Published by: THE JEFFERSON COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSIONVolume 10, Issue 18, 1997

1921 National Championships—Genesee MountainCover Story: A History of Skiing in Jefferson County—Page 6

HISTORICALLY

JEFFCOHISTORICALLY

JEFFCO

The Jefferson County Historical Commission was establishedby a Resolution of the Board of County Commissioners onJuly 22, 1974.The initial purpose was to guide the obser-vances of the Centennial-Bicentennial year of 1976, when theJCHC provided plaques for 25 sites of historical significancein the county and originated the “Festival of the West.” Itsmission has always been to educate citizens about the historyof Jefferson County.

Fifteen voting and six alternate JCHC members volunteer5-20 hours monthly to “inspire, encourage, and develop alocal history record.” They assist local museums, promote historic preservation and restoration, support and work withthe Jefferson County Archivist, and maintain a publishing program. Most of the work is done through the Budget,By-laws, Education, Publications, Grants, Preservation,Library, Place Names, and Hall of Fame Committees.

The Publications Committee manages an annual “Writer’sAward Contest” to attract and reward citizens for historicalresearch. Most contest winners are published in Historically

Jeffco, the annual magazine of JCHC.They also publish and distribute brochures on historical sites.

The Hall of Fame Committee has established a gallery ofpeople at the Jefferson County Government Center. Citizennominations of significant individuals, living or deceased, areselected by a panel of three judges (outside the county).Thecommittee also honors sites that have been accepted in theNational Register of Historic Places.

The Historic Grants Committee helps process grantapplications for submission to the Colorado Historical Fund.They assist applicants with format and content, verify appli-cant information, and present recommendations to theBoard of County Commissioners.

Since 1988, the Place Names Committee has been devel-oping a database approaching 2000 historical sites in Jeffer-son County that will become available to the public in 1998.

Since 1974, the JCHC has planned, coordinated, and completed the following projects: (continued on page 37)

THE JEFFERSON COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION

COMMISSION MEMBERS

Donald E. Ebner,JCHC since 1990,Past Chair Hall ofFame; WritingAwards, Placenames,Grants Committees;Chair HistoricPreservation Committee. Retired Executive.

Jane Munro Gardner,JCHC since 1974,twice past Chair,past Secretary, Hallof Fame honoree1993. Woman ofthe Year Award1990. Contributorto From Scratch.

Mary Bindner—JCHC Chairperson,on Commissionsince 1974. Lived inJeffco 36 years.Real Estate Broker.Lakewood CityCouncil. “Festivalof West” 21 years.

Sharon Carr, JCHCsince 1974. Chairelect 1998. Civic &political activities:Lakewood CityCouncil, Mayor Pro Tem, Lakewood Sister City, LakewoodHistorical Society.Currently an Independent TravelAgent.

Liz Priest Grady,JCHC since 1991,Corresponding Sec-retary. NumerousJCHC Committees.Jeffco Cancer Cru-sade & Easter SealChair; Chair, R-1Pre-planning; Presi-dent Colorado Symphony Guild.

Viona Mae Hader,JCHC since 1985,Golden Historian.Past Secretary/Manager of theGolden Chamberof Commerce; pastCurator for theAstor Hotel Museum.

Photo Courtesy of Golden DAR Pioneer Museum

Max W. Haug,JCHC 1997. PastPresident: OldeTown ArvadaAssn., ForwardArvada, ArvadaCommunityResources, andArvada HistoricalSociety. Real EstateAgent 1954-1996.

Erlene Hulsey-Lutz,JCHC since 1986,past Chair. Com-mittees: Education,Publications, Hallof Fame, GrantsChair. Real EstateBroker.

Dorothy Lombard,JCHC since 1981,Past Chair, Corresponding &Recording Secre-tary. Committees:Placenames, Hallof Fame & Education/Library.Assisted with FromScratch.

Carole Lomond,JCHC 1997. Pub-lisher City andMountain Views,a news magazinefor Mt. VernonCanyon. Writing a book of area history. JCHC Publications Committee.

Marcetta Rhoads Lutz,JCHC since 1987,Past Chair. Place-names CommitteeChair. Hall ofFame honoree1996. Committeechair for threeArvada historybooks.

Norman Meyer,JCHC since 1986,past Recording Secretary, Place-names and GrantsCommittees. Jour-nalist, traveler,pilot, photograph-er. Conifer rancherfor 47 years. NativeColoradan.

Historic photo shows a scene along Bear Creek near Morrison.

Golden in the 19th Century

Mountains of Memories,Mountains of Dreams—

A History of Skiing in Jefferson County

The Search for Bradford

Some Historical Organizations in Jefferson County

Jeffferson County HistoricHall of Fame

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CONTENTS

Betty Moynihan,JCHC since 1980,past Secretary &Editor HistoricallyJeffco. Education/Schools Commit-tee. Contributorto From Scratch.Well published historian.

Rita Peterson,JCHC since 1981,present Treasurer &past Chairman.Vice Chairman &Secretary for Hall of Fame Committee.Past Editor of Historically Jeffco.

Jack Raven, JCHC1997, RecordingSecretary. PastPresident: ArvadaHistorical Society,Arvada LionsClub & ArvadaCemetery Associa-tion. SafewayManager 26 Years.

Ruth Richardson,JCHC since 1983,numerous JCHCcommittees.Active with local,county and statePTA. Member Jeffco Citizens forPublic Schools.Wheat Ridge resi-dent over 80 yrs.

Milly Roeder,JCHC since 1995. Editor, HistoricallyJeffco. Assistedwith county’s historic preserva-tion resolution.Numerous JCHCcommittees.National Registernominations.

Kevin Rucker,JCHC 1997. History writer/researcher/educa-tor Red RocksComm. Collegeand CU Denver.Fort Lupton Historic Preserva-tion Board.

Four Historic Sites in Jeffco Added to National Register of Historic Places

Dream Catcher:A Brief History

of the John Brisben Walker

Legacy

Preservation by “Downzoning”

Jefferson County Historic Commission

Writer’s Award Contest

JCHC Publications CommitteeErlene Hulsey-Lutz, Chair

Milly Roeder, EditorCarole Lomond, Assistant Editor

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Historically Jeffco Layout and Design by Fine Print Brochures & Photography

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Richard Simmons,JCHC 1997. Place-names committee.Branch Managerand Principal forSunamerica Securi-ties. Pilot andflight instructor.

JCHC Staff—Duncan McCol-lum, Director &Susan Casteleneto,Secretary, Archivesand Records Man-agement.

This 1997 annual edition of Historically Jeffco is dedicated to Dennis Potter, whosetireless efforts produced 17 editions from1985, when he was first appointed to the Jef-ferson County Historical Commission, untilhis resignation in 1996. He promoted thewriting contest, found photographs, judges,printers and distributors, and prepared themagazine for printing.

Potter was born in Denver in 1949 toMaurice, a WWII combat veteran, and Patricia, whose mother manufactured bulletsat the Jefferson County Remington ArmsPlant. The family moved to Golden in 1953where Maurice helped build Golden’s firstrecreation center and organized the youthbasketball programs. In 1967, Potter graduated from Golden High School wherehis mother taught English and Speech

during the 1970s. After graduating

from Colorado StateUniversity with adegree in English andEducation, Pottertaught English Litera-ture at Jefferson HighSchool. He then joined the Jefferson CountySheriff ’s Department, where he is in his 27thyear of service. He is a Lieutenant in com-mand of patrol operations in southeast Jeffer-son County. He lives in Morrison with hiswife Susan and his son John.

His interest and commitment to preserva-tion inspired his extraordinary service to theHistorical Commission and to the JeffersonCounty Cultural Council, on which heserved from 1995 to 1997.

DENNIS POTTER

In 1859, The Boston Party, a realestate developer with lots ofvisions, came to what was then

John Smith’s trading post and settledthere. They saw a beautiful countrywith lots of space and unlimitedopportunities. Because this territorywas near the mining fields, the BostonParty decided to form a city.

On June 16, 1895, the Boston Partyheld a meeting and decided to formThe Golden Town Company. Themeeting was short and all membersagreed. On June 20th, another meetingwas held for questions and suggestionsof workers. This session was held in atent used for gambling during theweek and church on Sunday.

While the starters of this idea werepeople with visions, many pioneerswere attracted to the site as well, andGolden City was born. The 1,200 acrepiece of land, mostly on the southside of Clear Creek, was appropriatedfor the city.

Building progressed rapidly. Mostmaterials were coming from thesawmill the people brought with them.

Lots of people started coming toGolden and it was obvious that theBoston Party started something good.

GROWTH OF GOLDENMost of the people who came toGolden were young. They had newideas and were trying to make Goldenthe principal city of the Pikes PeakRegion. Their competitors wereAuraria and Denver, but Golden hadthe advantage of having mines locatednearby.

In the Pikes Peak Region, Goldenwas the chief center of enterprisealong with Cherry Creek, Auraria andDenver. Both Golden and CherryCreek were large communities for theirtime and both were proud and jealousof each other. These cities did nothave a good neighbor policy and theydid not agree on anything. This rivalrypartially split early settlers into two dif-ferent camps. In this race, Goldenitesconsidered themselves better for indus-trial development. The Goldenites’confidence in themselves and in theirtown was unlimited. Goldenites were

also very good politicians. There wereno violent incidents but Goldenitesdid consider themselves to have morebrainpower.

Goldenites began making betterbridges across Clear Creek, and wagontrail roads were protected. Golden

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Damir Makic, a twelve year

old Bosnian immigrant,

writes a brief history of his

new home town.

GOLDEN

A PERSONAL NOTETO THE READER:My name is DamirMakic. I have been inthis country for oneyear.When I saw thecity of Golden for the first time, Ibecame interested in it. I came to thiscountry from Bosnia with my motherand my brother; my father came later.We left Bosnia looking for a new lifeand to get away from the horrifyingsights of the war that has been goingon now for four years.

My work at school is great. I havestraight A’s and my teacher alwaystells me that my English is excellentconsidering the time I’ve been here.

The author is a winner of the 1996Youth Writer’s Award Contest.

