On a sunny morning two years ago, a group of state officials stood in the mountains of northwestern Colorado in front of a handful of large metal crates. With a small crowd watching them, the officials began to unlatch the crate doors one by one. Out of each came a gray wolf — arguably the nation’s most controversial endangered species.
Colorado
10 Fun Facts About Boulder, Colorado—Sundance Film Festival’s New Home
Boulder, Colorado will host Sundance Film Festival beginning in 2027.
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It’s official: Sundance Film Festival is moving to Boulder, Colorado in 2027 after its more than four-decade residency in Park City, Utah where actor and director Robert Redford launched the internationally renowned festival.
Boulder beat out other bidding cities including Cincinnati and Salt Lake City to become the host destination for the festival that’s intentionally held outside of Hollywood in an effort to promote independent and up-and-coming filmmakers.
So, why Boulder?
BOULDER, CO – MARCH 27 : Gov. Jared Polis celebrated Sundance Film Festival is coming to Colorado with the crowd at Boulder Theatre in Boulder, Colorado on Thursday, March 27, 2025. Boulder wins Sundance Film Festival starting in 2027, beating out Utah and Ohio. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Denver Post via Getty Images
“Boulder is an art town, tech town, mountain town, and college town,” Amanda Kelso, Sundance Institute Acting CEO said in a statement. “It is a place where the festival can build and flourish.”
Indeed, Boulder—a college town with a population of about 100,000—is a one-of-a-kind destination, nestled against the foothills and about 35 to 40 minutes from Denver. It’s technically not a mountain town like Park City, but rather is located where the plains and the Rocky Mountains meet.
I’m a Colorado-based travel writer, University of Colorado alumni and I spent more than a decade working as a reporter for the Daily Camera, Boulder’s newspaper. Ahead, I’m sharing some interesting facts about Boulder that you might find fascinating, should you visit this Colorado city for Sundance film screenings or simply to sample some of its famed outdoor recreation.
1. You Can Visit The Restaurant Robert Redford Was a Janitor At During College
As it turns out, Sundance founder Robert Redford has a unique connection to Boulder. The Sink, an iconic burger and pizza spot on the “Hill” across from the University of Colorado, claims that its most famous employee ever was Robert Redford, who worked at the restaurant as a janitor in 1955 while attending college.
President Barack Obama visits the Sink in Boulder on Tuesday, April 24, 2012. Joe Amon, The Denver Post (Photo By AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
Denver Post via Getty Images
The Sink, which celebrated its 100th year in business in 2023, also played host to President Barack Obama in April 2012 ahead of his talk at the university. The president ordered the “Sinkza” pizza with pepperoni, sausage, green pepper, black olives and onion, a menu item the restaurant renamed P.O.T.U.S. pie after his visit. Obama also signed his name on the graffiti-covered walls. His John Hancock is right next to the signature of Guy Fieri, who visited the Boulder restaurant for an episode of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.”
2. Boulder, Colorado Could Have Been Built Around a Prison
Aerial photo above Boulder, Colorado.
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Today, Boulder is an idyllic college town and the University of Colorado is central to the city’s identity. Beautiful buildings on CU’s campus are built with red sandstone that was quarried in nearby Lyons. Hall of Famer Deion Sanders is the head coach of the CU Buffs football team, which draws energetic crowds for Saturday football games. CU also hosts the Conference on World Affairs, a spring event that’s like the Olympics for the mind that brings in thought leaders from around the world for panel discussions open to the public.
But Boulder could have been much different had things gone in the opposite direction in the late 1870s. Citizens in Boulder lobbied the state legislature for a university, and they were competing with Cañon City for the flagship school. The consolation prize for the losing bidder would have been a new Colorado State Prison. I learned this just recently during a visit to the Museum of Boulder where an interactive display imagines what the city would look like had key decisions tipped another way. On the screen, it showed CU’s earthy red tile roofs that define the aerial portrait of Boulder juxtaposed with would-be barbed-wire fences and concrete buildings scattered among the foothills should the city have elected to be home to a prison.
Today, Cañon City in Southern Colorado is home to the Colorado State Penitentiary and other jails, as well as the Museum of Colorado Prisons.
3. Boulder, Colorado Has Michelin-Recognized Dining
Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder is one of Colorado’s six Michelin-starred restaurants.
Casey Wilson / Frasca
The Michelin Guide came to Colorado in 2023 and the state now has a half-dozen Michelin one-star restaurants, including Frasca in Boulder, a fine dining concept focused on cuisine of Friuli-Venezia Giulia in Italy.
