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…