Golden today (above), compared with Golden in the 19th century (left)

in the19thCentury

Photo by Steve Larson

Photo Courtesy of Jefferson County Historical Society

grew very fast. At the end of 1859,Goldenites claimed to have a popula-tion of over 700. The pioneers ofGolden, the Boston Party, were veryproud of their results. The Goldenites’hard work was finally recognized in1862 when Golden became the capitalof Colorado Territory. It stayed thecapital until 1867, when Denver tookthe name of the capital.

Everyone thought that Golden wasnamed after oneof the earliest pio-neers of JeffersonCounty, ThomasGolden. Itappears that thismight have beenan error. It wasactually namedafter the land ofPikes Peak.

RAILROADS INGOLDENAfter Golden wasnamed the capital of Colorado Territo-ry, Golden’s first pioneer, Mr. A.H.Loveland, wanted to boost Golden’smorale by finishingits railway. Tobuild this railway,Lovelandemployed Denver’smen at his ownexpense. Thesemen were buildingthe route fromDenver to Golden,and then to ClearCreek County andCentral City.While building therailway, Lovelandwas pressured byrailroad officialsabout conflict inrouting the rail-way. Under thispressure, Lovelandsaid that he wouldshorten the roads

to cut down the cost.It was in 1870, when the Union

Pacific Railroad was opened. Mr. Love-land, with his associates, had the sup-port of Goldenites and began toimprove the Union Pacific Railroad.When transit began to grow, Golden-ites adopted a new kind of resolution.This railroad brought the new enthusi-asm to Golden and it began the processof improvement. Vacant buildings

became occupied and the price of landbegan to increase. The town grew rapid-ly. The railroad made a real difference.

GOLDEN ON TOP FOR THE SECOND TIMEGolden was at the top again. Theeconomy was better and better andGolden was growing. The fields weregrowing, mills were built and coalmines were opened. Everything wasgreat. Five large plants were built alongthe railway and people were gettingjobs. Everybody in Golden was tryingto contribute to the town. Golden wason its feet again! Just when it thoughtthat hard times where gone, it wasshaken for life. The railroad officials,jealous of the success of Golden, relocated the railroad headquarters and centered it in Denver. That wasthe end of Golden’s fame.

GOLDEN IN 1996Golden still lies between the moun-tains like it used to, but now it is notrecognized the same way. Golden wasjealously robbed of its railroad but itcan never be robbed of its historybecause of people like the writer whowant it to last forever.

The old Courthouse in Golden in approximately 1872

Golden City settlement circa 1860 Photo courtesy of Golden DAR Pioneer Museum

Photo courtesy of Golden DAR Pioneer Museum

Before Vail, Aspen, and Steamboat Springs lured skiers away to deeper snow, longer ski trails

and seasons, the cradle of Colorado skiing was in Jefferson County. Few of today’s residents

are aware that some of the most ambitious, and improbable, ski resorts were proposed.

A History of Skiing in Jefferson County by John McMillin

MOUNTAINS OF MEMORIES, MOUN

Boosters tried to put their best face on Genesee Mountain’sfrequent lack of snow. In an article entitled,“The Ski Riders ofGenesee,” one sports writer claimed,“Professional ski jumperslike to come to Denver for the reason that in no other section

of the country is it possible to ski a good course while thespectators can seat themselves on dry ground without wraps.It was necessary to haul and pack snow for the course at thetime of the Interstate Tournament.”

Photo courtesy of Denver Public Library,Western History Collection

In the early years, a day on theslopes didn’t begin with a 60-miledrive over the Continental Divide.

For some, it barely demanded a tripinto the mountains. Residents offoothills communities like Evergreenactually drove east, into the risingsun, to enjoy a day of skiing.

Colorado’s first sit-down ski liftand the first artificial snowmakingsystem in the western United Statesbegan in Jefferson County. Beginningin the 1920s, lift-served ski areas andnotable ski jumps welcoming rawbeginners and national champions.National tournaments thrilled fans ofup to 8,000 with the spectacle of skijumping.

Despite the historic significance ofJefferson County skiing, few recordshave been compiled of the birth, life,and death of its ski areas. It has beensaid that history is written by thewinners of its conflicts. By that stan-dard, Jeffco’s ski areas, with theexception of the pioneering jump atGenesee, are little-remembered losers.Very little information about theghost ski areas of Jeffco are availablein the catalogued materials of theColorado Ski Museum, the ColoradoHistorical Society, and the DenverPublic Library’s Western History col-lection.

One slim brochure, See and Ski inColorado, published sometime after1966, mentions several small ski areas“that lie like a necklace around the

throat of the city, east of the divide.” While these minor-

league ski areas were not the

most elaborate,they were closeenough to Den-ver’s brightlights that “onecan mingle hissports and hissporting life.”

Today, namesand places likeHomewoodPark, Fun Valley,and MagicMountain arenearly forgotten,and memoriesof those whoskied there are fading. Developmenthas changed some of those sitesbeyond recognition—one has beengobbled up by a rock quarry.

After World War II, the dreams oflocal entrepreneurs snowballed toinclude chairlift-served golf courses

and downhill rides on grass

slopes using oversized roller skates.During these heady years of expan-sion, leisure time blossomed intonew industries and pastimes. Wherever there was a slope in Jeffer-son County, there was an accessroad, hope for snowfall, and a skiarea… at least in the minds of

John McMillin, first prizewinner in the 1996 writingcontest, has been a Jeffer-son County journalist foreight years. He is currentlywith the Jefferson Sentinelcovering Lakewood. Hemoved from Tennessee toDenver in 1978. As heprepares to publish a book on early ski areas,he welcomes the input of interested citizens.

TAINS OF DREAMS

Photo courtesy of Denver Public Library,Western History Collection

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hopeful entrepreneurs. The miracle of snowmaking seemed to put skiingwithin everyone’s reach, encouraginghopeful developers in their quest to“bring the mountain to Mohammed”by bringing skiing to the fringes ofthe city.

INSPIRATION POINTHistorians trace the beginning of

organized Rocky Mountain skiing toa modest promontory that risesabove the urban f latlands overlook-ing Clear Creek and has a panoramicview of the peaks and foothills of theFront Range (nearSheridan and I-70).The site is coveredwith homes today,but the blizzard ofDecember 4, 1913covered InspirationPoint and all ofDenver with deepsnow that stoppedstreetcars, wagonsand most pedestri-ans in their tracks. But not CarlHowelson, a “professional ski rider,”who wowed Denverites with hismobility, “while a snowbound citylooked on, marveled and admired.”

Howelson, Bo Johnson, and

Dr. M. R. Howard helped build a ski jump with materials at hand.Some painters loaned their ladders to form a base for the platform.Tournaments were held there for several years, but the view of snow-blanketed hills to the west, so promi-nent from the brink on InspirationPoint, eventually drew the skiers’ambitions westward.

GENESEE MOUNTAINThe first Jefferson County ski areawas at the most accessible high site

to the west in Mt. Ver-non Canyon (now I-70)at Genesee Mountain.The Denver RockyMountain Ski Club, aspin-off of the Col-orado Mountain Club,had held ski jump com-petitions at InspirationPoint, down in dustyDenver. The search forbetter snow led them

to build a jump next to DenverMountain Park’s first purchase Gene-see Mountain. They anticipated “thegreatest performers on the Norwe-gian show” to demonstrate their aerial skills.

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IN THOSE DAYSSKIING MEANT JUMPING

The Genesee ski coursewas long enough for

moderate-lengthjumps. In dry win-ters, when snow

had to be hauled in tocover the course, it was just a

straight ribbon of white, with noroom for skiers to turn right orleft. But at jumping speeds, on free-heeled equipment, a turn was thelast thing most of those earlyskiers wanted to try. In the earlydays at Genesee, the lack of effec-tive turning techniques promptedskiers to jump and coast to a stopin a straight line.

Josephine Shelton remembersher sister’s amazement at ArlbergClub instructors teaching “down-mountain” techniques, includingtelemark and Christiania turns, onRilliet Hill of Lookout Mountain (a slope created by members ofthe Colorado Mountain Club). Itturned out to be the wave of thefuture for 99 percent of the worldof skiing. But that day,“She thoughtthey were poor skiers.Theyweren’t jumping.”

Louis Dalpes was a jumper, nota turner.“I never got much of athrill out of that… and I was nevera pleasure skier. It got so doggonecrowded.” His eyes glisten withexcitement as he recalls, “I liked tofly through the air, and hear thosecameras clicking.”

However, one Denver Postwriter was more impressed at the poise of the Arlberg Club’s ski instructor, an Italian lieutenantnamed M.Albizzi. “It is a sight to be remembered to see him coast-ing down a hill at breakneck speed, suddenly to check and come down sideways, reverse,and ski the other way.”

One of the memorablegimmicks of the 1920Genesee competitionwas a race between a skier and an“aeroplane.” Unremarkably, the flying machine won.

Photo courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection

“Menefee Howard and B.O. John-son decided they needed a ski club,and within a year they put on anational tournament,” recallsJosephine Shelton, who saw it all takeplace. The newly named Denver Win-ter Sports Club commenced the con-struction of a jumping course in 1919.Denver Municipal Facts announced“The Romantic Riders of the Moun-tains to hold their National Tourna-ment in Genesee Park next Winter.”

They planned to offer a longerjump by building a ramp east of thesummit. A warming house offered“dainty Norwegian pastry gems” like“fatiman” and “sanbagels.” JosephineShelton remembers her first ski dayswith still-evident pride. When shetook up the sport at Genesee in1920, she had to become one of thefew women who skied as “one of theboys.” Today, at age 87, her walkremains quick and confident, and hermemories clear. Her father intro-duced her to the f ledgling sport. “Hewas that kind of person,” she said.“He had a car very early on, and wewould all go out camping and fish-ing. At the Kiwanis Club, we wereinvited to go up to Genesee to ski,and he took the whole family up.What we got for Christmas was skis.”

Fear wasn’t a factor, she says. “Theway women were skiing those days, itwould have been sissy to be afraid.We didn’t do much, we just walkedaround in the snow.” At the 1921meet, the women’s competition con-sisted of simply skiing down the

course while standing up. Nei-ther of the two competitorssucceeded.

But Shelton later gave in tothe perilous temptations of theski jump. At the Fourth of Julytournament at St. Mary’s Glaci-er, she and her female friendssaid, “By gum, why don’t wego for it.” She did just that,making a 31-foot jump.

