NEDERLAND — The world today is more materialistic than ever, as devices and possessions have slowly taken over necessities and keepsakes. Even here in the mountains, the world of luxury and convenience at our fingertips is too enticing to deny.

And while lessons in Nederland’s history, and the local museums in the Peak to Peak region, teach us about the early devices used in mining and the simpler belongings found in the average cabin, there is truly no better way to experience history than through the stories of those who lived it. 

This is exactly why the Nederland Area Historical Society (NAHS) hosted their very first Sip & Storytelling Evening on August 6, 2026, right behind the Nederland Mining Museum at 200 North Bridge Street, where the century-old Bucyrus Model 50-B steam shovel stands proudly along the highway. 

The great piece of historic machinery acted as the perfect backdrop while local historians, storytellers, and Nederland enthusiasts gathered to sip on selected wines, nibble on party treats, and sit in a semi-circle, poised to listen to tales of a different era of our mountain home. 

NAHS Board President Susan Kelly and event organizer Rebecca Wickre welcomed both those who were already excited about the event and those onlookers and passersby who just dropped in, to listen to the 10 guest storytellers while taking brief intermissions to enjoy the three specially imported wines provided and poured by Ryan Gaterman of the Peak to Peak Wine Club.

“In 1974, we built our house on Hilltop Terrace,” Lee Tillotson, the first speaker of the night, said, detailing her firsthand experience of a time when every name and face in town was known, and life’s challenges were met with ingenuity, guile, and mischief.

“Lanny Cole—and I warned him about this—excavated our waterline using uncovered dynamite. As soon as it went off it shook the entire town, which resulted in the Town marshal visiting us.”

Tillotson related several anecdotes, many of them involving her students from when she was a teacher and coach at the Nederland Junior High School in the 1970s. Her embarrassing and sometimes dangerous hijinks—including archery antics and a thumb-wrestling injury that led to a hospital visit—kept the audience engaged and laughing. 

The next speaker, Ray Willis, continued to paint a picture of what Nederland was like then, pointing to parts of the town around him, recalling his storied family history. He pointed to New Moon, where a Mobil gas station used to be, and to the building holding Kathmandu, which his grandparents built and ran back then as a restaurant called Harlow’s. 

One by one, storytellers stepped in front of the crowd to spin yarns about a town that accepted World War II refugees with open arms, where every girl had a horse, and where the “best version” of “Stagecoach” was filmed, bringing big-name actors to dine at the Branding Iron.   

Margie Yansura told some of the history of the Nederland Community Presbyterian Church, including how it started the first neighborhood food pantry and clothing closet, and about how the bell, which still rings at 10 a.m. every Sunday, was donated by the Boulder Fire Department in 1912. 

Some of the stories spoke to how a community was built where everyone knew each other, where the streets felt “safe,” and where that safety was sometimes righteously protected by extreme means, such as during the rise of the hippie movement, which was perceived as an invasion. 

“My Dad would just say, ‘be back here by 5:00,’ so we rode the whole mountain all day long. Nobody worried about us, and we were never afraid,” Karen Willis reminisced as she detailed the life she shared with the other neighborhood girls and their horses. They had carte blanche all around town. “But there was one year when those hippies were really bad, and so all of us kids got sent home, and nobody told us why. 

“Well, all the men in town had gotten together and they decided that those dirty hippies really needed baths and haircuts, so they had gone through and deputized a bunch of people, and they took the hippies and put them in the creek.” 

The audience not only heard from those who grew up in Nederland, but from those who moved to the mountains later in their lives, including Sue Leto, who showed the group the original title to her historic 1872 home, signed by Ulysses Grant.

They also heard from Avis, who travels to Nederland every summer and shared the harrowing story of her first time visiting 10 years ago, when she experienced phantom bear scares and then a sudden wildfire, which forced her to rely on a stranger—a kind mountain local—for evacuation.  

“I did not know her, and she did not know me, but she made it her business to get me to Boulder,” Avis said, eliciting applause from the crowd. 

Many may feel that the old ways highlighted in these stories are gone, that there are too many unfamiliar faces, too many conveniences, too many changes that have led Nederland to seem entirely different now. But every generation has a unique experience, an expressly defined perception of what Nederland means to them. 

Some may still feel that a trip to the grocery store or the post office is really just an impromptu town hall meeting waiting to happen. There are those who may feel that the hippie movement is what brought them to this haven, or that the 90s was the period when Nederland was really special.

What hasn’t seemed to change is the opposing ideological duality of loving Nederland for its openness and freedom, while simultaneously desiring to protect those qualities from perceived outsiders or invaders.

Everyone who is blessed to find Nederland is forever transfixed in their moment, before the inevitable winds of change come to make that moment lost to time.

But our perception of what these moments in time truly mean in the bigger picture can only be expanded by listening to and understanding the stories of the lives lived across the entire spectrum of history. 

A very special thanks to all those who participated in the first Sips & Storytelling Evening, and to the NAHS for organizing what will hopefully become an ongoing event for locals of all generations to experience!