Castle Rock to host Poundcake Pop-Up celebrating local history

Castle Rock will host the Poundcake Pop-Up on July 9 at Festival Park, using one of the town’s strangest origin stories to pull people into downtown for a free midday event. The 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. pop-up at 300 Second St. will include local-history storytelling, giveaways and a prize wheel, with complimentary mini pound cakes offered while supplies last.

The event leans on an 1843 journal entry from explorer John C. Fremont, who wrote that the butte looked like Poundcake Rock because of its shape. Local history accounts say Fremont traveled with Kit Carson on that expedition, and that the poundcake nickname never lasted. By 1858, after David Kellogg and a group of gold seekers explored the area, the Castle Rock name took hold instead.

Town leaders are tying that story to a wider set of milestones: the 250th anniversary of the United States, the 150th anniversary of Colorado statehood and Castle Rock’s 145th anniversary of incorporation. The town says the pop-up is meant to give residents a low-cost way to connect with the community’s past while adding another draw to the downtown core, where a free event can translate into more foot traffic around Festival Park and nearby businesses.

The prize wheel will carry America 250 and Colorado 150 swag, including pairs of Summer Concert Series season passes and a limited-edition Castle Rock 250/150 canvas tote. Castle Rock’s America 250/Colorado 150 plans also call for banners, patriotic displays across town and a grant program for commemorative events, suggesting the poundcake theme is part of a broader effort to turn history into recurring public programming rather than a one-time novelty.

The summer calendar already has other milestone events on it, including a Flag Day event on June 14 and a Colorado Day Festival on Aug. 1. That sequence places the Poundcake Pop-Up inside a season of downtown-centered programming that uses the town’s own history as a civic and economic asset, from the old rock formation that inspired the name to the modern public spaces now carrying the story forward.