If one thing sets this unincorporated community apart, it is the altitude. At 7014 feet above sea level in downtown Evergreen, and an altitude of over 9000 feet in other parts of town, Evergreen encompasses about 130 square miles of pine and aspen laden hills. Evergreen is surrounded by natural beauty and abundant wildlife. Once a summer resort, the 1960's was the launching of a transformation of Evergreen that continues today. Evergreen is a place where city and mountain living come together, a place where the elk and buffalo roam.

Evergreen is spread out from the borders of 14,260-foot Mount Evans on the west, to the edge of the high plains on the east, from its neighboring communities of Conifer and Aspen Park on the south, to the residential communities of Genesee and Lookout Mountain on the north. Evergreen and the associated communities that make up the Evergreen area are cradled in the Rocky Mountains just 30 miles west of Denver.

The beauty of the mountains first drew people to Evergreen and they just keep coming!

When Thomas Bergen started his homestead in what is now Bergen Park, just four miles north of present day downtown Evergreen, he couldn't have imagined he was planting the seed for one of Colorado's most unique communities.

Bergen arrived in 1860, at a time when most people passed through what would become Evergreen on their way to Rocky Mountain gold country in search of their fortunes. The surrounding hills never produced much of the precious ore that enticed the miners but the enterprising Bergen created a different kind of gold mine. He established a ranch and hotel on what was once the summer hunting range for the Ute and Arapahoe Indians, and became the first of many ranchers, lumberman and farmers to settle in the high valleys.

In those days, legend has it, Evergreen's pine, spruce and fir forests were so thick one couldn't walk a horse between the tree trunks. Harvesting those forests kept many a mountain family from going hungry. The lumber produced in Evergreen's sawmills fed Denver's enormous appetite for new homes and commercial buildings. Cattle raised on local ranches, along with hay, potatoes, and peas, farmers could coax from the soil, also went to Denver for sale.

Shortly after Bergen's arrival, some settlers south of Bergen Park to build homes and establish businesses in Bear Creek Canyon, the present site of downtown Evergreen. Homesteader D. P. Wilmot, who bought a large tract of land south of town in 1875, first called the area "Evergreen". The name stuck.

By the 1880's, the town was populated by about 200 people. Six sawmills operated in neighboring mountain valleys. In downtown, there was a blacksmith, a barber, a carpenter, two summer hotels, a Methodist church and two general stores. The tiny mountain town began to grow with the improvement of the Denver-Evergreen road up Bear Creek Canyon in 1911, and the advent of electrical service to the area in 1917. By the 1920's, Evergreen was more than a rural logging and ranching community. It had become a popular summer resort for Denver residents. Troutdale in the Pines, a posh resort hotel on picturesque Upper Bear Creek, catered to Hollywood movie stars and America's elite. Other summer resorts sprang up in the area as well, including the Greystone Guest Ranch and the Brookforest Inn.

Throughout the '20's and '30's, Evergreen remained primarily a resort community with a population of about 600 year round residents nearly doubling during the summer months. IN the '40's and '50's, as roads were improved and automobile travel became more popular, the identity of the isolated mountain town began to change. Those whose job might otherwise have kept the city bound, suddenly found themselves able to live in more rural areas. Some became the first of the Evergreen-Denver commuters.

By the 1970's, Evergreen was established as a year round commuter community.

The following temperatures are in degrees Fahrenheit

Summer, for the most part, brings sunny days with an occasional afternoon rain shower

Winter Storms are generally brief and are interrupted by Warmer, Sunny Days.

  Source: Evergreen Chamber of Commerce

  Source: 1999 Evergreen/Conifer MLS Service

(3.0% Colorado State, 0.5% Jefferson County, 0.8% RTD)