Reprinted from Historically Jeffco, Vol 18, Issue 26, 2005, pages 4-8.

John Brisben Walker,the Man and Mt. Morrison

By Sa l l y L . Wh i t e

Much has been written about J.B.Walker, “Jefferson County’s wonder man,” a visionary and entrepreneur who has become a legend of localhistory in the 74 years since hisdeath.1 New family records and otherdocuments add a dimension to hislife and relationships here that havebeen little reported, and generatemore lines for investigation whilealso helping us understand hisinfluence on the area in the earlyyears of the 20th century.

Early Years in Colorado

Walker moved to Denver with hisfirst wife, Emily Strother Walker, andyoung family in 1879-80. At the time oftheir marriage in 1870, they were said tobe the handsomest couple in the valley inVirginia. At 23, he had already attendedGeorgetown College and the MilitaryAcademy at West Point and was aveteran of the Chinese Army.2 He cameto Colorado at the request of theDepartment of Agriculture, to demon-strate the potential for irrigated agri-culture in what seemed to most to be the“arid West.” In 1884, he enrolled his two oldest sons in the brand-new

Catholic school in Morrison for itsfirst session.3

By the early 1890s, in 1888 bysome reports, Walker had returned toNew York to manage his latestacquisition, Cosmopolitan Magazine.The last of the couple’s eight children was born there in 1890. Besides revivingthe magazine, Walker assisted thedevelopment and promotion of theautomobile and the airplane, reportedlyoffering his acquaintances, the WrightBrothers, room on his estate for theirwork. As part of his promotion of theautomobile, he founded the AutomobileManufacturers Association and, with hisson Justin, became the first person

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to attempt to scale Pikes Peak by auto,reaching the 11,000 foot level.4

Walker sold Cosmopolitan toWilliam Randolph Hearst in 1905 for areported one million dollars.5 He sooninvested his considerable profit in theacquisition of land near Morrison,including a large area of the redsandstone outcrops he hoped to makepopular. Enthralled with the spectacularscenery of the foothills and potential fordevelopment, he turned his inventivemind to new ventures.

“Mt. Morrison: An All-the-Year-Round Resort”

Walker himselfmoved toMorrison,returning fromthe east with anew bride,EthelRichmondWalker, andtheir fourchildren. Shehad been hissecretary atCosmopo l i tan ,andcontinuedto be a greatsupporterof hisdreams. Theymoved into ahouse on theoutskirts ofMorrison, strategically located at the baseof his new holdings on Mt. Falcon. The4,000 acres he bought in the Morrisonarea included large areas of Mt. Falconand Red Rocks, but it is unlikely he everowned, as is often reported, “the entire town of Morrison.”6 In 1909, he addedto his holdings when he purchased theproperty of Sacred Heart College fromhis friends, giving it a new name, theMt. Morrison Casino. Although thistransaction officially occurred in 1909,according to records at Regis Universityarchives, the Jeferson Co. Graphicannounced events at the Mt. Morrison

Casino, including the opening of theswimming pool to the public, as early asJuly 1908.7

Much of the property Walkerbought in Jefferson County waspurchased in the name of (or turnedover to) his newest ventures: theColorado Resort Co., which purchasedthe Mt. Morrison Hotel/Casino;and the Colorado Power, Water,Railway, and Resort Co., a company heestablished for the Red Rocksenterprise. Walker personally ownedseveral undeveloped but platted blocksat the south side of town, part of whichis now home to the town’s new (in1984) post office but most of which

remains undeveloped. Properties on Mt.Falcon, bought for his new home andhis proposed Summer White House,were also listed on the county tax rollsunder Colorado Resort Co. ownershipby 1910.8

From 1906 to 1928, whenRed Rocks Park was purchased by theCity of Denver, he worked tirelessly topromote the Foothills as a destinationfor tourists and a haven where wearycity dwellers could refresh themselves.

