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What is Littleton?
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The town’s boundaries may be ambiguous, but its history and charm transcend city limits
By Paige Ingram
Sam Drury lives on Sterne Boulevard, in a quiet South Metro neighborhood.
If his home catches on fire, he will soon see a Littleton Fire Rescue truck outside his door. If the sewer backs up, he will call the Littleton sewer plant. Drury’s property taxes are paid to Littleton Public Schools, where he sent all four of his children and served on the school board. And until seven years ago, when the city of Centennial incorporated, a Littleton mailing address filled one of the lines on his return address labels.
The thing is, Drury doesn’t live in Littleton. He lives in the Centennial.
To say jurisdictional lines in the South Metro area are ambiguous or confusing would be an understatement. The actual city of Littleton, which neighbors the city of Centennial on the east, is not to be confused with unincorporated Arapahoe County, or unincorporated Jefferson County, which extends from just west of the South Platte River into the foothills — all of which regularly receive mail with a Littleton mailing address.
The result is a hodge-podge of governments of overlapping jurisdictions.
It’s even confusing for Rohn Goldstein, chief executive officer of the South Metro Denver Realtor Association.
“Cities don’t line up with school districts, school districts don’t line up with postal addresses,” he said.
“And counties don’t line up with anything,” added real estate agent Kay Watson.
The confusion may not keep many citizens awake at night, and it hasn’t prevented cities or counties from providing services to their residents. But it has caused some notable discrepancies, from an interference with sales-tax collection to a wealth of blank stares and confused phone calls to government officials.
What’s your address?
Turn south on to Broadway from Belleview Avenue and you’ll find yourself in the city of Englewood. Two blocks later, at Rafferty Gardens, the city of Littleton begins. Continue a mile or so and suddenly, south of Weaver Place, oncoming cars are now driving in the city of Centennial. That is, until Fremont Avenue, where Littleton again resumes jurisdiction over both directions of traffic — at least until County Line Road, where Highlands Ranch and Douglas County take over.
Emergency dispatchers always keep boundaries in the forefront of their minds when answering calls, said Lt. Mike Broadhead, public information officer with the Littleton Police Department. “What’s your address?” is the first question asked.
“This really aids in efficiency, so that a caller doesn’t have to explain the issue and why they want to talk to the police, only to have to tell it all to another dispatcher at a different place,” Broadhead said. “The fact that the dispatcher asks this question first lets you know how common of a problem it is.”
Staff at the City of Littleton also regularly verify addresses for callers. Kelli Narde, Littleton’s communications director, said she keeps a city map right next to her phone, for quick reference. Despite what that map says, many times the result is an offended resident of an unincorporated area who insists they live in Littleton.
“The biggest problem is to the west, where the address extends out to Southwest Plaza,” said Chris Gibbons, Littleton’s director of business and industry affairs. “The Centennial folks (on the other side of town) are slowly getting used to the change. Some of Highlands Ranch is also served, or at least used to be, by [a Littleton address].”
The confusion is even an issue for police.
“One of the hardest tasks a new officer has is learning the jurisdictional boundaries,” Broadhead said.
New recruits are given a city map and are taken on a road trip, with a quiz to follow testing their knowledge of the city’s many boundary lines.
When it comes to enforcing the law, however, Broadhead said boundaries are not a problem — police are allowed to cross jurisdictional lines while in pursuit and city courts can hear cases throughout the larger judicial district.
That is, except for Trailmark, the annexed area of Littleton which — adding to the confusion — resides in Jefferson County.
The birth of suburbia
In the post-war 1940s and 1950s, the new availability of FHA loans drew many families away from their urban dwellings, to the open space and subdivisions of suburbia. Littleton was one such destination, that, like many other present-day suburbs, turned from a stand-alone city into part of an ever-expanding metroplex.
As money commuted out from the inner city, many suburban areas began to see independence from the central city — as opposed to annexation by it — as an asset worthy of consideration.
This independence eventually led to the creation of quasi-governmental agencies, like school, park and fire-protection districts. Oftentimes these districts disregarded city boundaries, causing confusion as cities grew and sought to foster their own identities.
For example, Littleton Public Schools teaches students in Littleton as well as parts of Centennial, while Littleton Fire Rescue serves Littleton, Highlands Ranch and parts of Centennial and Jefferson County.
