Wheat Ridge Fun Facts

• Wheat Ridge is less than 15 minutes from Downtown Denver.
• During the gold rush in 1859, Wheat Ridge served as a rest stop for miners headed to mountain gold camps.
• Wheat Ridge was named for the golden ridges of wheat noted by passing travelers.
• One of the first apple trees in Colorado was planted near 38th Avenue and Ward Road.
• By the 1880s land use changed from wheat farming to smaller truck farms.
• Major crops included apples, strawberries, cherries, raspberries, currants, plums, blackberries, Pascal celery, other vegetables…and carnations.
• Wheat Ridge was once the largest producer of carnations in the world – and known as Carnation City.
• The cinnamon-scented carnation was developed here, and a bouquet of carnations was sent to the White House every week.
• The annual Carnation Festival is a two-day event held every August for 45 years now!
• Lutheran Medical Center was founded in 1903 as the Evangelical Lutheran Sanitarium in response to the influx of tuberculosis. As tuberculosis was cured, the Center shifted its focus to general care. nd • Former Olympic athlete Babe Didrikson lived at 32 and Eaton.
• The City was incorporated in August, 1969.
• The City operates under a Council-Manager form of government with an elected mayor and two Council members from each of the four districts.
• Wheat Ridge is served by four fire districts, six water and seven sanitation districts.
• There are 38 religious congregations in Wheat Ridge.
• Wheat Ridge is part of Jefferson County R-1 School system, which has some of the highest equivalency test scores in the nation for grades 1- 12.
• There is one high school, two middle schools, seven public elementary schools, and six private schools.
• Wheat Ridge encompasses 9.5 square miles and has an altitude of 5,459 feet.
• There are 30,365 citizens in 13,847 households.
• Precipitation averages between 18 and 19 inches per year.
• There are more than 300 blue-sky days per year – more than San Diego or Miami
• The City maintains 24 parks, 274 acres of open space, four lakes and more than seven miles of nationally recognized trail along Clear Creek.
• The City operates a 70,000 square foot Recreation Center and an Active Adult Center.
• The City is the new home of Vitruvian Fitness – a 3,400 square foot functional training community that specializes in making its clients better looking and more interesting at parties.
• Wheat Ridge is less than 12 minutes from the farthest reaches of LoHi. And most businesses have an abundance of free parking right in front of their businesses without pesky meter-maids writing tickets every chance they get.

this post was pretty much quoted word for word from http://www.ci.wheatridge.co.us/DocumentCenter/Home/View/2379