I was recently browsing an exhibit at the Museum of Boulder with executive director Christopher Taylor when my eyes locked on a 20-inch plexiglass cube and a tattered tube wrapped in red, yellow and green tape. The props belonged to Ibashi-i, who recently passed away and was a longtime fixture of Boulder, performing his “Rastafarian yoga” on the Pearl Street Mall with grand finales that included folding his 6-foot body into the containers—a feat of flexibility that you’d have to see to believe.
In that moment, memories came flooding back to me and I could hear I-bashi’s refrain of “Everyone, everyone look at me!” and “Showtime!” as he contorted himself like a pipe cleaner. The show was one of my favorites as a kid: For a few years in a row, my birthday request was to go to Boulder to watch the street performers—the zip code man, the flamethrowers, the jugglers and, of course, Ibashi-I.
This moment of nostalgia, Taylor tells me later, is an example of the exact type of connection the museum has tried to create for visitors over the last eight decades. “It can tie us all together as a region,” he says.
There’s also the wonder that the museum sparks—the thoughts of, “I didn’t know this happened here” that might arise when you view the exhibit featuring Caribou Ranch, a destination recording studio that welcomed Elton John, the Beach Boys, Chicago, Amy Grant and more. “It’s the Abbey Road of the West,” Taylor says.
In a way, the Museum of Boulder can act as an ambassador for newcomers, too.
“New people come here all the time—whether they’re a student or a tech worker—and they want to find out something about the Front Range community they’re moving to,” Taylor says.
The museum officially turned 80 this year and, in honor of the milestone, here’s a look at the iconic cultural institution’s past, present and future.
The Past: The Boulder Historical Society Gets Its Start
A.A. “Gov” Paddock, former publisher of the Daily Camera, had a penchant for preserving history.
Back in the 1920s and ‘30s, the newspaperman collected stories from community members and gathered items to put on display at the Boulder County courthouse—everything from tea cups to wedding gowns to spurs.
The collection continued to grow and, on Oct. 10, 1944, Paddock along with other community leaders (including Eben G. Fine, aka “Mr. Boulder,”) founded the Boulder Historical Society. The organization has grown over the decades, changing names and moving locations several times. Today, it operates as the nonprofit Museum of Boulder.
One fascinating way to time travel at the museum is through an interactive display that imagines what Boulder would look like today had key decisions been made differently.
For instance, in 1877, Boulder elected to be the home of a university rather than a prison. On the screen, the University of Colorado’s earthy red tile roof that defines aerial shots is juxtaposed with the would-be barbed-wire fences and concrete buildings set among the foothills should Boulder have gone the prison route.
Another point in the timeline imagines what Boulder would look like with high-rise buildings, which are banned by the city’s 55-foot roof limit.
The Present: Telling the Stories of Boulder
These days, the Museum of Boulder has a permanent home just north of Pearl Street at 2205 Broadway and a collection that now numbers 50,000 items, ranging from Olympic sports gear to a horse-drawn sleigh as well as typewriters, mining equipment, weather balloons and more.
Young visitors can let their imaginations run wild in spaces like the Playzeum and the Google Garage.
The Boulder Experience Gallery gives an overview of Boulder’s history, and tells stories of the people, passions and industries that shape the city. The gallery covers the history of Boulder from the earliest days of Native American inhabitants through to present day. Here, you can see highlights that include everything from Boulder’s outdoors prowess (check out the long skirts and lace-up boots women hiked in during the 1890s) to the city’s pioneering natural foods companies and scientific advances, like the building of the Kepler telescope by Ball Aerospace.
The museum’s “Proclaiming Colorado’s Black History” exhibit focuses on themes that include how African Americans built community in the state, as well as business and entrepreneurship, the arts, social justice and civil rights, and afrofuturism.
The exhibit tells the stories of individuals like Dr. Justina Ford, Colorado’s first Black female physician who was known as “the baby doctor” because she delivered 7,000 babies. Learn about Barney Ford, an escaped slave who mined gold in Breckenridge, but left the mountains amid racist threats and went on to start successful restaurants and hotels. Led by lead curator Adrian Miller, the “Soul Food Scholar,” the exhibit will be on display until September 2025.
The Future: Upcoming Exhibits
So, what’s next for the Museum of Boulder?
While the museum held its official 80th anniversary party in October, the museum is looking forward to upcoming exhibits.
They’re starting with one on allyship that will debut in March and honor Clela Rorex, a Boulder County clerk who issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 1975, as well as Penfield Tate II, Boulder’s first black mayor, who served on the council from 1972 to 1976 and was a lead advocate for the LGBTQ+ community.
Other future exhibits include “Boulder Eats,” which will run from November 2025 to June 2026, exploring the region’s culinary and agricultural history, one in 2027 that explores music traditions and another planned for 2027-2028 that focuses on counter-culture, activism and hippies.
