House became home for the Carlsons

By Silvia Pettem

In 1949, three years after Vivian and Carroll Carlson were married, the young couple purchased a brand-new house on Baseline Road in the Interurban Park subdivision. Now, almost seven decades later, Vivian still calls it home.

The neighborhood had been platted years earlier, in 1908, when the “Interurban” railroad first ran through the University of Colorado and then south on what today is South Broadway. The commuter trains continued to operate until 1926.

For the next two decades, the subdivided land between part of Park Avenue (now Baseline Road) and Green Mountain Cemetery was rural and sparsely settled. When the Carlsons’ moved in, the population of Boulder was just under 20,000. But post-World War II growth would quickly usher in big changes... READ THE NEWSLETTER