She believes the ski jump atGenesee “really put Coloradoon the map.” Certainly theevents drew avid fans. At anAll-Western Tournament in1926, skiers and spectators hadto trudge a quarter-milethrough two-foot-deep snow.According to the Denver Post,about 2,000 showed up in Mt.Vernon Canyon which was esti-mated to hold 30,000 specta-tors. Shelton said some ski fanstook the streetcar to Golden,rode the funicular railway upLookout Mountain, and thenwalked several miles to theGenesee course for an event.

Some records indicate asmany as four jumps existed atGenesee. The longest was saidto be 2,000 feet, with a verti-cal drop of 700 feet. A new courserecord was set with a 117-foot longjump in 1922. One of 125 competitorsstretched up to 152-feet in 1931, butonly 1,000 spectators were on hand.Josephine Shelton recalls that it wasnear the end of the big meets at

Genesee, that “the snow quit.”Although 8,000 attended the 1933

Denver Post Tournament, an undatedstory reported that the club disband-ed and the jump at Genesee fell intodisuse—until 1950, when Denver Uni-versity ski coach Willy Schaeff ler

slope’s runout, Dalpes suddenly saw a motorist aboutto cross the run on a collision course. He flung him-self down flat to the snow like a ball player slidingtoward home plate and slid underneath the passingModel T. He emerged untouched except for awrenched ankle sustained from his ski snagging a tire.No one else ever sailed from that jump. It was short-ened before the second competitor took his turn.

Louie Dalpes can’t recall the year, but other details ofa hair-raising incident remain distinct. Spectatorsreached the parking lot at Homewood Park by asnowy driveway that crossed the ski run below thejump. Dalpes was the first competitor of the day, andthe ramp had just been modified for a more power-ful launch. After Dalpes soared for a record jump, he“lit clear at the break of the hill.” Rocketing down the

LOUIE DALPES VERSUS A MODEL T?

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Photo courtesy of Denver Public Library,Western History Collection

Genesee Mountain ski area, with spectators seated where I-70 is currently located.

proposed to renovate and reopen thejump “after a 20-year absence.”

College tournaments were held atthe revived slope in 1954, 1955, 1956.Dalpes served as a judge. Althoughthe Denver Rocky Mountain SkiClub originally had taken a 99-yearlease on the site, Peder Pytte, a veter-an ski racer now with Volant Ski inWheat Ridge, remembers 1956 as thelast year of skiing there.

Shelton’s mother preservedmany newspaper accounts of thegrowth of the ski-jump circuit,including tournaments and eventsat Genesee, Homewood Park, JarreCanyon, Estes Park, Hot SulphurSprings, and Steamboat Springs. Asthe sport grew and transportationimproved, skiers began to favorthose faraway mountains on theWestern Slope where ample snowcover was rarely a concern. ButShelton always liked Genesee best.Why? “It was the people,” she said.

HOMEWOOD PARKHomewood Park f lourished long

ago, when the primary industry inAspen was hard-rock mining. Profes-sional jumping competitions andraces were held at Homewood Parkbeginning in 1928.

Two Scandinavians, Leif andAndrew Erickson, were happy to hostthe new sporting fad at their ranch,about five miles above the mouth ofSouth Deer Creek Canyon. Historicphotos of the Shelton album show aformidably steep jumping hill, withno lifts. “A full day at a HomewoodPark meet included a practice run andthree jumps for a score,” said Dalpeswho was a perennial favorite at themeets there. Skiers might climb thehill a half-dozen times, with eachascent taking about 30 minutes. Theyhad to have strong legs as well asbold hearts. In its heyday, a friendlyrivalry developed between the DenverRocky Mountain and HomewoodDenver Ski Clubs, fanned by publicityand sponsorship by the Denver Post.

In 1931, sportswriters promoted “theoutstanding ski artists” at a Home-wood meet. A South Dakota manwon with a 174-foot jump, but thestar attraction was “the world’s lead-ing woman skier,” Johanna Kolstad, aNorwegian known for jumps of 180feet or more.

Kolstad’s jump at HomewoodPark gained drama in mid-air. Caughtby a gust of wind, she seemed to be

about to “pancake” down to theground. “While the crowd held itsbreath,” wrote a sports writer, “theNorwegian Sensation called on everytrick in her repertoire and executed amiraculous recovery to sail out in abeautiful jump of 106 feet. It was thethrill of the day.”

When the Homewood Denver SkiClub held their 14th annual tourna-ment in February, 1942. Dalpes andlocal ski maker Thor Groswald werejudges. Groswald’s son, Thor Jr.,recorded the shortest jump, just 44feet, in his under age 15 category, butonly half of his 16 competitors fin-ished. Evidently, the jump had beentamed since the days of Kolstad’sexploits. The longest jump in theadult A Class was 88 feet. More omi-nously, only five competitors (includ-ing Jerry Groswald, recently retired30-year director of Winter Park), wereentered in the marquee event, accord-ing to an event program displayed atthe Colorado Ski Museum.

Today, Louie Dalpes lives in a

senior housing development inWheat Ridge, just down the streetfrom the Volant ski factory. Whenasked, Dalpes is happy to demon-strate the jumping form he used towin nearly a dozen championships,with jumps of up to 245-feet. Heputs his heels together and bends for-ward at the waist. When he’s doneand he stands up, his head rises onlyan inch or two. Ninety-five years of

time seem to have frozen thechampion into his competitionstance.

Dalpes was a local favorite forthe 1932 Winter Olympics, but aninjury kept him off the team. Hejumped at sites all over Colorado,but liked Homewood Park best.“That was a beautiful hill,” heremembers.

Today, the Erickson’s cobble-stone ski lodge is a residence witha stone archway marking the site.A public ice-skating pond waspopular there until 1969, when a

f lood from the failure of “illegal”dams upstream “wiped out every-thing,” one local resident recalls.

MEYER RANCHMany Jeffco ski areas vanished

without a trace, but not the one atMeyer Ranch, which peaked in popu-larity in the 1940s. On current mapsof the Jeffco Meyer Open SpacePark, the “Old Ski Run Trail” ismarked near the southern boundary.The course ran along the mountain-side and had a scant vertical drop ofabout 150-feet.

What drew skiers to this modesthill? It may have been the horse-drawn sleigh, a low-tech answer tothe skier’s eternal struggle to escapegravity’s pull.

After Covert Hopkins started the“Watson’s” slope nearby, he promot-ed a ski hill as “Mount Lugo.” Itoperated seasonally in 1940 and 1941,but closed when wartime gasrationing prevented most skiers fromtaking weekend pleasure trips.

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JCHC member Norm Meyer tobogganing withhis family at Meyer Ranch ski area in the 1950’s.

Photo courtesy of Norm Meyer

PENCE PARKSkiing was an informal activity

back when lifts were a rare luxury.Jessie Kirk of Kittredge recalls days ofwinter fun at Pence Park, a clearingnear the top of Meyers Gulch Road,some time around 1954. He recalls,“There was no real ski run, but offthe road they had pretty good ski-ing.” Inner tubes and toboggansoffered further thrills.

But success spoiled Pence Park. “Itwent on until the 1970s, but theyhad to stop. Parking became a prob-lem,” Kirk said.

FUN VALLEYIn the foothills above Deer Creek,

Fun Valley was first developed byHorace Watson, a former boxer.Though well off the beaten path, itwas a nursery for f ledgling skiers forthree decades. Initially, it offered thethen innovative Poma lift as uphilltransportation.

Located six miles up Deer CreekCanyon on Watson Gulch Road, adja-cent to today’s Jeffco Deer CreekOpen Space Park, Fun Valley was ashort distance from Homewood Parkand “Watson’s Ski Hill” which openedin the winter of 1938-39, according toLou Hopkins. Tobogganing and “walk-up” skiing had taken place there forseveral years before.

But when Lou’s father, CovertHopkins, built a sled-style tow there,it was a big step ahead. The onlyother mechanized lift in the state wasa humble rope tow at Berthoud Pass.The custom-designed sled at Watson’scarried 12 to 15 people, sitting orstanding on their skis. A mine hoistat the hilltop provided motor powerfor a cable. Despite the innovation,Watson cut Hopkins out of theaction after the first year andchanged the name to Fun Valley.

Louie Dalpes recalls how he oncetried to drive over the ridge to FunValley from Homewood Park. Theman who once jumped nearly thelength of a football field on skis

found the narrow, unpaved, moun-tain road full of unplowed snow toointimidating. He and a companionturned around, never to return.

In 1969, Fun Valley offered a J-barPoma lift and a rope tow which couldtransport 1,500 skiers per hour. Itplaced the area in the first ranks ofColorado’s second-string ski areas. Ski-ing continued at Fun Valley after darkunder lights. It became a convenient

after-work alternative still not duplicat-ed today, especially since Eldora skiarea, near Boulder, turned off its lights.

Fun Valley had “a good, protectedslope” and “no crowds at all,” remem-bers Groswald. But its ownershipchanged over the years. Leonard andShirley Roy took charge for a while.Peggy Bussard has fond memories ofoperating Fun Valley in 1968-69 when

it “wasn’t really going full gear. Wehad a nice time up there. I made cof-fee and people brought sack lunches.”She looked into the possibility ofsnowmaking, but never installed it.“We usually had enough natural snowfor beginners,” she recalls.

Bussard is proud that her threedaughters, who learned to ski at FunValley, are still carving up slopes.“That little hill served them very well,”she said. For Christmas, Bussard gaveeach daughter two lift chairs from theski hill they once called home.

Legend says it was closed down in1977. On a Saturday afternoon inDecember, 1995, the ski area wasbeing undeveloped. Two dogs ranbeside a pickup truck that coasteddown the hill, loaded with faded bluechairs salvaged from the single-seatlift. Current owner Joe Dorris wasselling the chairs as souvenirs, cash-ing in on Fun Valley’s legacy.

Dorris plans to leave Fun Valley’sPoma lift intact in case a futurebuyer wants something to play with.

MAGIC MOUNTAINBy pioneering the art of artificial

snowmaking, Magic Mountain left itsmark on all of today’s major skiareas. Ironically, after the lifts and skitrails vanished, so did the mountainbeneath them—it is now the WesternAggregates quarry pit.

