By Chris Sorensen

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, accompanied by newly-appointed Lieutenant Governor Donna Lynne, stopped in Eads Friday afternoon to visit the building that will become the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site visitor and research center at the corner of Maine and 12^th Streets.

County officials, in conjunction with State, Federal and other agencies, have been working for years to secure funding to renovate the historic Murdock Building that will house the National Park Service facility and a new Senior Citizen Center. Stabilization work on the structure has previously been completed.

The Governor’s visit also recognized the recent transfer of a section (640 acres) of State land to the National Park Service as part of the Sand Creek Site, which was dedicated in 2007. While approximately 8,000 acres are identified as being associated with the site, only about a quarter of the area is directly overseen by the National Park Service. Remaining land is privately owned.

Governor Hickenlooper had planned to travel to the site, however thunderstorms earlier in the afternoon caused as much as three inches of rain to fall in the area, making travel on the unpaved roads hazardous. He previously visited the site in November 2014, to mark 150 years since the massacre had taken place. In remarks made at the time, Governor Hickenlooper apologized to descendants gathered at the site for the atrocities that had been committed in 1864.

The Governor and Lieutenant Governor, along with Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal officials instead gathered at Prairie Pines Assisted Living Center to talk with citizens about the massacre site.