Boulder is also home to Basta, a contemporary Italian-American restaurant that received a Bib Gourmand status, an honor given to restaurants with great food at moderate price points.
Michelin-recommended restaurants in Boulder include: Stella’s Cucina, Bramble & Hare, Blackbelly Market, Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse, Oak at Fourteenth, Zoe Ma Ma and Santo. Blackbelly Market and Bramble & Hare also received green stars, which recognizes restaurants that are leaders in sustainability.
Pro tip: You can enjoy fine dining Mexican in Denver at the city’s newest Michelin-starred restaurant Alma Fonda Fina, which is award-winning Chef Johnny Curiel’s solo restaurant debut and an ode to his home country of Mexico. But Curiel also has a fantastic restaurant in Boulder that’s easier to snag a reservation at: Cozobi Fonda Fina, which is rooted in Mexico’s centuries-old corn nixtamalization traditions and wood-fire cooking techniques.
4. The ‘Mork and Mindy’ House is Located in Boulder, Colorado
circa 1979: American comedian and actor Robin Williams, wearing a woman’s bathrobe, furry hat, and sunglasses, being hugged by American actor Pam Dawber, in a still from the television series, ‘Mork and Mindy’. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Getty Images
The Queen Anne exterior of the “Mork and Mindy” house is located in Boulder, a few blocks off the Pearl Street Mall, and is now a private residence. The television show, which ran from 1978 to 1982, featured Robin Williams as Mork, an extraterrestrial who arrived in Boulder from a planet called Ork. Many references to Boulder are made in the show’s 90 episodes. Mindy—Mork’s wife—for instance was a student at the University of Colorado. Boulder’s Chautauqua Meadow is also featured in the show.
5. NASA Astronaut Scott Carpenter is from Boulder, Colorado
Mercury astronaut M. Scott Carpenter in his space suit at Cape Canaveral before his trip into space. In the background is a radar antenna tower.
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Scott Carpenter, who was one of NASA’s first seven astronauts known as “the Mercury Seven,” was born in Boulder on May 1, 1925. Carpenter, who was the second American to orbit the Earth, earned his bachelor of science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Colorado. Visitors will spot references to Carpenter throughout town, like the Scott Carpenter Park that has a rocket ship play structure and the pool named after the late astronaut.
6. Hotel Boulderado’s Name Has a Fun Backstory
Boulder, Colorado, USA-October 23, 2023: Hotel Boulderado on 13th Street in historic downtown Boulder, Colorado.
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Hotel Boulderado opened its doors with a Gala Ball on New Year’s Eve in 1908. The historic hotel, which is a City of Boulder landmark and a member of the Historic Hotels in America, named itself Boulderado, a portmanteau of Boulder and Colorado, so that no one ever forgot where they stayed.
7. You Can Watch Street Theater on Pearl Street Mall
Boulder, Colorado, USA – October 18, 2015: A street performer juggles balls to an audience on Pearl Street.
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A fun way to spend a summer evening in Boulder is by strolling the Pearl Street Mall and enjoying the street performers. These performers on the outdoor mall put on acts that range from juggling fire on a unicycle to magic tricks and playing musical instruments. Bring some cash; they’re all working for tips.
8. The University of Colorado Has a Cafeteria Named After a Cannibal
Ezekial Rast, a junior at the University of Colorado puts toppings on his sandwich at the Alferd Packer Grill in the University Memorial Center on the CU Boulder Campus on Wednesday March 17, 2010.(Photo by Paul Aiken/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images)
MediaNews Group via Getty Images
The Alferd Packer Restaurant and Grill bears the name of an infamous cannibal who came to Breckenridge looking to strike it rich during the gold rush and accused of cannibalism during the winter of 1873-1874 after an ill-fated expedition. Students named the dining spot after the cannibal (with a slightly different spelling from Alfred Packer) back in 1968 with the quip “have a friend for lunch.” The name has stuck ever since.
9. Celestial Seasonings is Based in Boulder, Colorado
Caption: Cover photo: A worker watches boxes of tea go by on conveyor belts at Celestial Seasonings’ production floor. Marty Caivano/Daily Camera(Photo by Marty Caivano/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images)
MediaNews Group via Getty Images
Well-known tea maker Celestial Seasonings is located in Boulder—you’ll find it off of Sleepytime Drive. The company got its start in 1969 when Mo Siegel, one of its founders, handpicked wild herbs in the Rocky Mountains and used his foraged finds to make the first tea. Visitors today can go on a $6 tour of the tea factory.
