New Brochures Ready May 16

The revised and updated Lariat Loop brochure should be available Friday, May 16th, reports LLHA president Joe Tempel. The cover of the new brochure features the "yellow car" image from our new Video Tour. The brochure also welcomes the following new partners to our circle tour:

• Bradford Washburn American Mountaineering Museum in Golden
  
  
• The Fort Restaurant, near Morrison
  

Note that several partner sites have new phone numbers or web addresses. Please replace any remaining copies of the old brochure you may have displayed.

We will be distributing brochures to partner sites and other locations as soon as possible. Contact Joe (joe_tempel AT dinoridge.org) if you want to make arrangements to pick up a box.

Look for our "Tour the Lariat Loop" ad in the Summer issue of City & Mountain Views.

Check Out the New Video Tour

Visit the Lariat Loop home page and click "Show Video Tour" (on the right under the picture) to view the new Lariat Loop video by LA productions. Len Aitken and Carole Lomond did a fabulous job on this, providing a very creative overview of the Loop tour. What a great way to preview the Loop's attractions! Thanks, Len and Carole!

Mural in Morrison is now complete

The historic mural by Emanuel Martinez, commissioned by the Lariat Loop Heritage Alliance, is now finished. Last week, Emanuel put a few finishing touches on the early panels, including Morrison's famous dinosaurs shown here, and ended his work on the last two panels.

Noted performers from Red Rocks are a real attraction, with passersby often stopping to talk with Emanuel while he worked, as here. His image of Bono, of the band U2, is especially striking.

Later this fall, an interpretive panel identifying the characters and stories in the mural will be mounted on the wall at the lower right.

If you can't stop by to see the mural soon, you'll find more images in this article at Your Hub.

Lariat Loop on Explore Colorado

This week, the Lariat Loop Scenic & Historic Byway will be featured on Channel 9's Explore Colorado program. Watch for features on their news programs and website all week. An interview with Steve Friesen (Buffalo Bill Museum) and John Steinle (Hiwan Homestead Museum) is scheduled for Friday morning's Colorado & Company program between 10 and 11 a.m.

In the meantime, here's an article that was posted at the 9 News website back in May.

Explore Colorado is partly funded by grants from the State Historical Fund to support heritage tourism.

Art and History on the Wall in Morrison

Our mural in downtown Morrison has reached modern decades, 150 million years from its first panel. We'll have more "in-progress" photos up on the Lariat Loop website soon-- or stop in and take a look next time you're in Morrison! Click any photo for a closer view.


Artist Emanuel Martinez is now at work on the fifth panel, depicting stars from Red Rocks-- from Ella Fitzgerald to Jerry Garcia. The latter, he tells us, is attracting a lot of attention to the project. There's little doubt the concert panel will become the most popular of the six depictions of Morrison's history, from dinosaurs to rock 'n roll.

Back in August, just getting started: Dinosaurs and Indians take shape on the first two panels, as a sketchy George & Isabel Morrison wait in panel 3.

And yesterday, moving toward the present: Jerry Garcia and a CCC worker from 1930s Red Rocks keep a watchful eye while Emanuel works on Jimi Hendrix's afro.



This project is funded by grants from the Federal Highway Administration (Colorado Byways program), the Lariat Loop Heritage Alliance, Denver Theatres and Arenas, the Friends of Dinosaur Ridge, the Morrison Natural History Museum Foundation, Karin Bond, and Jeanne and Cy Esphahanian. An interpretive sign to be posted nearby will provide information on each of the mural's six historic scenes.

Tour the Loop!

Get the scoop on the Loop with this 10-page spread in City & Mountain Views' latest issue, fall 2007. Follow Jim & Diana Vickery in their 1917 National as they tour the Lariat Loop, visiting many of our heritage treasures along the way.

You can recreate their tour with the Lariat Loop Audio Tour, now available at several member sites.

Photo courtesy City & Mountain Views, Views Publishing Company, Inc.

Website Updates in Progress

Keep an eye on the Lariat Loop home page-- new material can be found there today-- and more changes are coming.

As of today, our new Stories Section is available to browsers. Do let us know if you have additional stories you'd like to see included.

We also have the beginnings of a Projects page to report on all the activities of recent years. President Joe Tempel has been actively fundraising, and the level of interpretation has been raised here, there, and all around the Loop-- with more to come! As the Projects page gets filled out, we'll be sharing details of each new installation or opportunity, so keep it on your favorites list. Better yet, go explore these great new interpretive sites in person!