“Arvada: We’ve got the Spirit of ‘76!”

Fifty years ago, that slogan was everywhere from billboards to bumper stickers heralding both the state’s coming centennial and the country’s simultaneous bicentennial. The Lake Arbor Merchants Association marked the marketing occasion with an ad in the local paper showing a colonial town crier announcing a sweepstakes that promised the winner a free hindquarter of beef. (That next to a full-page ad extolling both the tar and the taste of a Merit Menthol cigarette.)

“Hear ye, Hear ye!”

The Arvada Center was born amid both that patriotic fervor and, believe it or not, a heavy police presence. A packed dedication ceremony two years in the making drew an overflow crowd of up to 4,000 to the outdoor amphitheater on July 4, 1976. Today, capacity for th

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