​Renovation continues at Old West Heritage enter

With funding received from the Fairfield Committee, the Town of Meeker, and a number of fundraisers and donations, the basic construction phases to transform the main room and lobby of the Old West Heritage Culture Center have been complete.

The heritage culture center main room has been the venue for multiple uses from RBCHS historical presentations and quarterly meetings,  monthly Chamber of Commerce Main Street Program meetings, Heritage Tourism Planning meetings, Water Conservation District Meeting, ERBM haunted house, State Historic Preservation Workshop, Agritourism Workshops, Meeker Arts and Culture Council monthly board meetings, Kid’s Culture Club, History Camp and more. Even though the décor is still stuck in the 1970’s, building use has been in high demand and served the community well.

However, the dream from the beginning was to remove the dated interior design and create an “old west” theme mini-theater with a high-quality home theater system to provide classics, documentaries, and historic films for heritage education goals. The Sustainable Revenue Plan also includes renting the space out for birthdays, anniversaries, reunions and other special events that would benefit from having a theater themed party.

Other parts of the building serve RBCHS and MACC as storage and serves the Research Committee as an archival center, genealogy lab and research room that is actively being used to serve the community.

​The Rio Blanco County Historical Society, and HCC committee are a motivated group that realizes the dreams that have come to pass so far in programming and extensive heritage education and tourism efforts, all began with small steps and what they had in their hand. 

To date, the Heritage Culture Center Committee and the Heritage Tourism Task Force has raised a total of $19,000 from three sources: Freeman Fairfield Grant Trust, WREA and Colorado Grand. Other grant submissions are in the works. .

To financially support this project, our Project Support page provides you with an opportunity to do so online. Just specify in the payment memo what you would like for the money to go toward.