During the winter of 1958, “Lefty”McDonald recalls, “We didn’t getmuch help from Mother Nature.You’d look up there and see thissplash of white on the brown. But(with snowmaking) we built up a baseof about two feet.” Eventually, “MagicMountain went over pretty well.” Upto a hundred skiers a day, and about5,000 that year, sampled the lighted,beginner-oriented slope which mea-sured 1,100 feet long. There were tworope tows to conquer the 150-footvertical drop. The future lookedbrighter when the Denver Post spon-sored a learn-to-ski program at MagicMountain, to compete with a training

HOW SNOWMAKING BEGAN

George “Lefty” McDonald recallsthe venture he launched in 1958,as the Foothills Ski Corporation.His company leased about 60acres south of the present AlpineSlide (Heritage Square) thenknown as Magic Mountain.Theybrought in standard water hosesand irrigation rigs, and attachedtheir secret weapon—a patentedspray nozzle, developed by aMassachusetts irrigation firm.

“The concept evolved by acci-dent,” McDonald said.“They hadbeen spraying trees at below-freezing temperatures and gotsnow.” When McDonald assem-bled the parts, he made historyfor building the first snowmakingsystem in the western U.S., andone of the first anywhere.Andhe had created a ski slope whereno one expected such a thing, inthe foothills of the Rockies offColfax Avenue.

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program at Arapahoe Basin sponsoredby the Rocky Mountain News.

“We knew that Magic Mountainwould never be a bonanza, by anystretch of the imagination, but if itwas well-promoted, it would certainlybreak even,” he said.

But even more quickly thanMcDonald’s snow guns createdinstant winter, the magic failed. Finan-cial troubles struck the amusementpark that only a few years before hadbeen touted as “The New Disney-land.” A f lurry of liens from unpaidcontractors buried the business whichwas padlocked for three years. “Wehad to buy back our own equipmentin a public auction,” he said.

But McDonald’s snowmakingsavvy served them once more, as theybrought skiing to the foothills ofColorado Springs. By the early 1960s,they had created the largest snowmak-ing system in the world, the better toentertain the guests of the Broad-moor Hotel. Before it closed in the1980s, Ski Broadmoor offered onechair lift and three runs, up to a half-mile long. The Magic Mountain skirun site has since become eaten awayby the Western Aggregates quarry pit.

GREEN MOUNTAINMagic Mountain was McDonald’s

second choice. “The place where wereally wanted to do it was GreenMountain,” he recalled. It offeredlonger and steeper north face slopesthat were perfect for preserving man-made snow. But where would thewater come from? That dilemma hasblocked development there for years,until Lakewood purchased it as anOpen Space Park.

In 1966, the Golden City Councilvoted to supply water to “Ski Golden,”a proposed 270-acre ski area on GreenMountain. But after the initial fanfare,the project died quietly, leaving nopublic record of when or why it fizzled.

SKI SKYLINEAlpine skiing on Lookout Moun-

tain? Over Buffalo Bill’s dead body! In 1968, plans were announced for

a new, year-round resort on the westside of Lookout Mountain, near theBuffalo Bill Museum and Grave. TheDenver Post described the site asseven-tenths of a mile from U.S.Highway 40. The proposed site wasdesigned for beginners and intermedi-ates, with one 45-degree slope forexperts. Plans called for a 450-footvertical drop, topping out at 7,550feet above sea level. PromoterEdward W. Solte promised to openfor the 1969 season. A past owner ofthe property claimed an average

snowfall there of 132 inches but sup-plementary snowmaking was planned.

Penciled into the plans was a skijump, two chair lifts and 13 lightedruns, but that was only the begin-ning. One of the ski runs wouldbecome an 18-hole golf course withplayers shooting toward greens downthe hill and riding the lift back up.Tennis and swimming rounded outthe proposed recreational package.Local opposition and lack of fundingapparently stopped the Ski Skylinedream.

EVERGREEN BASINThirty miles west of Denver, O. J.

Stransky envisioned turning his 970-acre ranch near the Brook ForestHotel into an Alpine bonanza. “Ever-green Basin” boasted three chair liftsto serve runs of up to two miles long.Alas, it turned out to be only a boast.

The project was ambitious, aimingat a resort the size of Winter Park.Only this one would be better, Stran-sky predicted. In a Denver Post fea-ture, he claimed that his mountainlacked the winds that plagued otherski areas. There was a vertical slopeof 1,200 feet, topping out at 10,200feet. Thanks to a track that funneledstorms overhead as they passed fromMt. Evans to the Palmer Divide, theannual snowfall at the ranch wasnever less than 225 inches, heclaimed. Once, the ranch received sixfeet of snow in four days. But, henotes today, “We used to get moresnow. Winter has gotten periodicallynicer all the time.”

In August, 1965, Stranskypromised two double chair liftswould be running by mid-winter,with more to come. According toCervi’s Journal, a lodge would bebuilt in just 90 days. After that, heexpected to have overnight facilitiesfor the “Kansas City ski bunch whowant to come out.”

But by his December deadline,Arapahoe National Forest officialsclaimed his planned lift line violatedtheir boundaries. Another blow camewhen a $350,000 federal loan fellthrough because of the conflict withthe U. S. Forest Service. As the $1.5million project lost its momentum,Stransky is quoted as saying, “Theyare discriminating against us. Nodoubt about it.”

Stransky still speaks darkly aboutconflicts with his sister over the divi-sion of the profits, and a conspiracyamong other ski moguls to torpedohis plans. “They got the Forest Ser-vice in to louse up the corners. Theywere about 600 feet off,” he claims.

O.J. Stransky believes his dreamof Evergreen Basin could still besuccessful. “I would very muchlike to see it developed in mytime. If I got the right party interested, they would jump atthe chance.We don’t have to lie about the snowfall, we’ve been there since 1918. It’s 45minutes from Denver withoutany passes or tunnels.You could get about two more hours of skiing per day.”

Stransky claims his mountaincould have had “ten times thearea that Vail’s got.” But, hebelieves today’s skiers are tooweak and spoiled.“People don’thave the stamina to ski that far.”

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“Legally, Berthoud’s original surveyshould have held, but we don’t go bylegalities anymore.” The boundaryline dispute is still unsettled, 30 yearslater. “You can’t make the govern-ment do a damnthing,” he stated.

He sums upthe experiencewith, “I got dis-gusted.” No liftswere ever con-structed, butsome trails andlift lines werecleared. The rem-nants can still beseen looking farto the southwestfrom Bergen Park.Stransky claims afew skiers sampledthe slopes of hisEvergreen Basin.“The South HighRebel Rangers SkiClub practiced atmy ranch. Wedrew them up thehill with a teamof horses.”

Golden artistHal Shelton, whoinvented the paint-ed ski trail maps in use today, leftmany skiers scratching their heads. Inthe summer of 1965, Colorado SkiCountry U.S.A. had enough faith inthe proposal to instruct Shelton toinclude Evergreen Basin on hisstatewide map and poster. “Several peo-ple called me after they went up thereto try and find it,” Shelton recalls.

ARAPAHOE EASTArapahoe East’s visibility along I-70helped make it the best-known of Jeffco’s ghost ski areas. Until recent-ly, the lonely lift towers stood as amute reminder of high hopes from25-years past. Arapahoe East strug-gled valiantly with inconsistent snow-fall and insufficient snowmaking

equipment. But some believe it wasalso a casualty of the “Not-In-My-Backyard” syndrome.

Arapahoe East was the brainchildof Larry Jump, who had developed

Arapahoe Basin 25 years before. Heleased most of the Mt. VernonCanyon land and purchased 15 acres

with two houses as base facilities.According to Jump’s wife, Marnie,some ski activity had taken placethere in previous years.

In 1972, Arapahoe East openedwith an eight-inch base ofman-madesnow, recalledinstructor andresident PeterBates. A DenverPost story quot-ed Jump as pre-dicting that hisnew venture inthe foothillscould becomemore profitablethan A-Basinitself. MarnieJump remem-bers his goals asmore modest.“There weretwo motives. Itwas Larry’s ideathat it wouldbe a feeder areafor beginners,who wouldeventually goon to ski atArapahoe

basin. And we wanted to tap into themarket of city skiers.”

A born innovator, Jump sold liftrides up the 550-foot drop by the 20-cent token, charging one token forthe Poma lift and two for the doublechair. That idea wasn’t so successful,”Marnie said. “The American publicdidn’t like it. It was a European idea.And it was a nuisance to collect atoken with every lift ride.” Besides,according to Bates, an all-day ticketwas only $2. There was lighted nightskiing. High school and collegeteams practiced there. Jump’s snow-making equipment was never quiteenough. Grass showed through inpatches even after the 1983 Christ-mas blizzard, when Arapahoe East

State Senator Sally Hopper recallsArapahoe East as a charming butamateurish operation. Her daugh-ters worked at the hill. MarnieJump (wife of owner Larry Jump)ran the ski shop and liked toorder fashionable ski clothing inher size. She was sometimes spot-ted schussing the slope in newoutfits with the price tags flappingin the wind.Then, according toHopper, she replaced them backon the sales racks.

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Arapahoe East’s location, on the north-facing slope of Lininger Mountain east of Genesee in Mount Vernon Canyon, served as its own advertising visible to thousands of motorists driving to and from the mountains.

Photo courtesy of Josephine Shelton

boasted the same 36-inch base asAspen Mountain.

“We had some wonderful snowsearly on. But then came the Januarythaws, and wind was always a prob-lem,” Marnie recalls.

Bates recalls that Arapahoe Eastwas so popular at one time that 16instructors were employed there.Skiers’ cars overf lowed the smallparking lot to the Grapevine Road.But after four winters, operationsceased, followed by season-to-seasonuncertainty.

A dispute in 1978 helped seal theski area’s doom. The resort hadalready lost $400,000 when Jumppetitioned Jefferson County for per-mission to build an “Alpine Slide” todraw year-round business. “Thatwould allow the area to maintain asocial facility,” said Jump, with skiinstruction offered through the Jef-ferson County schools. He collected3,000 signatures on petitions to sup-port his idea.

