Wealthy suburbs like to name their streets after literary figures and Wheat Ridge was no different. Thirty years ago I barely noticed it. Perhaps because it had nothing of interest to a young man of 20, who was looking to spend money to be entertained. Back then it probably had actual wheat growing somewhere in the city limits, I couldn’t say.
Driving around Wadsworth I turned down 38th street to the Westward outer border looking for something to distinguish it from a million other bedroom communities; something to connect it with its settler past. The name “wheat fields” was probably too rustic and remeniscent of the unfashionable “Oakies”, drifters from the “The Grapes of Wrath.” Trendy Westerners prefer the image of 19th century immigrants to anyone still alive. It’s ok to be descendants from the hardy peasants of legend if one is separated by a couple of generations of accumulated wealth and respectability.
On the corner of 38th and Kipling is Discovery Park. It’s an out of the box park of no interest surrounded by strip malls and convenience stores, but tucked away on one side is a horse corral. In the distance, the mountains hovered in the far distant West.
