Originally known as Fletcher it began in the 1880s, and was named after the Denver businessman Donald Fletcher who saw this town as a great real estate opportunity adjacent to Denver. Fletcher and his partners took four square miles east of Dnever, but suffered greatly after the crash of Silver in 1897. This is when Donald Fletcher skipped down, leaving behind a giant water debt for the community to deal with. Residents thereby renamed their town Aurora in 1897 and slowly regained its momentum of growth as a suburb of Denver. In the 1970s and early 1980s Aurora became one of the fastest growing cities in the United States, and soon began to be looked at as a city in its own right, not just a suburb of Denver, with a population approaching half that of Denver itself. Aurora is now the third largest city in Colorado.
There is a considerable military presence in Aurora, with the Fitzsimons Army Hospital, Lowry Air Force Base, and Buckley Air Force Base. Aurora was also named by Sports Illustrated Magazine as “Sportstown” for its extraordinary involvement in encouraging and supporting the development of sports in its city.