Historic Preservation Planning

Historic Preservation Plan - Accepted December 3, 2024

The Historic Preservation Plan was accepted by City Council at the December 3, 2024 regular Council meeting. More information on the draft Plan can be found below.

You may review the executive summary of the HPP by using this link. [PDF/3.2MB]

You may review the accepted and final HPP by using this link.

El Plan de Preservación Histórica fue aceptado por el Ayuntamiento en la reunión ordinaria del 3 de diciembre de 2024. Puede encontrar más información sobre el borrador del Plan a continuación.

Puede revisar el resumen ejecutivo del HPP mediante este enlace. [PDF/3.2MB] Solamente el resumen ejecutivo fue traducido al español.

Historic Preservation Plan

Project Background

To guide future and on-going historic preservation efforts, the city of Thornton has accepted the Historic Preservation Plan (HPP) as a guiding document of Thornton’s Comprehensive Plan. The Historic Preservation Plan provides a short and long-term vision of what preservation means to the community. The Plan is used to guide and align public and private investments in Thornton's historic landmarks with the shared vision and values of the community, and to provide policy direction on how to best preserve Thornton's history and cultural landscapes. The HPP establishes goals, major strategies, recommended surveying actions to identify historic properties, and key policies related to Thornton's historic landmarks to ensure preservation of historic buildings and landscapes across Thornton.

You may view a mapping presentation of Thornton's Historic Places of Interest by using this link.

The Thornton Historic Preservation Plan provides:

A broad overview and a start to a historic context study of Thornton.
Historic preservation goals and priorities generated through community outreach.
A prioritized and phased list of recommendations for further research and project development, including specific historic context studies and historic resource surveys to undertake.
Recognition of Thornton's historic character and cultural landscapes to support Thornton's work to enhance its sense of place.

Thornton incorporated as a municipality in 1956, around the time of a big regional population boom occurring post-World War II. This project will also consider the history prior to Thornton's incorporation. Prior to incorporation, most of the land served as unincorporated agricultural land or small rural railroad towns, such as Eastlake. Further, prior to settlement and the Colorado Gold Rush, the Thornton area was home to several Native American tribes.

To better understand Thornton's history and cultural landscapes, it is important to identify specific areas of historic context to better understand how to make decisions about the identification, evaluation, registration, and treatment of historic properties (for example: Mid-century Modern Architecture). Information about historic properties representing aspects of history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture must be collected and organized to define these relationships. This organizational framework is called a historic context. The historic context organizes information based on a cultural theme and its geographical and chronological limits. The following documents represent specific historic context in Thornton:

Original Thornton Pattern Book [PDF/74.7MB]

View the Eastlake Historic Buildings Survey [PDF/1.3MB]

Historic Preservation Documents of Interest

Historic Recognition

Community recognition of Thornton's history and heritage creates a sense of belonging, pride, and identity. Identification and preservation of buildings and structures from the city's history help make Thornton a special place. In December 2012, City Council adopted the "Historic Recognition Code" which is Chapter 19 of the Thornton City Code to provide a procedure for officially recognizing historic sites, structures, and districts within the city.

Like many suburbs built after 1950, Thornton's history as a city begins at its agricultural roots in the late 1800s and early 1900s, long before its incorporation as a municipality in 1956. This history extends through the original post-WWII subdivisions into the extraordinary population growth of recent decades. Structures built before the early 1960s are now older than 50 years and could be eligible for listing in the state and national register of historic places. Thornton's Historic Recognition Code provides a mechanism for nominating these structures for local historic designation.

Historic Recognition Code