Trader Joe's Among Grocers Being Targeted for West Cheyenne

Cheyenne Mayor Patrick Collins says developers are working to attract a grocery store to the west side of Cheyenne, and Trader Joe’s is one they have targeted.

The wildly popular Monrovia, California-based chain has more than 530 stores nationwide, including one in nearby Fort Collins, Colorado.

"I have not shopped in a Trader Joe’s store but have heard such great things about it," Collins said Friday in his Mayor's Minute column.

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"I hope they are successful in attracting a grocery store of some kind to fill the void on the west side of our town," Collins added.

CLASSIC CHEYENNE: The Cole Shopping Center

In December of 2020, Blue Federal Credit Union completed its new headquarters at the corner of Converse and Pershing in Cheyenne. Well, it’s not so much a ‘corner’ as it is the smooth edge of a roundabout, but anyway. Before Blue FCU built its new campus, the site was at one time a premier shopping destination for Cheyenne. From the 1950s through 2016 it was Cheyenne's Cole Shopping Center.

Local businessman Frank Cole bought the land that would become a Cheyenne gathering place in the 1950s when the corner of Converse and Pershing was the edge of town. Starting in 1952, three different Safeway grocery stores called the Cole home over its half-century of existence. A plethora of other stores served the neighborhood too. From the movie theater to Blockbuster; there was the Cole Department Store, the fabric store, the East Branch of the Carnegie Library, and so much more.

As Cheyenne grew and changed, the Shopping Center fell into decline. Stores closed and new ones didn't take their places. The anchor of the area, Safeway, closed for good in 2016 with much of the rest following. In 2018 the buildings were demolished and the new construction began.

The Cole was so integral to the neighborhood that when we asked on social media for folks’ memories we were flooded with hundreds of responses.

Check out many of those memories below, along with several pictures of the Cole Shopping Center, mostly from near the end in the twenty-teens.

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