Broomfield and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes Celebrate Signing of Sister City Recognition

At an event held on Saturday, March 22, 2025, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes and the Broomfield Sister Cities organization, in conjunction with the City and County of Broomfield, celebrated the signing of a formal recognition to be Sister Cities.

The Sister City Program, administered by Sister Cities International, was initiated in 1956 to encourage greater friendship and understanding between the United States and other nations through direct collaboration.

In order to further those goals, the people of Broomfield and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes (a sovereign nation headquartered in Concho, OK), in a gesture of friendship and goodwill, agreed to collaborate for the mutual benefits of their communities by exploring educational, economic and cultural opportunities.

The City and County of Broomfield is delighted to work in closer collaboration with the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, many of whom are descendants of individuals who lived in this area and who were forcibly displaced in the wake of the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864. The Sister Cities effort-spearheaded by the Broomfield Sister Cities Organization: Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes subgroup-seeks to restore the connection and strengthen relationships between the Cheyenne and Arapaho people who still call this area home and the people who live here now.

As Sister Cities, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes and the City and County of Broomfield will engage in activities like a yearly basketball tournament, partnerships for traditional Native plantings at public gardens and open space, and collaboration on programs and community events. One exciting project that is currently in progress is a trip to Oklahoma by the City and County of Broomfield's Teen Council. This group of ten high school students and their chaperones will spend four days visiting important cultural and historical sites in Oklahoma and meeting with their counterparts from the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.

Leading up to this formalization, there have been multiple opportunities for community members and City staff to develop relationships with individuals from the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes welcomed a community delegation from Broomfield in May 2022. This group visited the Washita site in western Oklahoma with a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes' Language and Culture team, and participated in meetings with Tribal leaders and elders. In October 2023, Broomfield welcomed Fred Mosqueda, Mary Mosqueda, Chester Whiteman, Frank Medicine Water, Pauline Medicine Water and Roy Dean Bullcoming from the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes for meetings and tours of the community.

Other partnership work in 2024 included featuring members of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in the Broomfield Out Loud project, consultation on renaming a Broomfield Open Space property and a youth meeting in Allenspark. In Spring 2025, Brent Learned, an Arapaho artist and enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, will paint a mural as part of a public art project in Broomfield.