Louisville Historical Museum

Time for a little local love!

We’ve lived in Louisville, Colorado, for six years now, and I’ve been meaning to check out our local history museum that entire time, but it took my parents visiting from Australia this Summer to get us off our butts and visits what has been right under our noses this whole time!

If you’ve ever been to Louisville’s Main Street, you’re likely familiar with the iconic 5c Coca Cola mural on the side of an early 1900s building. They may not be serving up 5c sodas here, but what they are serving up is a whole lot of Louisville’s history!

This is the Louisville Historical Museum, and today I’m sharing it with you.

Let’s take a look… 

Nestled right between the residential and commercial buildings along Louisville’s Main Street is the Louisville Historical Museum. This small museum is actually made up of several of Louisville’s original homes and businesses, some in their original location, and others relocated to the museum site. 

The main Museum building, the Jacoe Store, was operated as an Italian grocery store, popular with Louisville’s Italian immigrant population from the 1920s through the late 1950s. The Jacoe Store sits on its original site at 1001 Main Street. Today, the building is home to museum exhibits that share Louisville’s past and present. You’ll find artifacts from Louisville’s mining history such as tools, helmets and lanterns, signage, equipments, products, and photos from past businesses, memorabilia from the old Louisville High School, scale replicas of original Louisville buildings, and more. Throughout the year you’ll also find seasonal displays and hands on activities. We visited during June and made pins for Pride month.

From the Jacoe Store, we headed onto the Tomeo House, where a friendly museum staff member showed us around. The Jacoe Store building is open for self guided tours of the exhibits, but both the Tomeo and Jordinelli houses are only accessible with with a tour guide.

The 626sf Tomeo House was built around 1904 as a miner’s cottage for the Tomeo family. In the 1920’s through 1940s this three room cottage was home to Italian immigrant Grace Rossi and her six children after her coal minder husband passed away. The Tomeo House is furnished in the way that it would have been during the time Grace Rossi lived here, complete with an oven, heater, ice box, laundry equipment, sewing machine, and furniture authentic to the time period. Listening to the vintage wind up Victrola playing music from almost 100 years ago was definitely a highlight. 

Next up, our tour guide took us into the Jordinelli House. This house was also built around 1904, and relocated to the museum site from nearby La Fargo Avenue in 2001. The Jordinelli House is home to a scale model replica of Downtown Louisville as it would’ve have looked between 1895 and 1920. It was pretty cool to look at the model and spot buildings that we recognize today, including The Huckleberry, the old State Mercantile building, and even the Louisville Historical Museum itself.

Louisville Historical Museum is located at 1001 Main Street Louisville. 

The museum is open 10am to 3pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and 1pm to 5pm on Wednesdays. Closed Sundays and Mondays. Special extended hours are available on First Fridays and on the evening of the annual Parade of Lights in December. For more details on scheduled closures click here. 

Entry is always free. Donations are accepted.

For more information visit https://www.louisvilleco.gov/exploring-louisville/historical-museum.