“To the visitor Mount Morrison offers a dry, invigoratingatmosphere, the most life-giving on thecontinent; water direct from the snowy

ranges, freedom from smoke; coolnights in summer and bright, warm,sunshiny daysin winter.” So enthuseda brochure the Colorado Power,Water, Railway, and Resort Companypublished in 1909.9 Of the town, thispublic-relations piece reported that“It will be the aim to build a second Colorado Springs to be within half anhour of Denver’s stores, churches,schools and theaters. A summer orwinter home near enough to get toearly business in Denver.”

By that time, the “railway to the peak” was nearly complete, and thecompany’s brochure extols the glories of the trip to the top (see sidebar on

next page).Walkerplanned todedicatethe Mt.MorrisonIncline RailRoad onJuly 31st ofthat year,extendinginvitationsto 800prominentColoradoans,including thegovernor.The grandopeningculminatedtwo years ofwork on thesteep project,

but such were the wonders ofMorrison’s climate thatduring theperiod from October 1907 to April1908, there were “only three days and two hours during which the workmenon the mountain side, constructingthe ‘Railway to the Peak,’were notat work.”

Among the workers Walkerhad hired for this huge undertakingwere representatives of manyMorrison families. Manley Sawyer,Tom Matthews, and others assistedthe project, and its progress andchallenges were tracked weekly inthe Jefferson Co. Graphic throughout

Mt. Morrison Casino as it appeared around 1910. This grand hotel,built b y former Governor Evans in 1874, was demolished in 1982.

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the summer of 1908 (see sidebar).Walker also hired Morrison

residents to work on his other projects,from building the dance pavilion inthe Park, to hauling materials to the topof Mt. Falcon for his new home there,to stabling and caring for his horses.Single-handedly, he must have provideda boon to the entire local economy.George “Pete” Morrison, grandson of the town’s founder, reported to Georgina Brown that he and hisbrothers were hired to work onWalker’s new “castle” home on Mt. Falcon. According to Pete’s unpublishedmemoirs, thiswould havebeen about 1909-10; the boysalso worked onremodeling theSacred HeartCollege back into ahotel about thesame time.11

Thatmany of hisenterprises weredoomed was notentirely Walker’s fault. And somesucceeded beyondhis wildest dreams.His efforts topromote thefoothills led tothe establishmentof the DenverMountain Parksystem; ultimatelythe vision offoothills parks he pioneered guided theacquisitions of Jefferson County OpenSpace as well. Less successful,thankfully, were several schemes in1912, when he suggested to theDenver City Council that they supportjust a few of his ideas, in exchange forwhich he would (a) carve one of thered rocks into a full-scale replica of theSphinx; (b) recreate a Mesa-Verde cliffdwelling in another outcrop; and (c)build life-size models, in cement, of thegiant prehistoric reptiles found inMorrison.12

Walker brought visitors from

across the country to Morrison, showedthem the spectacles of Red Rocks andthe Denver Mountain Parks, andtirelessly promoted the glories of thefoothills of Jefferson County. Hisefforts won success in 1912, when hepersuaded the Denver City Council todevelop a system of mountain parks totake advantage of the refreshing sceneryand environment of the area nearMorrison and Evergreen. For this, he isrightly known as the “Father of theMountain Parks.”

We sense Walker’s public relations touch also in a proposal to

change the nameof the town’s postoffice in 1908.Although it seemsMorrison itselfnever adoptedthe change, thepost office didbecome knownofficially as “Mt. Morrison,” and this is the nameWalker used inhis promotions.As reported bythe Jefferson Co.Graphic on July4, 1908:

“The name of the Morrison postoffice has beenchanged to Mt.Morrison inconformity witha petition

requesting the change. The new namelooks somewhat better in print and it issuggestive of mountains, cool shady nooks,and at the same time the old name hasbeen retained as part of the new.”

