Biohazard Cleanup Near Abbey Westminster, CO

Westminster is a home rule city in Colorado that spans Adams and Jefferson counties, northwest of Denver.

The 2020 census counted 116,317 people in Westminster — 71,240 in Adams County and 45,077 in Jefferson County — making it the eighth most populous city in Colorado.

Westminster is part of the Denver–Aurora–Centennial metropolitan area and the Front Range Urban Corridor, and its municipal center sits about 9 miles north-northwest of the Colorado State Capitol.

The city's first permanent settler was Kentucky farmer Pleasant DeSpain, who built his home in 1870 near what is now West 76th Avenue and Lowell Boulevard.

The settlement grew as DeSpain Junction until Connecticut developer C. J. Harris bought up the farms in 1885 and renamed the community Harris.

The post office took the name Westminster on June 5, 1908, and the Town of Westminster was incorporated in 1911.

The city takes its identity in part from Westminster University, a Presbyterian school patterned after Princeton University and nicknamed the 'Princeton of the West,' which held classes from 1908 until it closed in 1917.

The university's red-sandstone building, known as Westminster Castle, overlooks Denver and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Bowles House, a brick Italianate home built by Edward Bruce Bowles in 1881, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

Westminster City Hall is marked by a 14-story bell tower with a 130-foot spire designed as a tribute to Big Ben in London; it was unveiled in 1986 in a ceremony attended by the mayor of Westminster, England.