If we wish to have a future with greater meaning, we must concern ourselves . . . with all that is worth preserving from our past as a living part of the present.
—With Heritage So Rich, 1966

You are probably a preservationist.

If you wear a piece of your mother’s jewelry, carry your grandfather’s pocket watch, file the bills in Dad’s old rolltop desk, or pull your kids around in the same red Radio Flyer you rode in as a child—if you do anything like this, you are practicing the principles of historic preservation.

The idea is to integrate elements of the past into the present—not as relics but as living objects, things we use day to day. It’s something most of us do as individuals—and, increasingly, we do as communities.

Coloradans have been doing it for more than a century. In the early 1900s, private citizens and historic preservation societies fought to save such landmarks as the ancient pueblos of Mesa Verde, Pike’s Stockade in the San Luis Valley, and the Central City Opera House. A 1953 state law authorized the Colorado Historical Society to acquire significant properties, including the Georgetown Loop Railroad, the Baca and Bloom mansions in Trinidad, and Fort Vasquez north of Denver.

The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 launched a new era. In the ensuing decades, lawmakers and civic leaders created a whole range of tools for preserving our heritage. The Colorado Preservation Office (now the state Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation) was established to develop a statewide survey of historic resources and prevent the loss of significant properties. The legislature established tax incentives to encourage the rehabilitation of old buildings. Local organizations such as Historic Denver, Inc., and Historic Georgetown helped raise public awareness about preservation and rallied support to save many jeopardized landmarks. Since the creation in 1990 of the Colorado State Historical Fund—the largest such fund of any state in the nation—cities and towns throughout Colorado have enjoyed the resources they need to make old places new again.

We save old landmarks not for their physical presence but for the meanings and associations they carry. Like Dad’s desk or that old Radio Flyer, they symbolize constancy and tradition in a world full of change.