Local attorney Victor Boog repre-sented Jump. Mt. Vernon Canyon resi-dent and attorney Bruce Benson (whoran for Governor in 1992) led theopposition. A public hearing on theplan “was the most horrible experi-ence of my life,” Marnie Jumprecalled. “I had never seen such angerand resistance. It was very discourag-ing. It made me angry, because we hadrun such a good, clean family area.Neighbors who had left their kids forbaby-sitting at Arapahoe East showedup at the hearing to rail against anyfurther development there. It hurtwhen they were so hateful to us.”

In one of the most provocativecharges, Benson revealed that anoth-er alpine slide resort in New Jersey,co-owned by one of Arapahoe East’sprospective investors, included aPlayboy Club. Some believe theBoard of Jefferson Country Commis-sioners denied the permit based onvisions of real “ski bunnies” in theirheads.

Outwardly, Larry Jump remainedconfident. He believed his scrappylittle ski area still held “tremendouspotential. With other ski areasbecoming overcrowded and expen-sive, there’s going to be a need foran area like Arapahoe East.”

In 1982, it operated as Ski Golden,borrowing the name of the stillbornresort proposed earlier for GreenMountain. Manager Del Hert’s wor-ries about his fickle snowpack wereincluded in an Up the Creek surveyof small ski areas. Hert was quotedsaying, “If it isn’t the wind, it’s thedang sun. Every time we get a goodsnowfall, it’ll stick around a few days.Then I start to sweat.”

Arapahoe East’s luck bottomedout in 1983, after young promoterMike Hansen proposed skiing with along version of in-line skates on grassslopes. Marnie Jump recalled, “Itbecame a sensation. We were over-whelmed with people, way toomany.” But that new sport posed itsown lease and insurance problems,and did not solve the dilemma ofthe area’s skimpy snow fall.

Jump offered to sell the area for$310,000—“the cheapest ski area in theU.S.” In 1995, the land was purchasedby the Medved family who removedthe lift towers in 1996. Arapahoe Eastbroke even in only one year, 1973, butfor the next 11 years, it was “an orphanwaiting for a long, cold winter.”

“It was pretty successful for thefirst two years,” said Marnie Jump.But as development of I-70 continuedwest, more skiers drove past ArapahoeEast to bigger resorts with muchmore reliable snow. Denver Postcolumnist Bob Saile endorsed Jump’sobservation that “many city dwellersare less than enchanted with the timeand trouble of driving to WesternSlope ski areas.” Jump is quoted pre-dicting a “land boom” of homes inMount Vernon Canyon that wouldsome day dwarf his little ski hill.

Editor’s noteThe remains of the Genesee Ski Jump

“warming house” chimney is still in tactalongside the entrance road to the ChimneyCreek condominiums, south of I-70. Thedownhill run above the development is alsoclearly visible from I-70. The Denver RockyMountain Ski Club built a private lodge,designed by J.J. Benedict (who also designedChief Hosa Lodge), that remains totallyintact west of the jump’s summit. It hasserved the Mile High Girl Scouts since theypurchased it for “taxes” during the late 1930s.

Although the Mt. Vernon Canyon com-munity supported winter skiing at ArapahoeEast, residents did not want the dramaticincrease of noise, traffic and parking prob-lems that they believed would accompanycity residents and tourists to the proposedyear round Alpine Slide. The Board of Jeffer-son County Commissioners approved theplatting and zoning of residential subdivi-sions Riva Chase, Genesee, and Paradise Hillsin 1972-73, just as Arapahoe East was born.Those subdivisions were being developedwhen the Alpine Slide was proposed in 1978. —Carole Lomond.

Research NotesPersonal interviews:

Louie Dalpes, Josephine Shelton, HalShelton, Peder Pytte, Thor Groswold Jr.,Lou Hopkins, Marnie Jump, Sally Hop-per, Peter Bates, Larry & Marnie Jump,O.J. Stransky, George McDonald, PeggyBussard, and Jessie Kirk.

Published materials:Denver Post 2/21/71, 8/23/65, 11/10/68;Rocky Mountain News 4/18/83, 6/10/95,11/14/68; Rocky Mountain Journal11/29/78; Cervi’s Journal 12/22/65;Mountain Commuter 1983; DenverMunicipal Facts Jan-Feb 1922; GoldenTranscript 11/14/66; Lakewood Sentinel11/11/66; Colorado Ski and Winter Statis-tics 1968-77, Gerald Allen, University ofColorado Business School; Abbott Fay,Ski Tracks in the Rockies, CordilleraPress, 1984; Josephine Shelton’s scrap-book album.

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The stone wall ruins that stillstand at Ken-Caryl Ranch insouthern Jefferson County are

the remaining witness to the life ofRobert Boyles Bradford. He was bornnear Nashville, Ten-nessee on January 1,1813 and moved toLexington, Kentuckyin 1835. The searchfor Bradford’s pre-Col-orado life experienceindicates possible rela-tions with GovernorWilliam Bradford ofPlymouth Colony. Hemay also be linked toJohn Waddell of Vir-ginia, whose sonfounded the PonyExpress with half-nephew Robert B. Bradford.

Bradford married Martha G. Waddell in February 1843, but shedied a short time later. He managed

a general merchandise store in Lexington called Bullard, Russell &Company in 1844 for James H.Bullard and William H. Russell. OnMarch 26, 1845, he married Eliza-

beth N. Waddell,daughter of MajorJames Waddell whowas a cousin toWilliam BradfordWaddell. Elizabethalso died.

Bullard and Russell joined E. G.McCarty in 1847 tooutfit the first cara-van bound for SantaFe, New Mexico.When gold was dis-covered in theKansas Territory in1858, Russell invest-ed with General

William Larimer’s Denver City TownCompany. Russell and John Jonesfounded the Leavenworth & Pike’s

Peak Express Company to initiatestage coach services to Denver onMay 25, 1859. They agreed to bringtwo fully out-fitted loads of merchan-dise to Denver and open a storethere.

On August 3, 1859, Russell, Waddell, Alexander Majors, andRobert B. Bradford formed theRobert B. Bradford & Company general merchandise store. Bradford

Jerry Thomas,second prizewinner in theJCHC 1996Writing Con-test, is a DenverPolice Officerwho investigated the Bradford Houseas a history student of University ofColorado, Denver, taught by Dr.Thomas J. Noel.

This article was edited by MillyRoeder and Carole Lomond.

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THE SEARCH FOR BRADFORD

Bradford referred to his home as “Bradford’s Folly”because it was so isolated from Denver.

Photo courtesy of Denver Public Library,

Western History Collection

Photo courtesy of Colorado Historical Society

Major Robert Bradford

By Jerry Thomas

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received a salary and one-third of theprofits. In September 1859, Bradfordarrived in Denver and purchased abuilding at the corner of Blake and FStreets. He contracted a sawmill toconstruct a two story, 50x60 footframe building at Blake and G Streetsfor $4,100. Six months later, Brad-ford contracted for a 65x25 footaddition facing Blake Street.

A demonstration of Bradford’sshrewd business skills occurred in1860 when he had all but corneredthe f lour market. With hundreds ofunemployed miners roaming about,Bradford feared “the whiskey drink-ing rabble of the city and pineries”might cause a riot. To prevent beingvictim to alawless mob,he sold all thef lour to themining com-panies andother interest-ed parties onsix monthscredit. Whenthe inevitableriot occurred,his businessand invest-ments were protected.

AlthoughBradford wasa respectedentrepreneur,some com-plained of hisinvolvement intoo many business ventures. He didacquire an impressive dossier ofstock, real estate, and business inter-ests, including 500 shares in the St.Vrain Town Company, 40 shares inBreckenridge, and one original sharein his “Town of Bradford.”

He opened a local coal bank andiron mine with Amos Steck, andtogether with John S. Jones, Dr.Joseph Cartright and six others, he

organized the Denver Mutual FireInsurance Company. He acquired aranch for $3,000 with M. H. Mid-daugh, and helped organize theHydraulic Ditch Company in Denver.

In December 1859, shortly afterhis arrival in Denver, the versatileRobert Bradford received a militarycommission as a brigadier general,and was appointed as an aide to thestaff of the Territorial Governor ofJefferson, the Honorable Robert W.Steele.

On December 7, 1859, he wasgranted permission by the Assemblyof Jefferson Territory to establish theBradford Toll Road Company. He

built a toll road from Mississippi andSheridan in Denver to his BradfordCity, bringing in partners as needed.He offered half of the toll fee profitsto Joseph and Samuel Brown whobuilt a bridge over the Platte River toallow continued travel southwest toDutch Creek at the hogback. Bradfordsold supplies to local ranchers andprovided supplies and overnight lodg-ing with meals for trappers and miners

on route to mines in South Park. The original Bradford House was

built with limestone blocks in 1860.The Rocky Mountain News (Jan. 18,1860) reported that “Building materi-al, in the shape of pine timber andextensive stratified or quarry rocks isto be had in immense quantities,within two miles of the town site...Marble, in mass, is found nearby,and is of a quality to give promise ofstructures in Bradford rivaling themarble halls of the east. Gypsum,limestone, and potters clay alsoabound.”

The first smaller house was con-structed with a pitched roof. Waterwas piped into an ice house behind

the house. Sev-eral outbuild-ings wereadded, includ-ing a barn andblacksmithshop. Addi-tions with 26-inch wallscompleted thehome in 1872.The mainhouse was saidto have hadthree storiesbut MajorBradfordremoved thethird storyafter lightningstruck severaltimes. An atticremained with

an opening to an observation deckand portico for the front entrance.The home was so isolated from Den-ver that Bradford once referred to itas “Bradford’s Folly.”

Justice of the Peace, George Mor-rison, conducted the ceremony whenBradford married Frances E. Miller in1867 in the towne of Morrison. Brad-ford apparently fell on hard times in1875 when a succession of notes and

Photo Courtesy of Lakewood Heritage Center

The Bradford House circa 1920, before fire caused by lightening.

mortgages began to appear. InDecember, 1876, he planned to meetwith a nephew, J. J. McNamara whohad founded what became the Den-ver Dry Goods Company. But, Brad-ford died from a stroke two daysbefore his 64th birthday. His funeralwas held on January 2, 1877, atMcNamara’s home, 323 EleventhStreet in Denver.

