According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 8.9 square miles (23.1 km²) of which 8.9 square miles (22.9 km²) is land and 0.1 square miles (0.2 km²) (0.67%) is water.
History
Lafayette was founded in 1878 by Mary Miller. She and her husband, Lafayette Miller, had moved to the area to farm land acquired via the Homestead Act in 1871. In 1874 the Millers moved to Boulder. Lafayette Miller ran a butcher shop and was a town trustee. Lafayette Miller died in 1878, after which Mary Miller moved back to the farm with their six small children. In 1884 coal was discovered on the Miller farm and in 1887 John Simpson sank the first shaft, thereby starting the coal mining era. In 1888 Mary Miller designated 150 acres (0.61 km2) of the farm for the town of Lafayette, which she named after her late husband. In July 1888 a second mine, the Cannon, went into operation and the first houses were built. On January 6, 1890, the town of Lafayette was incorporated. As stipulated in the original town deeds, no alcohol was sold east of what is now known as Public Road.
Lafayette quickly became a part of the coal-mining boom that all of eastern Boulder and southwestern Weld counties were experiencing, with the Cannon and Simpson mines being the largest and most productive. By 1914 Lafayette was a booming town with two banks, four hotels, and a brickworks. Lafayette was also the location of a power station that served Louisville, Boulder, Longmont, and Fort Collins.
Mary Miller continued to be a leader in the community, especially in January 1900, when the town burned. She founded the Miller Bank in 1892, and it became the Lafayette Bank in 1902. She was elected president of the bank, and at that time was the only woman bank president in the world. The bank closed in 1914 because of roughly $90,000 in bad loans to the United Mine Workers. She remained devoted to the temperance movement and eventually ran for state treasurer on the Prohibition ticket. Miller died in 1921 at her daughter-in-law's home at 501 E. Cleveland St.
Lafayette continued to thrive as a coal-mining town. Many miners struck in the aforementioned strike in the 1910s, which was nationally recognized as a great Wobbly (Industrial Workers of the World; a radical labor group) strike; noted for the Ludlow Massacre of miners' families by the National Guard in the Southern Coal Field near Trinidad.
In 1927, Lafayette's coal miners struck again. This time, the mining massacre was closer to home, resulting in the deaths of five Lafayette resident miners just northeast of town in the Columbine Mine Massacre on November 27, 1927, in what is now the ghost town of Serene near Erie.
Strangely, it was another female financier who came to the miners' aid - Ms. Josephine Roche, the daughter of the anti-labor deceased owner of the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company(RMFC) that owned many of the mines in the Lafayette area, used some shares of the company she had inherited from her father, bought a controlling interest in the company, and immediately began the most labor-friendly mine operation in the United States. She went on to be a top assistant to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins. Back in Lafayette, life became much better for the coal miners with the more labor-friendly management of the RMFC.
Coal mining declined as an industry by the 1950s as natural gas replaced coal. The Black Diamond mine closed in 1956, and Lafayette became once more an agriculture-based community. As Denver, CO, and Boulder, CO, grew, residential growth in Lafayette increased. With the increase in residential growth, the farm-based economy changed and commercial, small industrial and manufacturing factors became more important.
Today Lafayette is a thriving community with the cultural and commercial center still found in the revitalized Old Town District, especially along Public Road. The town hosts a variety of unique events each year, including an oatmeal festival in cooperation with the Quaker Oats Company, a peach festival, a wine festival, and Lafayette Days.
The main public high school in Lafayette is Centaurus High School, which has approximately 1000 students. The recently opened Peak to Peak Charter School takes students from kindergarten to high school graduation. The public middle school is Angevine Middle School, and the elementary schools are Lafayette, Alicia Sanchez, Bernard D. Pat Ryan, and Pioneer Elementary, a bilingual school where English and Spanish are both spoken for half of each day. Alexander Dawson School is a K-12 college prep school in the north part of town. Lafayette is part of the Boulder Valley School District.
The mayor of Lafayette is Chris Cameron, and the mayor pro-tempore is David Strungis.
Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there were 23,197 people, 8,844 households, and 5,952 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,620.9 people per square mile (1,012.0/km²). There were 9,115 housing units at an average density of 1,029.9/sq mi (397.7/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 85.53% White, 0.90% African American, 0.73% Native American, 3.32% Asian, 0.09% Pacific Islander, 6.82% from other races, and 2.61% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 16.42% of the population.
There were 8,844 households, of which 37.4% had children under the age of 18 living in them; 52.4% were married couples living together; 10.9% had a female householder with no husband present; and 32.7% were non-families. Of all households, 22.8% were made up of individuals, and 4.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. Average household size was 2.62, and average family size was 3.13.
In the city, the population was spread out with 27.5% under the age of 18, 7.5% from 18 to 24, 38.3% from 25 to 44, 20.9% from 45 to 64, and 5.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females there were 97.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.2 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $56,376, and the median income for a family was $64,088. Males had a median income of $44,167 versus $31,381 for females. The per capita income for the city was $27,780. About 5.2% of families and 7.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 8.1% of those under age 18 and 9.3% of those age 65 or over.