Walker’s oldest son, John Brisben Walker, Jr., became Morrison’s third mayor in 1909; his father surelyencouraged his interest in shaping thetown’s future. His tenure in office seemed relatively quiet—he presidedover discussions of “fixing the waterway along Mill Street” as well as the decision to purchase a “cerfew bell,” and

The Railway to the Peak

From the Jefferson County Graphic

Manley Sawyer and Tom Matthewsare engaged in hauling rails to theMt. Morrison Incline railroad thisweekMay 30, 1908

Over 25 men are now employed onthe Mt. Morrison Incline railroadand the work is being rapidly pushedtoward completion. About 1000 feetof the road grade is complete, readyfor the rails and ties, and a few feetof tracks has already been laid. Theroadbed for the remainder of thedistance is partially graded. Onecannot imagine the enormity ofsuch an undertaking withoutviewing the scene of operations andit is well worth your while to take awalk over the steep incline, which isto become one of Colorado ’s greatest achievements in railroadengineering.June 30, 1908

A 125 horse power boiler and anengine of the same capacity are nowon the ground, ready to be placed forthe Mt. Morrison Incline railroad.July 11, 1908

The last of the machinery for the Mt.Morrison Incline Railway arrivedlast week.... Not until the road iscompleted will people understandthe enormity of the undertaking, orthe great importance of the newattraction to Morrison.August 15, 1908

Magician’s wand seen in road built to top of peak

Walker’s promotional brochure, circa 1909

A speck of white shining on thedistant mountain top, a slender,almost imperceptible threadstretching straight up the mountainside—that is the first view you getof the Mount Morrison railway

continued on next page...

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four dozen buckets for the use of thevolunteer fire department. J.B. Jr. wasmore of an absentee mayor than mayhave been expected, although he waspresiding, but not voting, the night thetrustees approved the extension of hissaloon license for the bar he managed atthe Mt. Morrison Casino.13

Dreams Suffer A Final Defeat

Walker’s friendship with John Ross is documented by the personalrecollections of Mary Ross Quaintance,Ross’s daughter, also reported by Georgina Brown.The two men werebig players on thesmall field thatwas Morrison in1910, and both nodoubt benefitedfrom their longand productiveassociation.Walker’s personal fortunes werealways fickle,however, and thebeginning ofWorld War I inthe summer of1914 seemed toforeshadow yetanother decline.The popularity ofthe automobilealso spelled troublefor his greatattraction, thefunicular on Mt. Morrison, and thethreat of war affected his hopes for aboom in foothills recreation. In 1916,J.B. Walker lost his beloved wife Ethel;justtwo years later his “castle” home on Mt. Falcon was burned to the ground.

John Ross, with his company,the Bear Creek DevelopmentCorporation, was there to pick up someof the pieces when Walker’s empire began to crumble after 1918. By 1925,Bear Creek Development Corp. hadacquired more than 1,500 acres of theRed Rocks Park and Mt. Morrison areaformerly held by the Colorado

Power, Water, Railway and Resort Co.and another 180 acres owned by theColorado Resort Co. in the great heydayfrom 1910 to 1914.

In 1925, Walker still ownedalmost 700 acres central to the Park. By1927 this property was purchased by thePark of the Red Rocks Corporation, alsoa John Ross enterprise. Thus it was thatcorporation that ended up selling thepark lands to Denver through acondemnation proceeding that wasfinalized in August 1928.

As for Mt. Falcon, the landsbelonging to the Colorado Resort Co.,

including theonce-grand Mt.Morrison Casino,all went to FrankKirchoff inforeclosures or taxsales starting inabout 1925.(Kirchoff was,according to onereport, presidentof the AmericanNational Bank inDenver.) Duringthe 1930s, theformer Casino waswell-known as theHillcrest Inn; assuch it continuedto host manydignitaries andcelebrities.In 1943, Kirchoffturned it over tothe Poor Sisters of

St. Francis, who operated it as St.Elizabeth’s Retreat until 1952. Last known as Pine Haven, the buildingbegan a long decline in the 1960s and1970s until it was lost to demolition in1982. Mt. Falcon itself, and the “castle ruins” of Walker’s grand home, were sold to Jefferson County Open Space in1973 (1490 acres in all).

Rancher Alice Rooney Derby, aproperty owner adjacent to Red RocksPark, is said to have turned down theopportunity to purchase lands in RedRocks—despite the fire sale prices—onthe practical grounds that “cows can’t

continued from page 6...as you sit upon the broad veranda ofthe Mount Morrison hotel and lookupon the lavish splashes of color withwhich nature has painted the sceneryof one of the most beautiful realistic artsettings in the world.

