Ward Colorado, Boulder County elevation 9,450 feet is a Home Rule Municipality in Boulder County, Colorado, The population was 169 at the 2000 census. The town is a former mining settlement founded in 1860 in the wake of the discovery of gold at nearby Gold Hill. Once one of the richest towns in the state during the Colorado Gold Rush, it is located on a mountainside at the top of Left Hand Canyon, near the beautiful Peak-to-Peak Highway State Highway 72 northwest of Boulder.