LITTLETON
ABOUT LITTLETON, CO.
The beginnings of Littleton can be traced to the & Pikes Peak gold rush of 1859 and The Littleton Historical Museum serves as a reminder by recreating life on an 1860s farm. Agriculture remained the staple industry of Littleton until after World War II. Beginning with electronics and pneumatics, moving to munitions and finally to aerospace, manufacturing became the important employer and a magnet for the boom in housing development during the fifties, sixties and seventies. Littleton added Arapahoe Community College in 1965 and Chatfield Reservoir in 1972 to further enhance its appeal. At the center of Littleton is Historic Downtown Littleton, where historic architecture and outdoor atmosphere offers residents a rich diversity of restaurants and breweries, wellness shops, galleries, and service businesses. Check out the RTD interactive map here. Download the RTD Map here.
The city also offers many things to do including the Town Hall Arts Center, as well as the Littleton Museum, the Hudson Gardens Amphitheater and the Farmhouse at Breckenridge Brewery. There are abundant parks and hiking trails in Littleton, with over 1,500 acres of parks and open space, 35 miles of biking paths as well as trails such as Highline Canal or Lee Gulch trail, and a bike trail which takes riders all the way to downtown Denver. The Aspen Grove shopping center, at Mineral and Santa Fe, opened in 2001 and was one of metro Denver's first Apple store locations; the Alamo Drafthouse movie theater was the first of this movie chain in the area when it opened in 2013. In 2015 the popular Tattered Cover bookstore opened a branch at Aspen Grove.
The development of the old Marathon Oil property near S. Broadway and South Dry Creek Road was a major construction project in Littleton. Ground was broken in 2015 and development continues in 2021. Known as Littleton Village, this area provides hundreds of residential housing units, a park, and some retail establishments.