A hometown with a heart, Parker is a friendly, family orientated town with a historic center of shops and homes from its earliest pioneering days. An extended period of development is seeing a great deal of modern new housing being built around historic Parker, and a high level of community input has insured that parks and amenities are maximized.
There are several excellent ballparks, an equestrian park, an outdoor pool, and a recreation center that has won awards. Local golf courses are first rate. The Parker Arboretum is both relaxing and educational and features a range of trees indigenous to the region. The town’s trail system is unequaled, and may be explored on foot, by bicycle, or on horseback—rollerbladers are also welcome! Many of these trails connect the parks and green areas around the city, and one of the nicest runs along Cherry Creek.
The City offers a wide range of recreational activities to its citizens and a Cultural Commission coordinates an exciting variety of community events. Art and culture events are held free for children once a month, and there are plenty of things for kids to do here, from karate to dance lessons, youth sports and special interest groups.
The local Douglas County School District is one of the best in the state and there are a number of private schools to choose from as well.
With a population of 35,000 and growing, Parker residents maintain their sense of community with a wide range of shared events throughout the year, including the Parker Country Festival and the Parker Christmas Carriage Parade. In summer residents meet for free concerts in a local park.
Parker is just twenty miles southeast of Denver and its residents enjoy all the advantages that this world-class city brings.
LOCATION
About twenty miles south east of Denver, the city of Parker is in Douglas County, Colorado. On Route 83, Parker is accessible to the region’s important highways and interstates. Route 83 journeys north into Denver and south through neighboring towns before terminating at I 25 about forty miles away.
Just north of Parker, Highway 30 makes up part of the ring of highways that encircles Denver; key highways and interstates journey out from this ring for destinations across the state. Highway 30 becomes Highway 121 east of Parker, passing through Highlands Ranch before turning north.
Highlands Ranch is about fifteen miles from Parker and Castle Rock is about fifteen miles south west.
TRANSPORTATION/AIRPORTS
Parker is closest to Denver International Airport, the tenth largest in the world and a notably efficient facility. With flights to across the country and the globe, Denver International brings tourists to this popular recreational destination and connects travelers and business people.
The Regional Transportation District (RTD) has a comprehensive public transport system that links Parker to surrounding towns and to Denver.
BRIEF HISTORY
Home to various Indian groups for centuries, the Parker area was inhabited by Arapaho, Cheyenne and Ute bands when the first non-indigenous people arrived in the early eighteen-hundreds. French and English explorers wrote about the hunter-gatherers they met and traded with. These early settlers were trappers, traders, frontiersmen, and eventually, gold seekers.
The great gold rush of 1858 bought over ten thousand settlers to the region and they established a trail into Denver and the Rocky Mountains. Called the Cherokee Trail, this route eventually became what is Route 83 today. When stage lines rolled into Colorado, it became known also as the West Cherry Creek Stage Road, and the Denver-Santa Fe Stage Road.
Small towns and settlements sprang up along the route and an Alfred Butters built a one room mail and provisions building in the early eighteen-sixties. Eventually this became known as “Pine Grove”, which is a neighbouring town to Parker today.
Eventually the building passed to Mr. and Mrs. George Long in 1864. The Longs moved the structure to the site of present day Parker and expanded it. It became a popular way station on the road to Denver. In time the building passed into the hands of James Sample Parker, who bought it in 1874.
Parker developed the property considerably, adding a smithy, a general store an official post office. The landowner gave land for roads, and later on, the Denver and New Orleans Railroad. When his daughter reached school age, Parker built a school across the road from his house, paying the teacher’s salary for the first year.
Parker’s brother George owned land to the east of Highway 83, and he established a saloon and bought several businesses to the village. By the early twentieth century Parker was a small town, with a couple of hotels, several stores, a brickworks, a warehouse, and a water tower. The stockyards and creamery were used by the surrounding farming families, who ran cattle and horses and had dairy farms. Many of these early farming people were of Scandinavian descent.
Parker was incorporated in 1981 and several large subdivisions and developments have been built around the historic core of the city since then. Several surrounding communities have been annexed into Parker over the decades following incorporation, further swelling the size of the community.
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