Construction in downtown Golden unearths historical artifacts as CoorsTek site transforms into the new Clayworks district.
GOLDEN, Colo — Construction is underway in downtown Golden, to build a new “district” called Clayworks.
The 14-plus acre site will eventually house office spaces, retail, residential and more. It will also serve as the new headquarters for CoorsTek, a longtime Golden-based business that used that same site for decades to manufacture various products.
Now, many of those historic old products, like ceramics and glassware and laboratory tools, are turning up in the construction dirt.
“We’re known for beer, but we’ve also had the ceramics almost as long as our beer company,” said Darden Coors, a member of the Coors family and the interim president of AC Development leading this project.
“This (site) has been a lot of things over a lot of years. As we’ve been digging new foundations and clearing sites, new sidewalks – we’ve found a lot of artifacts from every decade of the history of this site,” she said. “It’s been awesome to save it, document it, and add to our history of all our artifacts from 100+ years here.”
CoorsTek, as it’s known today, started more than a century ago as Coors Porcelain Company. Back in the early 1900s, it made dinnerware, ceramics, and laboratory tools. The company has evolved to modern-day products for aerospace and defense, transportation, electronics and more.
“I can walk around with a little bucket and pick up everything I find,” said Melanie Keerins. The Coors archivist and historian is helping collect and preserve artifacts found at the site.
“I love it,” she said. “My background was in archeology before I became an archivist. This is my favorite part of my job these days.”
Keerins is like an encyclopedia of Coors and CoorsTek history, including the interesting moments in both companies’ histories where a “pivot” became a new business model.
Like the story behind Coors Porcelain Company increasing the production of laboratory equipment:
“In World War One, there was an embargo on German goods, including almost all labware produced worldwide,” Keerins explained. “So, the U.S. government said, hey do we have any companies that will produce labware here in US. We said sure! And 20 years later, we were 90% of the domestic labware market.”
Or, how both companies managed the Prohibition years:
“The brewery, during Prohibition, they couldn’t make beer,” Keerins explained. “One of the things they made was malted milk. And malted milk went into candy stores and soda shops and (Coors Porcelain Co/CoorsTek) made the containers for malted milk here, out of porcelain.”
Now, malted milk containers and pieces of labware are turning up in the ground all over the construction site now, along with pieces of dinnerware featuring the famous “Rosebud” design.
“Everybody that lives in this area, grew up in this area, knows about Rosebud pottery,” she said.
They're saving the best of what they find, with plans to share this Colorado history.
“We always talk about, here in the U.S., we don’t have history. This is proof positive we do. Its history that’s tangible, not just words on a page,” Keerins said. “And that history is about people. It’s about the Coors family. It’s about the thousands of employees that made these products over these years and part of this story. And it's part of Golden.”