10. One of the Flatirons is Taller Than The Empire State Building
The Boulder Flatirons pictured in the winter.
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If Boulder had an official postcard, it’d likely be of its famed Flatirons that jut out into the blue skies. There are five Flatirons that run on a slope of Green Mountain and they’re collectively referred to as “The Flatirons.” They got their name from a pioneer woman who said they rocks look like flat, metal irons used to iron clothes, according to the city’s tourism officials. The third Flatiron is particularly striking: At 1,400 feet, it’s a few hundred feet higher than the Empire State Building. Trails starting at the Chautauqua Trailhead get you up close to the Flatirons.
Colorado
Police issue shelter-in-place order for Colorado Springs neighborhood due to barricaded suspect
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – The Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD) issued a shelter-in-place order Wednesday morning for 7366 Legend Hill Dr.
CSPD says this order is due to law enforcement responding to a barricaded suspect in the area. Police tell 11 News the call came in at 9:15 a.m. for a family disturbance.
If you are in the area, police encourage you to secure your home or business and stay away from doors and windows.
This is a developing situation; Information is very limited at this time. This article will be updated when more information is available.
Copyright 2025 KKTV. All rights reserved.
Colorado
Colorado family calls for answers after 23 year old killed in hit-and-run in Aurora: “He didn’t deserve that”
A Colorado family is pleading for accountability after a 23-year-old man was killed in a crosswalk on Thursday. Aurora police believe Lennard Dawson Jr. was struck by three separate vehicles. Two of the drivers didn’t stop.
Police say the crash happened just before midnight at a signal-controlled crosswalk along the Unnamed Creek Trail at South Tower Road. The third driver remained at the scene and is cooperating with investigators.
Dawson later died at the hospital.
At a vigil Monday night at Highland Hollows Park, Dawson’s loved ones gathered to mourn and remember a young man they described as warm, generous, and always smiling.
“He would talk to everybody,” said his sister, Kelia Brown. “Good or bad days, he always had a smile. He was a great dad. He helped his son learn everything. I feel like I lost my twin.”
Brown said she learned about the crash in the middle of the night and hasn’t slept much since. The family lives roughly 10 minutes from the crash site.
What haunts her most is that two drivers didn’t stop.
“I was so angry,” she said. “If you’re going to leave, at least move him out of the street. He didn’t deserve that.”
Dawson’s nephew, Nassir Bandy, said he modeled nearly everything he did after his uncle.
“I wanted to be just like him,” Bandy said. “He was my role model. I played basketball because he played basketball. I wanted dreads because he had dreads. I was so mad when he cut them.”
He urged the drivers responsible to come forward.
“Take accountability for your actions. Come clean,” he said. “Whatever’s done in the dark will come to light.”
Monday afternoon, dozens of relatives, friends, and neighbors came out, holding candles and singing hymns.
The crash marks the 19th pedestrian death in Aurora this year, part of a growing concern citywide about speeding and reckless driving.
“People in Aurora and Denver can’t drive,” Brown said. “Illegal lane changes, no blinkers, speeding, it’s constant. We need better driving schools or something. They’re giving licenses to anybody.”
Bandy agreed, calling many crashes “preventable mistakes.”
In a statement, the City of Aurora said it’s analyzing the incident as part of its ongoing traffic safety efforts:
“Any loss of life is a tragedy. Public Works is looking into this specific incident as it relates to traffic data. The Aurora Police Department continues to investigate. Aurora’s Public Works Department is working on a Safety Action Plan, evaluating safety and making recommendations across the city. The plan will be completed early next year.”
For Dawson’s family, the grief is compounded by the questions that remain, including whether he might have survived had the first two drivers stopped to help.
“He was a blessing,” Brown said. “A light to life. The biggest star in the universe. We will get justice for Lennard.”
Anyone with information about the drivers involved is urged to contact the Aurora Police Department.
This was a massive moment for conservation.
While gray wolves once ranged throughout much of the Lower 48, a government-backed extermination campaign wiped most of them out in the 19th and 20th centuries. By the 1940s, Colorado had lost all of its resident wolves.
But, in the fall of 2020, Colorado voters did something unprecedented: They passed a ballot measure to reintroduce gray wolves to the state. This wasn’t just about having wolves on the landscape to admire, but about restoring the ecosystems that we’ve broken and the biodiversity we’ve lost. As apex predators, wolves help keep an entire ecosystem in balance, in part by limiting populations of deer and elk that can damage vegetation, spread disease, and cause car accidents.
