Boulder Trivia
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58 free Boulder trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
48 free Boulder trivia questions with answers. Boulder is a gold-rush camp turned college town, research hub and outdoor playground, and this quiz covers the whole story. Questions range from Chief Niwot and the 1858 prospectors to the Blue Line and open-space tax that shaped the greenbelt, the Flatirons and Eldorado Canyon, Pearl Street Mall and the Dushanbe Teahouse, CU Boulder's Ralphie and Tuscan sandstone campus, the Buffaloes' 1990 title and Heisman winners, the Bolder Boulder and the polar plunge, Chautauqua, Naropa and the Beats, NCAR and NIST's atomic clock, Celestial Seasonings, Mork & Mindy, Stephen King's The Stand and Sundance's move to town. Easy questions ask what the Flatirons are and which sitcom was set here; the hard ones want the year of the Curran Opera House, the formation the Flatirons are carved from and who kidnapped Ralphie I. Made for CU students, transplants, trivia nights on the Hill and anyone who has argued about the best Flatiron scramble. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Boulder and its institutions, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 58 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Boulder was founded in late 1858 by prospectors drawn to the area by what?
The Colorado Gold Rush
The Colorado Gold Rush. Gold turned up along Boulder Creek in January 1859, and the find drew more miners and merchants to the new camp.
Q 02Boulder lies at the foot of which range of the Rocky Mountains?
Front Range
Front Range. Its peaks help block storms from the west, which shelters the string of cities at its foot, from Fort Collins through Denver to Colorado Springs.
Q 03Which TV series was created by two friends who met as students at CU Boulder?
South Park
South Park. As students, Trey Parker and Matt Stone made a rough construction-paper cartoon about foul-mouthed boys, and it grew into the series, set in a fictional Colorado town.
Q 04Which Native leader, linked to Boulder's first settlement, was mortally wounded in the Sand Creek massacre?
Chief Niwot
Chief Niwot. He is said to have let the prospectors winter in the valley on a promise to leave in spring; they stayed, and his band soon had to move to a reservation.
Q 05Which kind of forecast for the whole United States is issued from a NOAA centre in Boulder?
Space weather
Space weather. The Boulder centre watches the Sun around the clock and alerts power grids, airlines and satellite operators when a solar storm is heading for Earth.
Q 06Boulder's 1959 'Blue Line' amendment protected the mountain backdrop by restricting what above a set elevation?
City water service
City water service. With no city water above the line, subdivisions could not creep up the foothills behind Boulder.
Q 07In 1967 Boulder voters approved a dedicated sales tax to buy what?
Open space
Open space. The tax was meant to hold back sprawl, and the land bought since now rings Boulder as a green buffer.
Q 08Why does Boulder's city charter cap new buildings at 55 feet?
To preserve mountain views
To preserve mountain views. Voters wrote the cap into the charter, and zoning holds much of downtown to 35 feet, which is why Boulder's skyline stays so low.
Q 09In 2007 Boulder became the first US city to levy what kind of tax?
A carbon tax
A carbon tax. It was charged on electricity use from April 2007 to pay for the city's climate plan, until a broader climate tax replaced it in 2023.
Q 10In 1974 Boulder's city council voted to ban job discrimination on what basis?
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation. The backlash was swift: voters overturned the ordinance that same year and recalled a council member who had voted for it.
Q 11Which late-1970s spin-off of Happy Days was set in Boulder?
Mork & Mindy
Mork & Mindy. Robin Williams's alien first turned up in a Happy Days episode, then landed a show of his own, with a real house on Boulder's Pine Street as Mindy's home.
Q 12Boulder is the gathering point for survivors of a superflu in which 1978 Stephen King novel?
The Stand
The Stand. King had lived in Boulder a few years earlier, and in the novel the plague's survivors gather there to rebuild society as the 'Free Zone'.
Q 13Which film festival announced in 2025 that it would move to Boulder from 2027?
Sundance
Sundance. Boulder beat rival bids from Cincinnati and from Salt Lake City with Park City, ending the festival's long run in the Utah mountains.