Jurisdictional boundaries also fell by the wayside when it came to mail delivery. In 1963, the U.S. Postal Service created the Zone Improvement Plan or modern ZIP codes. Contrary to popular assumption, the city of Littleton comprises only the 80120, 80123 and 80217 ZIP codes. But by the post office’s reckoning, many other codes also fall within so-called “Littleton, CO.”
“The primary purpose (of ZIP codes) is to allow for efficient mail delivery,” said post office spokesperson Al Desarro. “What happens over time is areas get annexed and get developed, but for our purposes that ZIP code is still handled and delivered by that post office.”
The postal service’s quest for efficiency in effect created perceptions of Littleton’s boundaries so embedded, many of those in the know have given up trying to correct them.
While many have tried to alter the method, when dealing with an established system like the post office, getting an answer delivered is not always quick or easy.
“It’s an age-old issue,” said Sam Mamet, executive director of the Colorado Municipal League, a nonprofit organization that represents and serves most of the state’s cities and towns.
The problem stretches well beyond the Denver Metro area and has even come up a few times in the U.S. Congress, Mamet said.
Town meets big city
Like much of the Front Range, the city of Littleton can be traced to the Pike’s Peak gold rush of 1859. As gold seekers, merchants and farmers flocked to the area, water became a prized commodity. Among the engineers hired to solve the problem of delivering water to residents was Richard Little, a New Hampshire native.
Little soon fell in love with the land just south of Denver, and with the help of several new neighbors built the Rough and Ready Flour Mill in 1867, a source of economic security for the city’s founders for many years.
In 1904, Littleton was named the county seat of Arapahoe County, a change that brought not only government employees and businesses to the then-rural area, but a host of support services.
In the 1950s, as the Denver Metro area expanded south, the electronics, munitions and aerospace industries brought a manufacturing wave to Littleton, along with a growing, educated population.
It didn’t take long for the resulting new neighborhoods to transcend the official boundaries of Littleton and stretch well into current-day Centennial and Jefferson County.
As the Littleton area expanded, the postal service adapted to the population influx in ways that did not always make sense to residents or city officials.
Recently incorporated areas like Greenwood Village and Centennial have petitioned the post office for their own unique mailing address, but for those in unincorporated areas there simply isn’t a more accurate postal code to identify with. To update the ZIP code system so that only people living in the city of Littleton have a Littleton mailing address would be a logistical and costly battle, according to Desarro.
However, the arguably archaic system has become costly for some municipalities, too.
Just enough for the city
What may be cause for minor confusion on Mapquest can lead to revenue loss for a city.
Sales taxes on purchases made at local retailers are paid to the city where the transaction occurs. However, when it comes to deliveries, the sales tax recipient is determined by where the item is sent. For pizza and flowers, the money trail is not large. But add in deliveries of refrigerators, televisions and water heaters and the tax dollars start compounding.
“Deliverers rely on what the customer tells them or what the postal database tells them,” said Larry Dorr, finance director for the City of Lakewood.
The problem: these sources are often unreliable when it comes to identifying the city where a consumer lives.
In Lakewood, jurisdictional inaccuracies account for several hundred thousand dollars a year in lost revenue, according to Dorr. That means less money to fund city services, such as police and public works.
However, Dorr and others are hesitant to point fingers at those who get caught in the mire of municipal confusion.
“It can be onerous on the business community,” said Steve Burkholder, who served as Lakewood’s mayor from 1999 to 2007. “They’re sitting there scratching their head saying, ‘Wait a minute, I’ve been penalized when I was trying to do what was right.’”
Burkholder and Dorr acknowledge the difficulty the post office would face if it tried to restructure its system.
However, the post office has made changes in undeveloped parts of Lakewood, so that when businesses or residences eventually do move in, the issue will be moot.
The state Legislature has made one inroad on the issue. In recent years, lawmakers have started creating their own database of ZIP codes. Similar to the USPS database, this tool will eventually allow cities to verify addresses for sales-tax purposes.
“It’s a good first attempt at trying to solve this,” Door said. “Many businesses may not know about it, but we’re hopeful it will take hold at some point.”
As for those who currently live under the confusing system, Dorr expects residents would have as much to say about changing addresses as the post office.
“People are not a fan of changing stationary and mailing labels,” he said.
That was the case when the City of Centennial incorporated from a swath of Arapahoe County in 2001. Many residents in the western end of the city still use their Littleton mailing addresses. As long as the ZIP code is correct, the mail continues to go through, whether it says Centennial or Littleton.
Why Littleton?
