked with displaced Aurarians throughout the process through the Auraria Historical Advocacy Council. In particular, Sheila Perez-Kindle, Virginia Castro, and the late Frances Torres provided editorial oversight and input to shape the vision of this tour.
The story of the old Westside and the Auraria campus is part of a larger pattern of university-driven displacement and urban renewal across the U.S.: www.humanitiesactionlab.org/renewal-proj...
In 1969, Denver voters approved a bond measure to fund the construction of the Auraria campus (now home to CU Denver, Metro State University, and Community College of Denver). The campus's construction meant the displacement of the existing community and the destruction of their neighborhood. +
In the 1950s and 1960s, the old Westside was a mixed landscape of residential homes, small businesses, warehouses, and factories. St. Cajetan's Church - the first Spanish-language church in Denver - was the spiritual and cultural heart of the community. +
This was a deeply collaborative project. Michelle Comstock, Rachel Gross, and I served as faculty leads, while former students Krista Marks and Indira Saha did research and edited/produced the audio. Sophia Imperioli did initial research and built the first version of our project's website.
+
For decades, displaced Aurarians fought to preserve their history and to gain redress from the schools that had been built on their former neighborhood. Through their work, all three institutions now offer a scholarship for former residents and their descendants. +
Our project was funded by a Humanities Initiative at Colleges and Universities grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. When DOGE cut the final year of our grant in 2025, CU Denver (and Regent Nolbert Chavez) stepped in to get us across the finish line. +
The walking tour unfolds across 11 stops on campus, and weaves together historical narrative with oral history interviews of displaced residents (collected by History Colorado). Across those stops it tells the story of the community, its displacement, and the decades-long aftermath. +
All 11 stops on the tour have a corresponding page on our website with multiple ways to listen (embedded audio, links to Spotify, Apple, etc.), written transcript, map of the stop's location, and photo of where to stand while listening: aurariahistory.org/tour/
🎙️ We're thrilled to release Listening to Auraria's Past, an audio walking tour of Denver's old Westside neighborhood that was razed by the city in the 1970s to build a downtown campus for higher education. This tour tells the story of the displaced community that lived there: aurariahistory.org +