Q 21Which Native people held the Boulder Valley by the 1500s, about three centuries before settlers arrived?
Ute
Ute. People had wintered in this sheltered valley for thousands of years before them, moving between the mountains and the plains with the seasons.
Q 22Which downtown Boulder street became a pedestrian mall in 1977?
Pearl Street
Pearl Street. Shopping centres had drawn business away from downtown, so the city shut four blocks to traffic, and street performers have made the mall their stage ever since.
Q 23Which government building sits on the north side of Boulder's downtown pedestrian mall?
The Boulder County Courthouse
Q 14The Bolder Boulder, a 10-kilometre road race first run in 1979, takes place on which holiday?
Memorial Day
Memorial Day. The course ends inside CU's football stadium, where finishers stay on in the stadium for a tribute to members of the armed forces.
Q 15Boulder's Dushanbe Teahouse was a gift from a sister city in which country?
Tajikistan
Tajikistan. Tajik artisans built the teahouse by hand and packed it into crates, but it sat in storage for years before Boulder finally opened it in 1998.
Q 16Hundreds of Boulderites have marked New Year's Day by doing what at Boulder Reservoir?
A polar bear plunge
A polar bear plunge. Rescue teams wait at the water's edge as the plungers throw themselves into the freezing water, and the dip has raised money for an Alzheimer's charity.
Q 17On Groundhog Day, Boulder's mountain-park rangers roll out Flatiron Freddy, a stuffed what?
Marmot
Marmot. Freddy is a stuffed yellow-bellied marmot, a close relative of the groundhog, and has arrived for his forecast by canoe, bobsled and zip line.
Q 18Under Boulder law, exterminating which animal requires a permit?
Prairie dogs
Prairie dogs. Even the city has to apply for a special permit before using lethal control on its own farmland, and it relocates colonies where it can.
Q 19Which big-band leader studied at CU Boulder in the 1920s and has the student union's ballroom named after him?
Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller. He played in bands while he studied, then quit college to work in music full time; the student union's ballroom now bears his name.
Q 20The Comedy Central show Broad City ends with which character moving to Boulder for an artists' residency?
Abbi
Abbi. She says her goodbyes to best friend Ilana and leaves New York, and the series closes with the two still talking by phone.
The Boulder County Courthouse. Despite its name, no courts sit there any more; they moved out, while the county government stayed.
Q 24Which Boulder-based tea company was founded in 1969 by Mo Siegel and Wyck Hay gathering wild herbs?
Celestial Seasonings
Celestial Seasonings. The founders picked the herbs themselves and sold their first blends to local health-food shops, with wives and friends helping to pack the tea.
Q 25Which herbal tea, launched by a Boulder company in 1972, became its bestselling blend?
Sleepytime
Sleepytime. The same company's Red Zinger tea gave its name to a Colorado bicycle race that later grew into the Coors Classic.
Q 26Which maker of glass canning jars started an aerospace business in Boulder in 1956?
Ball Corporation
Ball Corporation. The jar maker's offshoot began with pointing controls for rockets, went on to build instruments for the Hubble Space Telescope, and was sold to BAE Systems in 2024.
Q 27NCAR's Mesa Laboratory in Boulder supplied futuristic exteriors for which Woody Allen comedy?
Sleeper
Sleeper. Allen also filmed at the curving Sculptured House on a mountain west of Denver, which picked up the nickname the Sleeper House.
Q 28Which president dedicated the National Bureau of Standards laboratories in Boulder in the 1950s?
Eisenhower
Eisenhower. The labs he opened in September 1954 became NIST's Boulder campus, where atomic clocks now keep official time for the whole United States.
Q 29Which CU Boulder football star led the NFL in rushing before spending three decades on the US Supreme Court?
Byron White
Byron White. He delayed his Rhodes Scholarship by a term to play one NFL season on a record salary, led the league in rushing, then left for Oxford.
Q 30CU Boulder's live mascot Ralphie, who leads the football team onto the field, is what kind of animal?
A bison
A bison. Every Ralphie has been a female, since cows are far smaller and calmer than bulls, yet she can still run at about 25 mph.