Colorado & Southern train along 8th Street around the 1930s
Courtesy Gardner Family Collection

Golden's first roads were trails blazed by American Indians uncounted years ago, of which South Golden Road continues today. Golden was laid out in the standard grid system popular in the old west, with its first river crossing built by John M. Ferrell at Washington Avenue before the town was even founded in 1859. Highways have included West 44th Avenue and West 32nd Avenue blazed by gold rushers; the Clear Creek Canyon road first built by William A.H. Loveland, with Ensign B. Smith contractor, as a wagon road in 1863; the Golden Gate Canyon Road built by Golden's 2nd Mayor Daniel L. McCleery in 1860; the Lookout Mountain Road built by "Cement Bill" Williams in 1912; Highway 93 built by Golden and Boulder interests starting in 1868; Highway 6 built in the 1940s; the extension of West Colfax Avenue built in 1937 by the Works Progress Administration; Highway 58 built in the 1960s; and Interstate 70 built in the 1970s; and C-470 built in the 1980s. Mass transportation began with stagecoach lines including Wells Fargo, which had a relay station downtown, in 1859. Rail service began in 1870 with the Colorado Central Railroad, continuing with the metropolitan tramway lines of the Denver, Lakewood & Golden down West 13th Avenue (1891) and the Denver & Interurban along West 44th Avenue (1904). The Golden Memorial Airport, an airstrip spearheaded by George Barley, operated during the 1940s. Today the original tramway line built in 1891 is being reconstituted as the West Corridor Light Rail, and due to resume operation in 2013.