His obituary appeared in theRocky Mountain News: “He diedwhile the sun was setting, and wasburied on his birthday, at sunset. Hewas a faithful husband, a kind father,a good citizen, and a warm, generoushearted man.”

References:An Indian Experience by Dora Foster; The’59ers by Zamonski, Stanley, Keller, andTeddy; Stage House Toward the Hills byRuth Beckwith; Robert B. Bradford,

Pioneer Denver Merchant by Raymond W.Settle; Colorado Portrait and BiographyIndex by Henrietta Bromwell; History ofDenver by Jerome C. Smiley; History ofColorado by Stone, Wilbur, and Fisk; Jef-ferson County historical maps; An Inven-tory of Records of the Cherry Creek

Settlements, 1858-1860.Rocky Mountain News articles publishedin 1860, 1955, 1967, 1985; Colorado Mag-azine “Diary of a Pike’s Peak Gold Seekerof 1860”, January, 1938; and a collectionof letters on the Bradford House at theState Historical Society of Colorado.

The stabilized Bradford House in 1997, awaiting restorationPhoto by Milly Roeder

Photo courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection

“The home which the Major built in the foothills was patternedafter an old Southern mansion… The house was large and roomy.A wide center hall led off of the front porch, and a broad stairway

curved up to the second floor. An ornately carved mahoganyrailing formed a balcony along the upper hall, overlooking thestairs.” From Stage House Toward the Hills by Ruth Beckwith.

LAKEWOOD HISTORICAL SOCIETYFounded in 1975, the LHS was theleading force in establishing the Bel-mar Historical Village, now the Lake-wood Heritage Center. LHS has sup-ported moving historical buildingsfor restoration and preservation atthe site. The volunteers organize anannual art show of paintings of his-toric places. In autumn, the LHS cel-ebrates “Cider Days”. For more infor-mation, call 233-3050.

Lakewood Heritage Center atBelmar Park, 797 South Wadsworth,includes a ranch house which servesas a visitor’s center. A calf barn and

PRESERVING HISTORY IN JEThe work of five historic groups

the h

Lakewood Heritage Center

Hiwan Homestead

Photo by Milly Roeder

the Streer-Peterson house are part ofa historic “family farm” next to acountry school house.

The Heritage Center serves as aculture, arts, and historical site forthe City of Lakewood for manyannual events including Old GloryAntique Fair and Christmas treelighting. Cider Days Harvest Festivalincludes a tractor pull contest,antique farm equipment and fireengine and art and craft booths.Future plans are to expand programsto include agriculture, water use,growth, education, transportation,and community culture. For moreinformation, call 987-7850.

JEFFERSON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETYFounded in 1976, JCHS is closelyassociated with the Hiwan Home-stead Museum in Evergreen, a Jeffer-son County Open Space site operat-ed by paid professionals. JCHS vol-unteers provide guided tours of theMuseum for tourist and resident visi-tors, “SpecialTours” for seniorcitizens and thephysically chal-lenged, and allJefferson Countypublic school 4thgraders. Volun-teers are alsotrained to be“School Aides”and instructors ofcraft classes forchildren. Duringthe summermonths, theysupport “AfterSchool” work-shop programsand “DiscoveryDays” for chil-dren entering 1st,2nd, or 3rd grade.

JCHS hosts theMountain Ren-dezvous in theHeritage Grovenext to the Muse-um. Membersassist the Muse-um staff withexhibits and

events, conduct oral history and his-torical research, and publish a quar-terly newsletter. They also participatein annual events: Annual Banquet,Holiday Wassail Party, and othersocial functions. The purpose ofJCHS is to collect, preserve, andinterpret the history of JeffersonCounty, and its place in the history

Wheat Ridge Historical Park

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FFCOs allows you to relive istory of our county

Photos this page by Steve Larson

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of Colorado and the American West.For more JCHS information, call674-5934. The Hiwan HomesteadMuseum is open Tuesday throughSunday, 12 - 5 p.m. For more infor-mation, call 674-6262.

WHEAT RIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Founded in 1974, WRHS is responsi-ble for assembling, maintaining, andexhibiting the Wheat Ridge HistoricPark at 4610 Robb Street: 1863 logcabin, 1892 “Soddy” house, 1900brick bungalow, 1913 post office, andstorage shed. The purpose of WRHSis to bring together people with acommon interest in history; locateand collect objects and informationthat illustrate conditions of life andevents of the past and present; preser-vation of historical monuments,

buildings, and sites; make informa-tion available through museum dis-plays, programs, lectures, and publica-tions; and to stimulate an awarenessand appreciation of history.

Jefferson County Open Spacehelped purchase the land for the his-toric park. The city of Wheat Ridgesupports a budget for a full-timedirector and park maintenance.WRHS members organize manyannual events: May Festival, ClearCreek Celebration of the Arts inJuly, Apple Cider Day in October,and a Holiday Bazaar in December.They also publish a newsletter, servevarious committees, and arrange formany lectures. The Wheat Ridge His-toric Park is open Monday throughSaturday, 10 - 3 p.m. For more infor-mation, call 421-9111.

ARVADA HISTORICAL SOCIETYThe AHS was founded in 1972 tosupport the preservation and protec-tion of the city’s cultural heritage.AHS is closely associated with theArvada Center for the Arts andHumanities, operated by paid profes-sionals. Volunteer members helpedestablish the “Center” in 1976, thehistorical exhibit available in thelower gallery area, and acquisition ofthe 35 acre park. They supportedmoving the 1860 Blunn log cabin tothe Center. They have publishedthree books tracing Arvada historyfrom 1850 to 1941. They helped ren-ovate the Arvada Flour Mill andsecure placement of the mill and“old Arvada” towne on the NationalRegister of Historic Places.

AHS members organize manyannual events: Olde Timers Picnic,Harvest Festival, High School ChoralFestival, and others. They guide OldeTown Walking Tours for hundreds ofstudents, seniors, and the generalpublic. Volunteers established a “wallof history” at Arvada High School,research archives at the Standley LakeLibrary, and helped obtain grants formany special programs (videos, dra-mas, etc). To contact the AHS orarrange for a tour of the ArvadaFlour Mill, call 431-1261. The ArvadaHistory exhibit is available at 6901Wadsworth Boulevard during Centerhours, Monday through Saturday 9 a.m. - 6 p.m., and Sunday 1-5 p.m.For more information about theCenter, call 431-3080.

Left: Photo ofsod house atthe WheatRidge Historic Parkin 1895 and(right) as itlooks today.

Arvada History Exhibit

Photos this page by Steve LarsonPhoto Courtesy of the Wheat Ridge Historical Society

GOLDEN HISTORICAL ORGANIZATIONSThe City of Golden funds opera-tions, maintenance, and salaries forthree museums via a city-councilappointed Golden Historic Preserva-tion Board. The Golden LandmarksAssociation manages the AstorHouse Museum and Clear CreekRanch Park. The Golden PioneerMuseum is managed by the MountLookout Chapter of the Daughter’sof the American Revolution (DAR).

The Astor House Museum wasabout to be demolished in 1971when the Golden Landmarks Associa-tion successfully campaigned for pas-sage of a bond for the city to pur-chase, restore, and preserve it. TheAstor House, built in 1867, portraysturn-of-the-century boarding houselife with late Victorian interior decor.A delightful Victorian gift shop is onthe ground f loor and the Museum isavailable for special event rental.Open Tues. - Sat, 11 - 4 p.m., admis-sion is $3 adults, $1 for children age12 and under. Call 278-3557.

The Golden Pioneer Museum,located between city hall and thenew Jefferson County Library at 923Tenth Street, is managed by theDaughter’s of the American Revolu-tion (DAR). The primary focus ofthe Museum is on the years 1859-1930, with an impressive American

Indian doll collection, mining imple-ments, clothing, furniture, householditems, and military accessories. Aresearch library, including 250+genealogical volumes, is available tothe public. The Museum is managedby a full-time curator and part-timecollector, but thousands of hourscontinue to be provided by volun-teers. Special group tours can bearranged. The Museum is open to thepublic Monday - Saturday, from noonto 4 p.m. For more information,

call 278-7151.

Clear Creek Ranch Park is currently being developed alongClear Creek at 11th Street, west ofWashington Street. The 1873 Pearce-Reynolds Cabin, the 1876 one-roomGuy Hill School, and the 1878Pearce-Helps Cabin were moved fromGolden Gate Canyon. Pioneer home-stead life of the 1870s—with a black-smith shop, animal barns, corral andfencing, meathouse, root cellar, cab-ins, and a schoolhouse—will help pro-vide “living history” experiences andexhibit space. The site also includes apole barn “stage” nestled in a creek-side natural amphitheater that willhost old-time music events, cowboypoetry, storytelling, weddings, “hoe-downs” and other theme parties. Formore information call 278-3557.

Astor House Museum

Clear Creek Ranch Park

Photos this page by Carole Lomond

Golden Pioneer Museum

CONNIE FAHNESTOCK,HISTORIAN

Connie was at the fore-front of historicalpreservation in Jeffer-son County throughouther 25 years of living inEvergreen. She movedthere in 1972 fromLong Island, New York,with her husband,James, and four chil-dren. Before coming toEvergreen, she workedas a librarian andadministrative assistantat the Conklin HouseMuseum in Hunting-ton, New York. Sheearned her Bachelor ofScience degree in Jour-nalism from PurdueUniversity and her Mas-ter of Science degreefrom Long Island Uni-versity. Her master’sthesis was titled “Preservation in His-torical Society Libraries.”

Mrs. Fahnestock acted as chair-man of the first meeting of the Jef-ferson County Historical Society,helped write the bylaws, and served

as president for two years. In 1975she became the first director of theHiwan Homestead Museum andserved in that capacity until 1986.While director, she helped developthe interior and interpretation of the

museum for visitors,and helped initiate andorganize school pro-grams for fourthgraders—programs thatare still in use. Sheorganized “SpecialTours for Special Peo-ple”, for blind, disabled,deaf, and nursing home resi-dents.

Connie wrote FromCamp Neosha to theHiwan Homestead andwas a regular contribu-tor to the CanyonCourier newspaper andthe EvergreenMagazine.

