Hans G. Friedel

I created, or rather compiled, the first version of “A Brief history of Lone Tree” in December of 2016 as a holiday gift to my fellow City of Lone Tree employees. I worked for the City and was a Lone Tree resident between 2015 and 2020. Back then, I had a coworker who would distribute elaborate Christmas music mix tape CDs at work. As a bit of friendly holiday competition with his elaborate gift, I came up with the idea of writing a little history of Lone Tree through exploring how the City got its name – a story that nobody seemed to know or remember. What started as a personal project grew into something larger than expected. Unfortunately, I completely missed the winter holidays and finished it in Spring of 2017. Then as now, I am unaware of any official or unofficial histories of Lone Tree where this information exists in one place. It is my hope that former, current, and future residents find it enjoyable and that it gives them a sense of place and history. In 2022, I made a few minor revisions, corrections, and edits. What do I miss most about living in Lone Tree? It is sunset runs at the Bluffs Regional Park.

Great city planning is an engaging, inclusive, transparent, and collaborative process where community members establish a vision for their community that is creative, unique, and realistic. I believe plans should be clear, accurate, concise, purposeful, rationale, and effective. They should preserve the maximum freedom possible for property owners while equitably protecting the collective health, safety, and welfare of the people and the environment.

Good plans preserve local character and a healthy environment, maximize efficient transportation and multimodal options, and ensure recreational equity and safe public spaces. We as planners should see the big picture, and work hard to create great, livable, and sustainable places.