The Town of Superior prides itself on its history of mining and agriculture. There are three important historic sites within Town that are managed by Town staff and deeply supported by the Superior Historical Commission.

Grasso Park is a small historical campus within the Town of Superior’s “original town” boasts a collection of structures originally built to support farming and cattle operations. to include the 1895 Hake Homestead House, barn, privy/woodshed, root cellar, and the 1904 Grasso Bungalow.

The Industrial Mine Camp was a collection of small frame houses, a boardinghouse, shaft house, boiler house, powder house, bath house, tipple, and what was called “the casino.” The historic site is situated within Boulder County Open Space.

The Historic Superior Cemetery is a hilltop resting place for residents of the area due to the generosity of a local farmer donating the land in 1873. The location, just east of the newly developed Downtown Superior, was preserved and more accurately fenced in the early 2000s.

Superior Cemetery (2580 Central Park Way)

Although pioneers came to the Coal Creek Valley in the 1860s, it wasn’t until 1873 that a local farmer donated the hilltop location as a resting place for the deceased from the area. For a while, burial site was referred to as the Old Louisville Cemetery.

Around the same time, Superior’s founding father W.C. Hake developed the Industrial Coal Mine and platted a town site a mile east of the cemetery location.

There are an estimated 90 graves, 55 of which are documented names and 32 surviving headstones. There are two Civil War veterans’ graves and roughly 22 of the graves are children. The last burial was in 1949 when George Shockey, a local farmer, was interred.

Grasso Park (100 E William St.)

Grasso Park is a small historical campus within the Town of Superior’s “original town” and is one of the Town’s most cherished sites. Tucked behind Town Hall on William Street and along the banks of Coal Creek, the property boasts a collection of structures originally built to support farming and cattle operations. to include the 1895 Hake Homestead House, barn, privy/woodshed, root cellar, and the 1904 Grasso Bungalow.

Grasso Park illustrates a small family farm that was typical in 1900. The Park sits on land first settled by William and Emmeline Hake in 1860. The Hakes left their home in Platteville, Wisconsin as a part of the Colorado gold rush of 1859. In 1864, after a major flood, William discovered coal on his property. For a time, the area's economy thrived on coal mining, but Hake proceeded to homestead the land and continued to farm. Hake founded the Town of Superior in 1896 and formally purchased the 160 acres from the U.S. Government in 1870. Today the Grasso Park parcel is situated on the southeast corner of the original 160-acres.

From there, local coal miner Frank Grasso acquired the parcel and had a small dairy operation. He kept a few milk cattle, pigs, chickens, etc. and supplied milk to his customers in the region. In 1904 area resident Martin Phillips built the bungalow at the northwest corner of the property. In 1928, John Grasso, Franks son and also a coal miner, purchased the bungalow from Phillips and took up residence there. Grasso later sold the property to the Town of Superior in 1995 with the provision that it would be preserved as a park. Before his death in 1996, at the age of 90, Grasso was the only remaining resident of Superior who had worked the coal mines.

The property was placed on the Colorado State Register of Historic Properties in 1998. The Colorado Historical Society (now History Colorado) issued a monetary grant to the Town of Superior for the rehabilitation of the buildings, including the bungalow.

In December of 2021 when the Marshall Fire devastated much of Original Town and other parts of Superior, Grasso Park and all of the historic structures were miraculously spared.  

Industrial Mine Camp (Boulder County Open Space)

There were once two distinct residential areas within the Town of Superior. One section of Superior that had been platted by William and Charles Hake, George Minks, and Karl Langgeger is known as Original Town in Superior today. The other residential area was known as the Industrial Mine Camp and amounted to a company town since the homes were owned by the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company. It was located to the west of the mine, making it a part of the mine itself, and allowed the miners easy access to the mine.

The Industrial Mine was accessed from Original Town by going south on Third Avenue, crossing Coal Creek and the railroad tracks, then proceeding west a few hundred yards. The camp was a collection of small frame houses, a boardinghouse, shaft house, boiler house, powder house, bath house, tipple, and what was called “the casino.” The miners paid seven dollars a month to live in the simple four room houses. The dwellings were served by running cold water, but no indoor toilets. The homes were surrounded by privies and coal sheds and private gardens, that yielded fresh vegetables for the families’ dinner tables. The boardinghouse provided room and board opportunity for the bachelor miners.

In 1945, after the mine closed and mining operations ceased throughout the northern coal fields. Many of the mine camp houses were auctioned off and moved to locations in Louisville, Lafayette and rural areas throughout the region.

The site of the Industrial Mine is still obvious today and is situated within Boulder County Open Space. Old concrete foundations can be seen as well as huge piles of residue known as mine dumps.