In the winter of 2023, state officials released 10 gray wolves flown in from Oregon onto public land in northwestern Colorado. And in January of this year, they introduced another 15 that were brought in from Canada. Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) — the state wildlife agency leading the reintroduction program — plans to release 30 to 50 wolves over three to five years to establish a permanent breeding population that can eventually survive without intervention.
“Today, history was made in Colorado,” Colorado Governor Jared Polis said following the release. “For the first time since the 1940s, the howl of wolves will officially return to western Colorado.”
Fast forward to today, and that program seems, at least on the surface, like a mess.
Ten of the transplanted wolves are already dead, as is one of their offspring. And now, the state is struggling to find new wolves to ship to Colorado for the next phase of reintroduction. Meanwhile, the program has cost millions of dollars more than expected.
The takeaway is not that releasing wolves in Colorado was, or is now, a bad idea. Rather, the challenges facing this first-of-its-kind reintroduction just reveal how extraordinarily difficult it is to restore top predators to a landscape dominated by humans. That’s true in the Western US and everywhere — especially when the animal in question has been vilified for generations.
Why 10 of the reintroduced wolves are already dead
One harsh reality is that a lot of wolves die naturally, such as from disease, killing each other over territory, and other predators, said Joanna Lambert, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Colorado Boulder. Of Colorado’s new population, one of the released wolves was killed by another wolf, whereas two were likely killed by mountain lions, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
The changes that humans have made to the landscape only make it harder for these animals to survive. One of the animals, a male found dead in May, was likely killed by a car, state officials said. Another died after stepping into a coyote foothold trap. Two other wolves, meanwhile, were killed, ironically, by officials. Officials from CPW shot and killed one wolf — the offspring of a released individual — in Colorado, and the US Department of Agriculture killed another that traveled into Wyoming, after linking the wolves to livestock attacks. (An obscure USDA division called Wildlife Services kills hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions, of wild animals a year that it deems dangerous to humans or industry, as my colleague Kenny Torella has reported.)
Yet, another wolf was killed after trekking into Wyoming, a state where it’s largely legal to kill them.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife has, to its credit, tried hard to stop wolves from harming farm animals. The agency has hired livestock patrols called “range riders,” for example, to protect herds. But these solutions are imperfect, especially when the landscape is blanketed in ranchland. Wolves still kill sheep and cattle.
This same conflict — or the perception of it — is what has complicated other attempts to bring back predators, such as jaguars in Arizona and grizzly bears in Washington. And wolves are arguably even more contentious. “This was not ever going to be easy,” Lambert said of the reintroduction program.
Colorado is struggling to find more wolves to ship in
There’s another problem: Colorado doesn’t have access to more wolves.
The state is planning to release another 10 to 15 animals early next year. And initially, those wolves were going to come from Canada. But in October, the Trump administration told CPW that it can only import wolves from certain regions of the US. Brian Nesvik, director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, a federal agency that oversees endangered species, said that a federal regulation governing Colorado’s gray wolf population doesn’t explicitly allow CPW to source wolves from Canada. (Environmental legal groups disagree with his claim).
So Colorado turned to Washington state for wolves instead.
But that didn’t work either. Earlier this month, Washington state wildlife officials voted against exporting some of their wolves to Colorado. Washington has more than 200 gray wolves, but the most recent count showed a population decline. That’s one reason why officials were hesitant to support a plan that would further shrink the state’s wolf numbers, especially because there’s a chance they may die in Colorado.
Some other states home to gray wolves, such as Montana and Wyoming, have previously said they won’t give Colorado any of their animals for reasons that are not entirely clear. Nonetheless, Colorado is still preparing to release wolves this winter as it looks for alternative sources, according to CPW spokesperson Luke Perkins.
Ultimately, Lambert said, it’s going to take years to be able to say with any kind of certainty whether or not the reintroduction program was successful.
“This is a long game,” she said.
And despite the program’s challenges, there’s at least one reason to suspect it’s working: puppies.
Over the summer, CPW shared footage from a trail camera of three wolf puppies stumbling over their giant paws, itching, and play-biting each other. CPW says there are now four litters in Colorado, a sign that the predators are settling in and making a home for themselves.
“This reproduction is really key,” Eric Odell, wolf conservation program manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, said in a public meeting in July. “Despite some things that you may hear, not all aspects of wolf management have been a failure. We’re working towards success.”
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