She served on theEvergreen Centennial-Bicentennial Committeeand Save HeritageGrove Campaign. From1976 to 1984, sheserved on the Board ofthe Colorado-Wyoming

Association of Museums andreceived its first President’s Award. In1975, she received the EvergreenChamber of Commerce Person ofthe Year Award.

JEFFERSON COUNTY HISTORIC

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Photo courtesy of Connie Fahnestock

The Jefferson County Historic Commission’s Hall of Fame Committee has established a gallery

of people who are honored for their historic significance at the Jefferson County Government

Center. Citizens can nominate significant individuals, living or deceased. Winners are selected by

a panel of three judges from outside the county. .This year’s winners are presented here.

LUCIAN M. “GRANDAD”RALSTON 1872-1957

Mount Vernon Canyon pioneersettler Lucian McKee Ralston wasan extraordinary, hard-working,enterprising, and stabilizing inf lu-ence for the community from1879 until he died in 1957. Hisexample of integrity, strength, andgenerosity continues to inspire allpublic school children whoattend the Ralston ElementarySchool named after him.

His father, Captain LucianHunter Ralston, moved his familyfrom Kentucky in 1879 and set-tled in a log cabin near CodyPark on Lookout Mountain.Eight-year-old Lucian watched hisfather teach children at the Rock-land School and help build theRockland Church while raisingpotatoes and grain. In 1887, theyestablished a ranch and generalstore where Interstate 70 liesbetween Lookout Mountain Exit256 and Genesee Exit 254.

After the death of his father,Lucian continued to manage thefamily ranch and store, freightedlumber to Idaho Springs and har-vested hay. In 1900 he marriedBessie Lindsay. They established avariety of enterprises to supportraising their seven children. Thechildren helped grow and harvestgrain, hay, and vegetables. Theymilked cows and tended thechickens to sell milk and eggs atthe store where they each devel-oped business and retailing skills.

Ralston served on the Rock-land School Board of Educationfor 35 years, often as President.

His family helped repair andmaintain the school building, andteachers boarded at the Ralstonranch during the seven-monthschool year. He was the firstChaplain for the Genesee Grange#219 in 1913. He built a largeroom behind the store to providespace for community celebrationsand meetings. He also served as aJefferson County Deputy Sheriff.

When Denver officials beganto explore for a mountain parksystem, Lucian encouraged themto purchase Genesee Mountain topreserve the wildlife habitat, plantdiversity, and extraordinary views.It would also provide a pasturefor herds of buffalo and elk; andopen land for hiking and camp-ing. He helped dig the grave forBuffalo Bill in 1917 and guidedthe Colorado Mountain Club inbuilding the historic BeaverBrook Trail in 1919. Ralstonworked for Denver MountainParks for 14 years, helping tobuild and maintain roads andestablish picnic areas.

After Lucian’s death, the Ral-stons traded their Genesee Moun-tain land for a site south of ColdSprings ranch to allow for theGenesee development and con-struction of I-70. “Ralston was aquiet man, he lived unpretentious-ly, and was a true man of themountains. He gave many a help-ing hand and never had anunkind word to say of his fellowman.” (Georgina Brown, TheShining Mountains.)

HALL OF FAME

Lucian Ralston at age 40Photo courtesy of Norm Ralston

GOLDEN HIGH SCHOOLConstructed in the Beaux Arts style,Golden High School is located onthe northern edge of downtownGolden, across from Parfet Park. InDecember, 1921, the citizens of Gold-en passed a bond issue to constructa high school, the site was purchasedand Eugene G. Groves was hired todesign the school. When it was dedi-cated in March 1924, the ColoradoTranscript proudly described it as“...the finest public school buildingin the entire country.” The buildingwas lauded for the permanence of itsfireproof construction, convenienceof arrangement, completeness ofequipment, and artistic finish. At thetime of its completion, it was consid-ered the “last word in high schoolconstruction” with its study hall andlibrary, inset lockers, and a balconyin the gymnasium.

From 1924 to 1956 Golden HighSchool served Golden and the sur-rounding mountain communitiesbefore being replaced by a new highschool. The building then becameGolden Junior High School from1956 to 1988. In May 1988 theschool was declared surplus by Jeffer-son County Public Schools. Thebuilding remained vacant until 1993when it was acquired by the Col-orado Mountain Club and the Amer-ican Alpine Club to serve as theirheadquarters. The old Golden HighSchool building was placed on theNational Register of Historic Placeson March 14, 1997.

GALLOPING GOOSE CARS 2- 6- 7AT THE COLORADO RAILROADMUSEUMThe Galloping Goose Number 2 is agasoline engine powered, narrowgauge railroad motor car completedon August 12, 1931. The originalbody and chassis were built from a1927 Buick “Master Six” 4-doorsedan, powered by the Buick engine,clutch, and transmission. During theyears prior to World War II the carhauled mainly freight and mail, butit also enjoyed a period as part ofthe famous tourist trip known as“Around the CircleExcursions.” Afterthe war there wasless tourist traffic,but the freight andmail continued tobe very importantto the Ridgeway, Tel-luride, Ophir, Ricoand Dolores areas,providing transporta-tion into an areathat otherwise hadonly dirt roads. Itwas placed on theNational Register ofHistoric Places onFebruary 14, 1997.

Galloping GooseNumber 6 wasdesigned and builtspecifically for workservice and wascompleted on Janu-ary 13, 1934. It

FOUR NEW HISTORIC SITES IN JEFFCOLocations Added to National Register of Historic Places

Above and below: Golden High School

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Jeffco historic site photos by Steve Larson

replaced the expensive steam loco-motive used in normal work trainservice which would go out and per-form track, bridge, and buildingrepairs. It carried two people, thedriver and one passenger, plus thetools and supplies that were neededon the f latbed with stake sides. Itwas placed on the National Registerof Historic Places February 19, 1997.

Galloping Goose Number 7 is agasoline engine powered narrowgauge railroad motor car completedon October 27, 1936. It provided theRio Grande Southern Railroad with acost-saving alternative to the steamlocomotive powered passenger trainthat allowed the railroad to continuetransporting people, mail and freightfor another 16 years. It was placedon the National Register of HistoricPlaces on February 28, 1997.

DAVIES’ CHUCK WAGONDINERLocated on West Colfax Avenue inLakewood, Davies’ Chuck WagonDiner arrived in 1957 by rail. It wasshipped from the Mountain ViewDiners, Inc. of Signac, New Jersey, intwo sections of 11’ x 50’ each, bothweighing about 19 tons. Using alarge crane, the sections were set inplace within two days. William L.Davies and his family, the first ownerof the Diner, moved to JeffersonCounty and opened for business onJune 21, 1957.

Davies’ Diner is a classic exampleof the 1950s post-war era of “stream-line design of a society fascinatedwith machines.” It has wrap-aroundwindows, pleated chrome siding, andhorizontal banding for exterioraccents. Davies was a lover of horses

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Above: Galloping Goose Number 7.Below: Galloping Goose and RAILROAD COMPANY (RRCO) logowhich appear on the side of the engine.

and a member of the Jefferson Coun-ty Sheriff ’s Posse. In the early 1960s,he acquired the large fiberglass horsethat stands watch atop the vestibuleof the diner.

In 1984, Jim and Dwayne Clarkbecame owners and operators of thediner. Within a short time theybecame embroiled with the City ofLakewood because, according to theCity’s 1979 sign code, the horse andthe diner’s large sign were in viola-tion. After many hearings and courtbattles, the Lakewood City councilpassed an ordinance that gave local

historical status to both.Davies’ Chuck WagonDiner was placed on theNational Register of His-toric Places on July 2,1997.

SCHNELL FARMLocated at 3113 SouthWadsworth Boulevard inLakewood, the SchnellFarm consists of 18 acres.A narrow dirt road ascendsthe slope to the farm buildings. TheHodgson Ditch runs along the field-

line road. Waterfrom a spring isdiverted into 2”pipes to the barn-corral area and acollection boxsouth of thehouse. None ofthe farm build-ings has water orplumbing.

The two houses are surrounded by a variety of trees

and alfalfa and orchard grass fieldsthat produce 400 to 700 bales of hayeach year. Horses graze in the southfield.

Currently, very little privatelyowned open land remains in Lake-wood, and nearby Wadsworth Boulevard is one of the city’s busieststreets. Despite this, the farm retainsmuch of the character it had 100years ago. The farm appears on theCentennial Farm list, denoting thatthe property has been owned andoperated by the same family for 100years or more. The Schnell Farm wasadded to the National Register ofHistoric Places on February 14, 1997.

Left and below:Davies’ DinerPhotos by Steve Larson

Schnell Farm

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Drawing by Scott Fraser

DREAM CATCHER:

A Brief History of the John Brisben Walker Legacyby Ellen Kessler

Ask any worshipper at Easter

sunrise services at Red Rocks

Amphitheater who John Bris-

ben Walker was and you’ll get a baffled

look. Ask the same question of a hiker

trekking through Mount Falcon Park and

you’ll undoubtedly get the same puzzled

response. Yet anyone who has researched

the rich history of Jefferson County will

encounter Walker’s name time and again.

He left an uncommon legacy, not only to

Jefferson County, but to Colorado and

the entire country as well. Cultivating the

acoustical powers of Red Rocks Park and

casting Mount Falcon as a potential sum-

mer home for United States presidents

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Photo courtesy of Denver Public Library,Western History Collection

John Brisben Walker

Background: Drawing of Walker’s proposed summerWhite House by architect Jacques Benedict. Background drawing courtesy of the Historical Society of Colorado

were just two of the many gifts Walk-er left behind for today’s Coloradansto enjoy. He had an almost fanaticalbelief in the state’s future and gam-bled heavily on ideas that were yearsahead of their time.

Born near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvaniain 1847 to Scottish-Irish parents, Walk-er was educated at Georgetown Col-lege in Washington before receiving anappointment to West Point MilitaryAcademy. He resigned a few years laterand journeyed to the Far East wherehe enlisted and was subsequently madean officer of the Chinese army.

