Flagstaff Mountain: Flagstaff Mountain Road and Chapman Drive – Boulder CO

Description

In October 1933, Camp SP5C was set up in Boulder at what is now 6th Street and Baseline Road.  Their main purpose was to build a road up the west slope of Flagstaff Mountain.  The road opened on March 29, 1935.

The CCC work continued over the summit of Flagstaff Mountain to Nederland, on what is called Chapman Drive. The road was named in honor of Oscar Chapman, then Assistant Secretary of the Interior. It was the first road into Boulder Canyon and the interior. It is still a dirt road, now closed to motor vehicles. It has some spectacular rock work along the steep canyon walls.

Flagstaff Mountain Road today lies within the City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks.

A CCC camp was also located at the intersection of Baseline Rd. and 6^th St, and was occupied between late fall 1933 and late summer 1937. Clifford Teegarden, who served in the CCC at this camp, recalled that “it consisted of seven major buildings. Four of these structures were personnel barracks, each designed to accommodated roughly 40 men. A fifth building served as a garage housing the camps’ nine vehicle fleet which included five dump trucks and four stakebed transport trucks. The largest structure consisted of a quartermaster’s office and administrative facilities on the east end and a mess hall on the west end. The seventh building housed a recreational facility.” There was also a boxing ring, latrine, and tool shed. (Boulder Mountain Parks Cultural Resources Survey.)