That is the first impression—but the wonders of the mountainpictures, unfurling with the changesand splendor of a moving panorama asyou make that wonderful ascent up—up into the air, clinging involuntarilywith that moving car to the mountainside, make you gasp at the daring thathas placed this wonderful inclinerailway with its powerful and intricatemachinery in the very midst of ruggedand primeval nature, lording over themassive shape of Titan caves andupheavals, glinting in the red distortedsandstone in the Park of the titansbelow.

The new road just opened byJohn Brisben Walker up MountMorrison, bringing the work of twoyears to a successful finish, has givento Colorado one of the wonders of themodern world and has laid in the lap ofDenver or perhaps we might say, hastied to her apron strings a veritablejewel casket of exquisite scenic effectswhich the busy Denverite has beenaccustomed to travel miles and miles todistant mountain resorts to duplicateonly in part.

Ten miles from Denver—anhour’s ride—lies a wealth of scenerywith the most commanding point ofobservation—the top of MountMorrison, giving the full sweepunimpeded, unmarred on all sides.A veritable top-of-the-world, and thefeeling comes to you that some giantforce of mythologic times, when theTitans whose caves in the stupendoussandstone formations gleam red below,battled with the forces of the world,must have constructed that wonderfulbit of almost magic railroad...

The walk through the Park ofthe Titans, past those stupendousformations where the very Titansthemselves might be concealed inlabyrinthine caves, is the most perfectforeground for the railroad that everyperson blessed with even the faintestglimmer of imagination could wish.

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eat rocks.” She did, in 1931, turn over a few acres to Denver to provide an accessroad to the new parklands.

According to A.J. Tripp-Addison, Superintendent of DenverMountain Parks, the Red Rocks Parkacquisition was a “convoluted process.” In fact, it took visits to the courts tostraighten out and finally complete thetransfer of park lands to the City andCounty of Denver between 1928 and1937. The final transaction, receipt of aland patent from the federal governmentfor the top of Mt. Morrison

(land the City had previously purchasedfrom the Colorado Power, Water,Railway, and Resort Co.), completed theprocess in 1937. In the end, the City hadacquired 640 acres of Red Rocks Parkfor $50,000 (plus $4,000 for waterrights), as well as 130 acres of publicaccess for fishing and picnicking alongBear Creek all the way from Morrison toIdledale.14

Looking out at Red Rocks Park,as Morrison residents do daily, it’s hard to imagine all this wheeling and dealing,

but very easy to appreciate the foresightof John Brisben Walker, who saw a needfor land to be preserved for the futureand who arranged to meet that need in aspectacular way. Without his vision, andthe dedication of Denver MountainParks and Jefferson County Open Spacein carrying it out, Jefferson Countywould be without many of its mostvalued natural treasures.

For more on Walker’s exploits in Colorado and elsewhere see Historically Jeffco 1997.

Sources:

1In Jefferson County, Colorado: the ColorfulPast of a Great Community (1962), SarahRobbins gives Walker this accolade. Walker was acolorful and prominent character, who hasfrequently been the subject of articles and storiesand whose exploits in the Denver area have beenthoroughly reported in local histories. Most ofthis background material is available elsewhereand will not be repeated here. In the 1970s, theschoolchildren at Red Rocks Elementary wrote aplay based on his later years in Morrison, after thedeath of his second wife, and his “Summer White House” was the subject of a reading to the Monday Literary Club by Eileen Ewing Archiboldon April 19, 1954, just to name two of the moreobscure reports. Despite all this attention, thereare still mysteries to be solved and discrepanciesin Walker’s past yet to be reconciled.

2 Genealogical records and other information onthe Walker family were generously provided byMargaret E. (Peggy) Walker, granddaughter ofGerald Walker, the youngest son of John BrisbenWalker and Emily Strother Walker. Peggy also, in1985, compiled a 12-page unpublished historyentitled “John Brisben Walker.” A few dates are still in question, however. Peggy’s account thoroughly details Walker’s involvement with automobile manufacturing and promotion.

