Glade Park is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

and a

U.S. Post Office The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal serv ...

located in

Mesa County Mesa County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 155,703, making it the most populous county in western Colorado, and 11th most populous in the state. The county seat and most populous mu ...

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

, United States. The Glade Park Post Office has the ZIP Code 81523.

Geography

Glade Park is west of downtown

Grand Junction, Colorado Grand Junction is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality that is the county seat and largest city of Mesa County, Colorado, United States. Grand Junction's population was 65,560 at the 2020 United St ...

, the largest city on Colorado's western slope. To access Glade Park, one must either drive up Little Park Road, or drive up the Rim Rock Drive in

Colorado National Monument Colorado National Monument is a National Park Service unit near the city of Grand Junction, Colorado. Sheer-walled canyons cut deep into sandstone and granite–gneiss–schist rock formations. This is an area of desert land high on the Colorado ...

, gaining approximately elevation over of hairpin curves. The views on the drive are spectacular, encompassing red sandstone canyons and sheer rock faces. The elevation of Glade Park is approximately . Due to the elevation, the temperature in Glade Park is typically ~10 °F cooler than in Grand Junction, though in winter temperatures can be significantly warmer than in Grand Junction if an inversion layer is present in the Grand Valley below.

Community

Glade Park is a former western Colorado ranching and farming community. As precipitation has declined, much of the ranch land has been split up into 35-40 acre parcels on which homes now stand. Area zoning permits a density of one house per parcel. There is no municipal water system available in Glade Park; most houses have water wells. The water table is approximately below the ground surface. Some homes harvest their own water off the roof. The remoteness of the area and the creativity of its residents, has made Glade Park home to an unusually high number of alternative and sustainably-constructed homes, including

Earthship An Earthship is a style of architecture developed in the late 20th century to early 21st century by architect Mike Reynolds (architect), Michael Reynolds. Earthships are designed to behave as Passive solar building design, passive solar earth s ...

rammed earth Rammed earth is a technique for construction, constructing foundations, floors, and walls using compacted natural raw materials such as soil, earth, chalk, Lime (material), lime, or gravel. It is an ancient method that has been revived recently ...

construction,

straw bale Straw is an agricultural byproduct consisting of the dry stalks of cereal plants after the grain and chaff have been removed. It makes up about half of the yield by weight of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat. It has a ...

geodesic dome A geodesic dome is a hemispherical thin-shell structure (lattice-shell) based on a geodesic polyhedron. The rigid triangular elements of the dome distribute stress throughout the structure, making geodesic domes able to withstand very heavy ...

, earthen berm and log construction. The distance of many of the building lots from electrical infrastructure has stimulated construction of a number of energy self-sufficient homes.

References

External links

Community website
{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Mesa County, Colorado Unincorporated communities in Colorado