Aurora originated in the 1880s as the town of Fletcher, taking its name from Denver businessman Donald Fletcher who saw it as a real estate opportunity. He and his partners staked out four square miles east of Denver, but the town – and Colorado – struggled mightily after the Silver Crash of 1893. At that point Fletcher skipped town, leaving the community with a huge water debt. Inhabitants decided to rename the town Aurora in 1907, after one of the subdivisions composing the town, and Aurora slowly began to grow in Denver’s shadow becoming the fastest-growing city in the United States during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Rather aptly, Aurora, the city composed of hundreds of subdivisions thus carries the name of one of the original development plats from which it sprang.