As the holidays approach, white lights fill the trees lining Main Street in downtown Littleton. Shoppers bustle from one store to the next, bags in tow filled with priceless antiques and one-of-a-kind gifts. Bumping into old friends, they stop for a bite to eat and are greeted by name as they sit down to dine at one of the many neighborhood restaurants in the historic district.
Spending an afternoon in downtown Littleton can be like stepping onto an old-time movie set. The idyllic neighborhood draws locals and visitors alike to its corners.
It’s no wonder that real estate agents market the “Littleton” image when selling nearby homes.
“It’s one of the few places that people can feel like they’re tied to a hometown, because it has a Main Street,” said Kay Watson, a local real estate agent. “Littleton has a jewel there. Centennial doesn’t have a Main Street. Lakewood doesn’t have a Main Street. For someone who wants a hometown feel, there really is nowhere else in the South Metro area.”
The association is so desired that many homes residing well outside of Littleton city limits are still listed by real estate agents as being in “Littleton.” Words like “historic downtown” and “community” — which go hand in hand with Littleton’s image — are used to sell homes in the strikingly different subdivisions of Jefferson County and the Wind Crest retirement community in Highlands Ranch.
While the brochures often found outside homes for sale use the postal database to identify their location, Goldstein said the South Metro Realtor Association is very active in clearing up the confusion when talking directly with customers.
“That Realtor has someone in their car and it’s a constant education,” Goldstein said. “We show school districts, police and fire. We make sure that our members are the most knowledgeable (about the area.)”
For the average person lacking the guidance of a real estate agent, it’s a different story.
“Littleton has much tighter boundaries than most people realize,” said Gibbons with the City of Littleton.
He estimates that while more than 100,000 people associate themselves with Littleton because of the school district, the fire district or a mailing address, fewer than 42,000 of them actually live in the 15-square-mile city.
“Why wouldn’t you want to be associated with Littleton?” is the common response from government employees, real estate agents and average citizens.
“I think people like living in Littleton,” said Susan Beckman, the Arapahoe County Commissioner representing Littleton. “There’s a great downtown and a river running through town. People are wired differently here. They’re very focused on community and local politics, and they have strong beliefs.”
Longtime resident Drury agrees that Littleton conjures more than technical geographic boundaries.
“The tradition of the greater Littleton area ... is excellent education, excellent parks and open space,” he said. “It’s a really nice part of Colorado to live in, which is a nice part of the United States to live in.”
If his home catches on fire, he will soon see a Littleton Fire Rescue truck outside his door. If the sewer backs up, he will call the Littleton sewer plant. Drury’s property taxes are paid to Littleton Public Schools, where he sent all four of his children and served on the school board. And until seven years ago, when the city of Centennial incorporated, a Littleton mailing address filled one of the lines on his return address labels.
The thing is, Drury doesn’t live in Littleton. He lives in the Centennial.
To say jurisdictional lines in the South Metro area are ambiguous or confusing would be an understatement. The actual city of Littleton, which neighbors the city of Centennial on the east, is not to be confused with unincorporated Arapahoe County, or unincorporated Jefferson County, which extends from just west of the South Platte River into the foothills — all of which regularly receive mail with a Littleton mailing address.
The result is a hodge-podge of governments of overlapping jurisdictions.
It’s even confusing for Rohn Goldstein, chief executive officer of the South Metro Denver Realtor Association.
“Cities don’t line up with school districts, school districts don’t line up with postal addresses,” he said.
“And counties don’t line up with anything,” added real estate agent Kay Watson.
The confusion may not keep many citizens awake at night, and it hasn’t prevented cities or counties from providing services to their residents. But it has caused some notable discrepancies, from an interference with sales-tax collection to a wealth of blank stares and confused phone calls to government officials.
What’s your address?
Turn south on to Broadway from Belleview Avenue and you’ll find yourself in the city of Englewood. Two blocks later, at Rafferty Gardens, the city of Littleton begins. Continue a mile or so and suddenly, south of Weaver Place, oncoming cars are now driving in the city of Centennial. That is, until Fremont Avenue, where Littleton again resumes jurisdiction over both directions of traffic — at least until County Line Road, where Highlands Ranch and Douglas County take over.
Emergency dispatchers always keep boundaries in the forefront of their minds when answering calls, said Lt. Mike Broadhead, public information officer with the Littleton Police Department. “What’s your address?” is the first question asked.
“This really aids in efficiency, so that a caller doesn’t have to explain the issue and why they want to talk to the police, only to have to tell it all to another dispatcher at a different place,” Broadhead said. “The fact that the dispatcher asks this question first lets you know how common of a problem it is.”