3 Regis: on the Crest of the West is a thoroughhistory of the school in all of its locations duringits first hundred years. Written by Harold L.Stansell, S.J., it includes an extensive chapter onthe years 1884-1888 when the school was knownas Sacred Heart College and was housed in theoriginal Evergreen Hotel in Morrison. RegisEducational Corporation, 1977, p. 238

4 Walker Manuscript

5 Other sources report $1.5 million. Mostaccounts are from newspapers of the time or inreviews since his death. In her summary of his

life, Margaret Walker does not give a figure forthe sale. It seems likely, largely because of theclose timing, that this money went directly intohis land investments in the Morrison area.

6 This quote from The Shining Mountains byGeorgina Brown (1976, p. 211) is frequentlyrepeated by other authors. Brown’s account is based partly on interviews with people whoremembered Walker, including George D. “Pete”Morrison and Mary Ross Quaintance, and thushas an interesting personal flavor. According toSarah Robbins, “He had acquired many acres of real estate in Jefferson County, in addition to thewhole town of Morrison (listed at the time as4,000 acres).” (p. 81) In fact the “whole town”istoday still less than 1,000 acres in size, and Walkerprimarily purchased undeveloped park land orplatted lots for speculation. The main exceptionwas the Mt. Morrison Casino building andproperty.

7 As reported by Stansell (Regis: On the Crestof the West), this transaction took place in 1909but final payment was completed in 1915. Theproperty (Block 15) is listed in the 1910 tax rollsunder the ownership of the Colorado Resort Co.

8 Jefferson Co. tax rolls were examined for theyears 1905, 1906, 1910 and 1925-1930, as well asthe Denver Mountain Parks regional map of1914, which also shows ownership. In the recordsfor 1925 through 1930, much of the property islisted under “J.B. Walker, trustee” and is annotated with the reference number of thevarious tax sales; the two resort companies appearto have been dissolved by that time.(Correspondence with one of his creditorsindicates that Walker was in Texas 1924 to 1927,working on his new road grading promotions.)Many of the properties were evidently sold (orforeclosed) during the final years of Walker’s life,when his fortune was again exhausted. He died inNew York in 1931.

9 The brochure, The Mount Morrison Railwayto the Peak and The Park of the Red Rocks,

features descriptions of the “High Line Scenic Drive to the Summit of Mount Falcon,” the “Famous Park of the Red Rocks,” the “Baths andHotel at Mount Morrison,” and, of course, the funicular railway. It also has attached to it variousparticulars of the finances and “earning powers” of the Colorado Power, Water, Railway, andResort Co. “The railway has a capacity for 4,000 passengers a day at $1.00 each. The operatingexpenses are smaller in proportion to capacitythan those of any other railway in the world.” These inducements seem to have been designedto attract stockholders and other investors.

10 This date is given in excerpts fromnewspaper stories compiled about the railroaddevelopments in the Front Range, page 354 of anundocumented copy in Museum files. The excerptreads “It is the intention of J.B. Walker, Sr., to dedicate the opening of the Mount MorrisonIncline R.R. to-day, with honors befitting theoccasion.” Perhaps the event was delayed, as Brown (Shining Mountains, p. 212) states thatthe railway was “officially blessed and launchedon its maiden voyage” on Saturday, August 7, 1909.

11 Pete Morrison and his brothers, grandsons ofthe town’s founder, started their film careers with stunt roles in Red Rocks about 1908, butcontinued to do railroad, mining, and ranch jobsaround the area for several years. From about1916 to 1930, Pete was based in Hollywood,where he directed and starred in 204 films, mostproduced by his own studio, Lariat Productions.(file documents and film lists)

12Walker’s schemes for the park reported by theDenver Post December 8, 1912.

13 Morrison town records, minutes of Board ofTrustees meetings from April 1909 to April1911.

14 Personal communication and records on file atDenver Mountain Parks headquarters inMorrison; A.J. Tripp-Addison, Superintendent

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