Twenty acres of open space on the Blue River north of Breckenridge show just how tricky it is to pick a name for a public place.
Breckenridge town council last night heard a pitch to name those 20 acres the Little Daisy Open Space, in a nod to a town-owned mining claim in nearby French Gulch.
Little Daisy was one of three names in the running, along with:
- Willow Bender, after a book written by Helen Rich, a resident of Breckenridge during the town’s gold rush
- El Prado, a Spanish translation for “the meadow,” recommended by a hired consultant
The town’s open space advisory commission adopted Little Daisy by a vote of 5 to 1, saying members preferred “the name’s whimsical, creative feel and, perhaps, the ability to appreciate natural beauty during the town’s environmentally impactful mining era,” according to a council memo.
The commission is holding onto Willow Bender and El Prado for potential trails nearby. Little Daisy opens to the public in spring 2027.
Honoring the Ute
It has taken thousands of years to get here, and Breck might not be done.
Since the early 2000s the property has been known as the McCain parcel, named after the family who owned it before selling 128 acres to the town for development.
Before that, Breck History writes, the Blue River valley was a patchwork of mining claims. Before that, for thousands of years at least, it was a summer byway for Ute Tribe.
Fast-forward to 2021, when the town earmarked money for open space on the McCain parcel. In 2023, informal talks about a new name were paused at the request of Breckenridge History and the town’s then-new social equity commission.
They agreed: The town must work with the Ute Tribe to honor the pre-mining history of the valley.
This, according to the council memo, is where naming got stuck.
“The process of engagement with the Ute tribe is long and nothing that we expect to conclude anytime soon,” reads the memo.
But Breck History is persistent. The group supports Little Daisy, while “understanding that any new name, as well as others across the town, may be subject to change in consideration of continued engagement with Ute partners.”
History in flux
The saga of Little Daisy shows how history is always changing in Breck. Just look at what’s happening all around it.
The northmost slice of the parcel has a pair of affordable apartment complexes. The center of the parcel has the Sol Center, the new home to the Family and Intercultural Resource Center, FIRC, and its sister nonprofit, Building Hope.
The southern slice is where Little Daisy sits on the banks of the Blue River, bordered by a new skier parking lot and town snow storage lot, where the riverbed was recently reconstructed as a flood plain. The Blue between Breck and Dillon Reservoir has been restored multiple times to repair damage done by prospector dredge mining.