Staff at the City of Littleton also regularly verify addresses for callers. Kelli Narde, Littleton’s communications director, said she keeps a city map right next to her phone, for quick reference. Despite what that map says, many times the result is an offended resident of an unincorporated area who insists they live in Littleton.
“The biggest problem is to the west, where the address extends out to Southwest Plaza,” said Chris Gibbons, Littleton’s director of business and industry affairs. “The Centennial folks (on the other side of town) are slowly getting used to the change. Some of Highlands Ranch is also served, or at least used to be, by [a Littleton address].”
The confusion is even an issue for police.
“One of the hardest tasks a new officer has is learning the jurisdictional boundaries,” Broadhead said.
New recruits are given a city map and are taken on a road trip, with a quiz to follow testing their knowledge of the city’s many boundary lines.
When it comes to enforcing the law, however, Broadhead said boundaries are not a problem — police are allowed to cross jurisdictional lines while in pursuit and city courts can hear cases throughout the larger judicial district.
That is, except for Trailmark, the annexed area of Littleton which — adding to the confusion — resides in Jefferson County.
The birth of suburbia
In the post-war 1940s and 1950s, the new availability of FHA loans drew many families away from their urban dwellings, to the open space and subdivisions of suburbia. Littleton was one such destination, that, like many other present-day suburbs, turned from a stand-alone city into part of an ever-expanding metroplex.
As money commuted out from the inner city, many suburban areas began to see independence from the central city — as opposed to annexation by it — as an asset worthy of consideration.
This independence eventually led to the creation of quasi-governmental agencies, like school, park and fire-protection districts. Oftentimes these districts disregarded city boundaries, causing confusion as cities grew and sought to foster their own identities.
For example, Littleton Public Schools teaches students in Littleton as well as parts of Centennial, while Littleton Fire Rescue serves Littleton, Highlands Ranch and parts of Centennial and Jefferson County.
Jurisdictional boundaries also fell by the wayside when it came to mail delivery. In 1963, the U.S. Postal Service created the Zone Improvement Plan or modern ZIP codes. Contrary to popular assumption, the city of Littleton comprises only the 80120, 80123 and 80217 ZIP codes. But by the post office’s reckoning, many other codes also fall within so-called “Littleton, CO.”
“The primary purpose (of ZIP codes) is to allow for efficient mail delivery,” said post office spokesperson Al Desarro. “What happens over time is areas get annexed and get developed, but for our purposes that ZIP code is still handled and delivered by that post office.”
The postal service’s quest for efficiency in effect created perceptions of Littleton’s boundaries so embedded, many of those in the know have given up trying to correct them.
While many have tried to alter the method, when dealing with an established system like the post office, getting an answer delivered is not always quick or easy.
“It’s an age-old issue,” said Sam Mamet, executive director of the Colorado Municipal League, a nonprofit organization that represents and serves most of the state’s cities and towns.
The problem stretches well beyond the Denver Metro area and has even come up a few times in the U.S. Congress, Mamet said.
Town meets big city
Like much of the Front Range, the city of Littleton can be traced to the Pike’s Peak gold rush of 1859. As gold seekers, merchants and farmers flocked to the area, water became a prized commodity. Among the engineers hired to solve the problem of delivering water to residents was Richard Little, a New Hampshire native.
Little soon fell in love with the land just south of Denver, and with the help of several new neighbors built the Rough and Ready Flour Mill in 1867, a source of economic security for the city’s founders for many years.
In 1904, Littleton was named the county seat of Arapahoe County, a change that brought not only government employees and businesses to the then-rural area, but a host of support services.
In the 1950s, as the Denver Metro area expanded south, the electronics, munitions and aerospace industries brought a manufacturing wave to Littleton, along with a growing, educated population.
It didn’t take long for the resulting new neighborhoods to transcend the official boundaries of Littleton and stretch well into current-day Centennial and Jefferson County.
As the Littleton area expanded, the postal service adapted to the population influx in ways that did not always make sense to residents or city officials.
Recently incorporated areas like Greenwood Village and Centennial have petitioned the post office for their own unique mailing address, but for those in unincorporated areas there simply isn’t a more accurate postal code to identify with. To update the ZIP code system so that only people living in the city of Littleton have a Littleton mailing address would be a logistical and costly battle, according to Desarro.
However, the arguably archaic system has become costly for some municipalities, too.
