Signature Brokers  5031 S. U,lster St . Suite 455  Denver, CO 80237  303-577-9700 Office  303-595-5280 Fax   info@5280living.com Email

It originated in the 1880s, as the town Fletcher, taking its name from Denver businessman Donald Fletcher who saw it as a real estate opportunity. He and his partners staked out four square miles east of Denver, but the town - and Colorado - struggled mightily after the Silver Crash of 1893. At that point Fletcher skipped town, leaving the community with a huge water debt. Inhabitants decided to rename their township Aurora in 1907, and it slowly began to grow in Denver’s shadow becoming the fastest growing city in the United States during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Although Aurora has long been considered by many only as one of Denver's larger suburbs, its growing population in recent decades (now over half the size of the City of Denver) has led to efforts for co-equal recognition with its larger neighbor. A former mayor once expressed the somewhat whimsical notion that eventually the area would be called the "Aurora/Denver Metropolitan Area." However, such efforts are somewhat hampered by the lack of a large, historically important central business district in the city. Aurora is largely suburban in character. Denver is the core of the metropolitan area and Aurora occupies most of the south-east suburbs of the metropolitan area.

A large military presence has existed in Aurora since the early 20th century. In 1918, Army General Hospital #21 (later re-named Fitzsimons Army Hospital) opened, with the U.S. government expanding and upgrading the hospital facilities in 1941 just in time to care for the wounded servicemen of World War II.

Lowry Air Force Base was opened in 1938, straddling the border of Aurora and Denver. It eventually closed in 1994, and was redeveloped into a master-planned community featuring residential, commercial, business and educational facilities.

In 1942, the Army Air Corps built Buckley Field, which over the course of history has been renamed Naval Air Station, Buckley Air National Guard Base and finally Buckley Air Force Base. The base, home of the 460th Space Wing and the 140th Wing Colorado Air National Guard, is Aurora's largest employer.

World attention focused on Aurora for seven weeks during the fall of 1955, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower recovered from a heart attack at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center. The hospital is also the 1943 birthplace of 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Decommissioned in 1999, the facility is part of the Anschutz Medical Campus of the University of Colorado Denver, and the Fitzsimons Life Science District. The Anschutz Medical Campus also includes the University of Colorado Hospital, which moved to Aurora from Denver in 2007, and the Children's Hospital. These facilities will employ a workforce of 32,000 at build-out.

In 2004, Aurora was honored as the Sports Illustrated magazine's 50th Anniversary "Sportstown" for Colorado because of its exemplary involvement in facilitating and enhancing sports. The city attracts more than 30 regional and national sports tournaments annually to Aurora's fields, which include the 220-acre (0.89 km²) Aurora Sports Park opened in 2003. Aurora's active populace is also reflected in the variety of professional athletes hailing from the city (see Notable People from Aurora below). Aurora's first semi-professional sports franchise, the Aurora Cavalry in the International Basketball League, began play in 2006 but folded by seasons end due to budget mishaps.^{[citation needed]}

Aurora is split among three counties and lies distant from the respective county seats. A consolidated city and county government was considered in the mid-1990s but failed to win approval by city voters. The issue was reconsidered in 2006.^[8] Colorado voters created the City and County of Denver in 1902 and the City and County of Broomfield in 2001. A consolidated city and county of Aurora would likely include areas not within the current city limits, but the new city-county boundaries would be set, restricting future expansion.

In 2008, Aurora was designated an All-America City by the National Civic League.