Colorful Characters: The evolution of Roosevelt Park

Sometimes a colorful character isn’t a person, it’s a place, specifically a place that has evolved with the community.

Since the 1870s, Roosevelt Park has been the scene of many different activities – from horse racing to rose growing, to serving as an RV gathering spot.  

According to the city’s website, the park was named for President Theodore Roosevelt after his Whistle Stop Tour in 1900, but its existence predates that time.

The park was originally planned by the Chicago Colony, purchased in 1871 at a tax sale and donated to the city about two decades later.¹ Efforts to create the park took place around 1876. 

Originally,the park was named Lake Park because of the lake used as an ice skating rink. Then, nearly as soon as the park was founded, it began to evolve.At the end of the park’s first decade, A half-mile racetrack and barns were built there.² 

According to the Longmont Ledger, a newspaper at the time, “a scheme has been inaugurated among our citizens to fill up the lake at the north end of Terry Street, level it off, and locate a racecourse there. Personally, we have very little use for a racecourse, although anything aside from a slaughter yard would be preferable to that unsightly, filthy, stinking disease breeding frog pond which now occupies the spot." 

In his book, Longmont: the First 150 years, Longmont Museum’s Curator of Research Erik Mason noted the park, in the 20th century, became home to one of the community’s signature events, The Boulder County Fair. The fair began in1915, partially due to the success of the wildly popular Pumpkin Pie Days, which, in 1913, drew 17,000 people to Thompson Park.  

While much of the first fair experience was staged in tents, the inaugural event made good use of the newly built arboretum building which could hold a thousand guests plus offices and indoor toilets. ²

A decade and a half later, during the Great Depression, the park became a haven for residents experiencing hard times as they could escape their situation by enjoying temporary entertainment. The park also became a center of entertainment as jitney dances and other musicians were drawn to stage performances there. Between 1930 and 1937, it featured the Spanish-American Club’s Cinco de Mayo fiestas until “an event, tinged by racial overtones, caused them to be halted.”² While halted by the pandemic, the city of Longmont Multicultural Action Committee has used Roosevelt park in past years to continue the Cinco de Mayo festivities. 

The Rose Garden is another, more recent, addition to Roosevelt Park. First planted in 1945, the garden was moved to the west side of the park in 1951. 

The relocation of the garden coincided with the opening of the St. Vrain Memorial Building, which hosts year-round fitness activities.² 

In the latter half of the 20th century the park once again evolved, this time evolving into the park Longmont residents know today. The Senior Center was built in 1976 and expanded two decades later. Along with the expansion, the park underwent another redesigning period, this time to include  The Roosevelt Activity & Wading Pool, the St. Vrain Memorial Building, the Rose Garden and a multi-use pavilion that hosted concerts, events, and the current winter ice skating pavilion for families.¹

Along the way, Roosevelt Park was the scene of some unexpected events. The Red Dale Roundup took place there in the late 1960s as a gathering of Red Dale RV owners. It was so successful that, in its first year, it hosted more than 150 trailers in Roosevelt Park, and only expanded from there.²

The Red Dale Company left Longmont in the 1970s, and over time, the event moved around the country. RV owners take part in organized hobby clubs and meet when they can. In addition to events and activities, the park has been home to art displays, making it more welcoming. Longmont’s Art in Public Places placed two sculptures in the area. 

Near the Senior Center sits the Heart to Hand, sculpted by A. Joseph Kinkel in 1996. The piece depicts the bonds that are possible across the generations.¹ 

A second, more whimsical work, became a fanciful series of sculptures about fictional Longmont resident Miranda G. Raffe, who was present during Roosevelt’s famous visit.⁴

Through the decades, the events, community connections and physical development of the park has spanned a range of activities and interest levels. However, in each moment one aspect of the park is consistent, it brings residents together.

As Mason succinctly explained, “Roosevelt Park has been where Longmont has gone to have fun, but it’s character has changed many times to meet the needs of a growing community.”