Just enough for the city
What may be cause for minor confusion on Mapquest can lead to revenue loss for a city.
Sales taxes on purchases made at local retailers are paid to the city where the transaction occurs. However, when it comes to deliveries, the sales tax recipient is determined by where the item is sent. For pizza and flowers, the money trail is not large. But add in deliveries of refrigerators, televisions and water heaters and the tax dollars start compounding.
“Deliverers rely on what the customer tells them or what the postal database tells them,” said Larry Dorr, finance director for the City of Lakewood.
The problem: these sources are often unreliable when it comes to identifying the city where a consumer lives.
In Lakewood, jurisdictional inaccuracies account for several hundred thousand dollars a year in lost revenue, according to Dorr. That means less money to fund city services, such as police and public works.
However, Dorr and others are hesitant to point fingers at those who get caught in the mire of municipal confusion.
“It can be onerous on the business community,” said Steve Burkholder, who served as Lakewood’s mayor from 1999 to 2007. “They’re sitting there scratching their head saying, ‘Wait a minute, I’ve been penalized when I was trying to do what was right.’”
Burkholder and Dorr acknowledge the difficulty the post office would face if it tried to restructure its system.
However, the post office has made changes in undeveloped parts of Lakewood, so that when businesses or residences eventually do move in, the issue will be moot.
The state Legislature has made one inroad on the issue. In recent years, lawmakers have started creating their own database of ZIP codes. Similar to the USPS database, this tool will eventually allow cities to verify addresses for sales-tax purposes.
“It’s a good first attempt at trying to solve this,” Door said. “Many businesses may not know about it, but we’re hopeful it will take hold at some point.”
As for those who currently live under the confusing system, Dorr expects residents would have as much to say about changing addresses as the post office.
“People are not a fan of changing stationary and mailing labels,” he said.
That was the case when the City of Centennial incorporated from a swath of Arapahoe County in 2001. Many residents in the western end of the city still use their Littleton mailing addresses. As long as the ZIP code is correct, the mail continues to go through, whether it says Centennial or Littleton.
Why Littleton?
As the holidays approach, white lights fill the trees lining Main Street in downtown Littleton. Shoppers bustle from one store to the next, bags in tow filled with priceless antiques and one-of-a-kind gifts. Bumping into old friends, they stop for a bite to eat and are greeted by name as they sit down to dine at one of the many neighborhood restaurants in the historic district.
Spending an afternoon in downtown Littleton can be like stepping onto an old-time movie set. The idyllic neighborhood draws locals and visitors alike to its corners.
It’s no wonder that real estate agents market the “Littleton” image when selling nearby homes.
“It’s one of the few places that people can feel like they’re tied to a hometown, because it has a Main Street,” said Kay Watson, a local real estate agent. “Littleton has a jewel there. Centennial doesn’t have a Main Street. Lakewood doesn’t have a Main Street. For someone who wants a hometown feel, there really is nowhere else in the South Metro area.”
The association is so desired that many homes residing well outside of Littleton city limits are still listed by real estate agents as being in “Littleton.” Words like “historic downtown” and “community” — which go hand in hand with Littleton’s image — are used to sell homes in the strikingly different subdivisions of Jefferson County and the Wind Crest retirement community in Highlands Ranch.
While the brochures often found outside homes for sale use the postal database to identify their location, Goldstein said the South Metro Realtor Association is very active in clearing up the confusion when talking directly with customers.
“That Realtor has someone in their car and it’s a constant education,” Goldstein said. “We show school districts, police and fire. We make sure that our members are the most knowledgeable (about the area.)”
For the average person lacking the guidance of a real estate agent, it’s a different story.
“Littleton has much tighter boundaries than most people realize,” said Gibbons with the City of Littleton.
He estimates that while more than 100,000 people associate themselves with Littleton because of the school district, the fire district or a mailing address, fewer than 42,000 of them actually live in the 15-square-mile city.
“Why wouldn’t you want to be associated with Littleton?” is the common response from government employees, real estate agents and average citizens.
“I think people like living in Littleton,” said Susan Beckman, the Arapahoe County Commissioner representing Littleton. “There’s a great downtown and a river running through town. People are wired differently here. They’re very focused on community and local politics, and they have strong beliefs.”
Longtime resident Drury agrees that Littleton conjures more than technical geographic boundaries.
“The tradition of the greater Littleton area ... is excellent education, excellent parks and open space,” he said. “It’s a really nice part of Colorado to live in, which is a nice part of the United States to live in.”
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