(left side)
Bridging Our History
This bridge is the second Billy Drew Bridge erected on this site. The original Billy Drew Bridge was built in 1976 as part of Golden's celebration of the Centennial-Bicentennial, the nation's 200th anniversary and Colorado's 100th anniversary as a State. A few Golden citizens, led by Billy Drew, called for the building of a bridge to provide an essential pedestrian and bikeway link between Golden and the city offices, parks, and residential neighborhoods located north of Clear Creek and west of Washington Avenue.
A small group of Golden residents, including Billy Drew, and students from the Colorado School of Mines helped to design the original bridge and to prepare the site.
The original structure was replaced by this present, wider bridge in 2003 to provide better accessibility and to enable two-directional traffice to safely cross at the same time.
Funding for this new bridge was provided by the City of Golden and a matching grant from Great Outdoors Colorado.
(right side)
The Billy Drew Bridge
Built on a Foundation of Involved Citizenry
Billy Drew was a gentleman who cared deeply about Golden. Our community is proud to continue to honor him through the naming of this bridge.
Billy Drew moved his family from Washington, D.C. to Golden in 1968 when he was 73 years old. He immediately became an active and devoted volunteer and worked diligently to improve the community well into his 90s. He was proud that he never missed a City Council meeting in nearly 25 years.
In addition to this bridge project, he campaigned to build Golden's first senior housing complex—Canyon Gate Apartments—advocating strongly for a high quality and affordable development.
Along with other citizens, Drew fought to save the Astor House Hotel from demolition, and it is now a Golden city museum on the National Register of Historic Places. He was trained as a stonemason as a young man and advised in the repointing of the stonework and the laying of the brick sidewalk in the garden at the Astor House Museum. He was 80 years old at the time, so he sat in a lawn chair to direct the workers.
Comments 0 comments