Beaver Brook Watershed
The Beaver Brook Watershed lies roughly four miles west of Bergen Park along Squaw Pass Road (Highway 103). In the late 1800s, Beaver Brook was used mostly for ranching and logging. As the City of Golden grew in the early 20th century, citizens began looking to the mountains as a source of water. The city acquired the Beaver Brook Watershed, but by 1996 no longer needed it. Wanting to preserve the scenic and wildlife resources, MALT began working with Golden and several local, state and federal agencies to find a way to protect the land.
In 1998, MALT and the U.S. Forest Service developed a strategy for the federal agency to acquire the property over a period of several years. This plan called for nearly 6,000 acres to be preserved as open space for public use. It also meant that MALT and its partners would need to raise more than $21 million to buy the land from the City of Golden. Over the next seven years, MALT, with the enthusiastic bipartisan support of Colorado’s Congressional delegation, led an intensive campaign to secure federal funding for the project. A complex set of negotiations resulted in most of the land being added to the adjoining Arapaho National Forest. The remainder was acquired by Clear Creek County Open Space using a $5.2 million loan from Great Outdoors Colorado, a state lottery-funded entity, and money provided by Jefferson County Open Space and MALT.