However, Walker returned to theUnited States in 1870, completely dis-enchanted with the corruption with-in the political and military structureof China. He settled in West Virginiawith his new bride, had a brief butunsuccessful f ling with local politics,and then began fervently investing infarmland properties surroundingCharleston, the new state capital. Hisinvestments soared in value, and bythe time Walker was 26 years old, theventure in real estate had earned him$2 million, an impressive sum evenby today’s standards. However, WestVirginia legislators consequently con-cluded that Wheeling was the betterchoice for the state capital, and thegovernment moved to that city in

1873. Without the anticipated inf luxof businesses to the “new” state capi-tal, Walker suddenly found himselfpenniless as his investments disinte-grated and, for a long time, he evenstruggled to satisfy day-to-day necessi-ties for his growing family.

Walker found some financial reliefafter accepting a newspaper job inCincinnati, Ohio in 1873. But after afew disappointing months, he movedto Washington, D.C., where he foundthe journalism career he thought hewas really looking for. By the timeWalker was 30 years old, he was part-

owner and managing editor of theChronicle newspaper. It was at thistime that Walker first became interest-ed in the controversy of raising alfalfain the Rocky Mountain region. Agri-cultural experts said the high altitudein that part of the country made itunfavorable for growing the crop; onthe other hand, Walker said it couldbe done. The United States Secretaryof Agriculture eventually commis-sioned him to test his theories.

Walker moved his family to Col-orado in 1879, purchasing farmlandin northern Denver that extendednorth to Inspiration Point andincluded acreage where Berkeley Park,Rocky Mountain Lake, and RegisCollege now stand. Walker’s alfalfacrop f lourished. By then, he had notonly fallen in love with Colorado,but he also saw the state as the cor-nerstone for his economic empire.He decided to stay. Some 12 yearslater, he sold the farm for a substan-tial profit, while donating some landto Denver and some to the RomanCatholic Church.

Ever the restless businessman,Walker’s next enterprise, a few yearsbefore selling the farm, was to createDenver’s first amusement park, River-front Park, the predecessor to mod-ern day Elitch’s and Lakeside Parks.In the early 1880s, he purchasedsmall 50-acre parcels until he hadacquired over 500 lots along the eastbank of the South Platte River from15th to 19th Streets and from PlatteStreet to Union Station.

Walker offered use of the propertyto the Colorado State Fair Associa-tion and agreed to build, at his ownexpense, structures suitable for afirst-class park. The offer was accept-ed, and once completed, the firstbuilding, the Castle of Commerce,was used for exhibitions where Walk-er attempted to prove that Coloradoled the country in agriculture, manu-facturing, commerce, mining, and thearts. The building was made of lavastone hauled from the Town of Cas-tle Rock. The second building was a

EllenKessler,author, isthe firstprize winner ofthe 1997JeffcoWriter’s Award. She is a formerNew Yorker who has lived in Jef-ferson County for the past 17years with her large menagerie ofcompanion parrots. She works asa word processor for an interna-tional engineering company indowntown Denver.

Photo courtesy of the Jefferson County Historical Society

Photo of Red Rocks in 1897

large grandstand and racetrack, capa-ble of holding 5,000 spectators,which was electrically lit for night-time horse and chariot races andbicycle competitions.

A movable bandstand was erectedin the oval of the racetrack wheremany notable concerts, plays, andfireworks displays were held. Thepark, according to all reports, was animaginative and welcome addition toDenver’s social life.On a typical spring orsummer Sunday after-noon, one couldwatch cable carsmaneuver narrow tres-tles from Wazee Streetto the park entranceon Platte Street. Men,dressed in their Sun-day finest, accompa-nied by women in bus-tled apparel, featheredhats, and parasolswould disembark andstroll ceremoniouslyonto the broad, greengrounds that Walkerhad painstakingly nur-tured to fruition.

For opening day in1887, 20,000 guests vis-ited the park, and oneof New York City’smost popular bandswas hired for thisuncommon occasion.Riverfront Park offeredeverything for therecreational pleasure ofDenver’s citizens,including picnicgrounds, a 3-blocklong tobogganingslide, “wild westshows” (the predeces-sor to the modern dayrodeo), and professional baseballgames.

In 1887, Walker introduced thePark to the “sidewheeler,” asteamship that made daily trips up

the Platte River as far north asBrighton and back again for 30cents. But because the boat oftenshoaled on sandbars far upstream ofBrighton, he later dammed the Platteto make it deep enough to f loat thevessel, and offered first class enter-tainment, including Gilbert and Sulli-van’s famous play, H.M.S. Pinafore.

In 1893, when the silver panic hitColorado and mine owners found it

unprofitable to keep their quarriesoperational, workers f locked to Den-ver looking for employment. Walkerdonated Riverfront Park to Denverand it was turned into a refugee

camp administered by the City. TheCity fed upwards of 1,000 peopledaily while the National Guard fur-nished tents. Railroads offered dis-counted fares, and the more adven-turous built boats to take them any-where they thought they might findwork. The City provided the lumber,and several hundred people navigatedtheir homemade vessels down thePlatte River.

Ten years after creatingRiverfront Park, Walker’sinterest in it diminishedand he sold part of thepark to the Denver andRio Grande Railroads.Since that time, the landhas been used for circuses,day camps, and the rail-roads. In 1951, the Castleof Commerce burned tothe ground and wasremoved in 1952. Today,nothing remains of thepark. In its place are ware-houses and a few restau-rants and art galleries.

After Walker sold thepark, he returned to theEast Coast where he wasable to devote attentionto the new object of hisfinancial affection Cos-mopolitan Magazine. Per-haps considered one ofhis most successful ven-tures, Walker bought thepublication in 1889, andfor the next six years, hechopped, molded, andbuilt the magazine into athriving, fundamentaljournal. He used it as asounding board for hisideas and future ventures,and many famous writers’anecdotes could be found

within its pages, including those ofMark Twain, Jack London, StephenCrane, H.G. Wells, and Leo Tolstoy.In 1905, Walker thought it was timeto move onto new enterprises, and

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Photo courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection

Construction of Walker’s funicular to the top of Mount Morrison.

he sold Cosmopolitan Magazine toWilliam Hearst for over one milliondollars.

Next commanding his time,money, and interest was the automo-bile, or, as it wasbetter known inthe 1900s, the“horseless car-riage.” Walker builta manufacturingplant in Tarrytown,New York, and cre-ated the first“locomobiles.” Hiscompany produced24 models, rangingin price from $750for a simple run-about to $10,000for a racing car.Walker bought thepatent for theStanley Steamer,

pitting its success against the gaso-line-driven automobile. But he foundhimself on the losing end of his gam-ble as Henry Ford took the forefrontin automobile manufacturing.Nonetheless, Walker pursued what hefelt was the wave of the future intransportation and promoted the“horseless carriage” by, among otherthings, financing a $3,000 race thatran from New York City Hall to hismanufacturing facility, a distance of16 miles. The contest, won by aDuryea Motor Wagon, was complet-

ed in 65 minutes. Even though Walk-er continued to champion his “horse-less carriage,” it continued to be alosing proposition, and the invest-ment went down to defeat.

After acknowledging that his auto-mobile business was a failure, Walkerreturned to Colorado and boughtseveral thousand acres of land,including the Town of Morrison,Mount Morrison, Mount Falcon,and the Park of Red Rocks. Walkerestablished the Colorado ResortCompany, envisioning Colorado as asummer playground for the country,and avidly promoting tourism of hisbeloved adopted home. He bought aJesuit college near Morrison andturned it into a hotel, built a road

that coursed up Mount Morrison,then built a second road with a 12percent grade up Mount Falcon.Walker also proposed a railroad thatwould run along West Colfax from

the easternboundary of Jef-ferson Countyalong the Hog-back to BearCreek. It wouldbe “a new leaseon life for thetown of Morri-son,” predictedWalker, but therailroad nevergot off thepaper it wasdrawn on.

It was atMount Falcon,between Turkeyand Bear Creeksin JeffersonCounty, thatWalker decidedto settle downand build hispermanenthome, a man-sion that wouldoffer expansivevistas of Jeffer-son County. Theconstructionbegan in earnestin 1909 by localworkers and

laborers brought to the United Statesfrom Italy. The mansion was built ofnative stone; eight fireplaces and aseparate servants’ wing were pro-posed. Behind the house, Walkerenvisioned a racetrack to promote hisbeloved sport of horse trotting.

The name Mount Falcon cameabout quite by accident, according toan account by Walker’s daughter.“One day, as Mother and Father werelooking over the site on which theyplanned to build, a magnificent falcon circled above them. It

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Above: John Brisben Walker’s mansion on Mt. Falcon before it burned in 1918.Left:The ruins that stand today.Photos courtesy of the Jefferson County Historical Society

became the symbol of the mountain,beautiful and appropriate. Then andthere Mount Falcon became thename of their future home.”

In 1911, when the first (and only)wing of his mansion wasclose to completion,Walker plunged aheadwith another one of hisremarkable ideas, amountain retreat wherePresidents of the UnitedStates might escape fromthe East Coast and“find refreshment ofmind and spirit andacquire a better under-standing of the prob-lems and potentials ofthe West.” Walker hopedthe popularity he hadgained as CosmopolitanMagazine’s publisherand editor would offerthe necessary bridge toattract funding for thisproject. He contactedPresident Woodrow Wil-son to solicit support,but there is no record ofthe President everacknowledging his let-ters. Walker’s idea, how-ever, did receive consid-erable coverage in news-papers around the coun-try.

Walker forged ahead with his all-consuming plan and hired famedDenver architect, J.B. Benedict. Thesummer White House was to be anelaborate edifice of 22 rooms, fur-nished in a style reminiscent of cas-tles found on the German Rhine.There were to be four towers, acourtyard measuring 60 by 80 feet,an office in one of the towers, andan extensive library.

The commanding view from thebuilding site was its strongest feature.Looking out over Denver, it wouldoffer vistas of almost 100 miles inevery direction. In an article entitled

“New Summer Home for our Presi-dents” published in Technical WorldMagazine (March 1912), RobertMoulton embellished:

Night and morning on the mountain arelike the beginning of creation; it is so dif-ferent from the rest of the world that itseems as if one were in a fairyland ofcolor. A hundred tiny lakelets of quicksil-ver come into view as the sun rises overthe limitless plains to the east, and atevening these change to turquoise, orrose color or emerald as the sky mayref lect. From the north terrace of themountain, upon which the drawing roomand library will open, the steep mountainside, wooded with pines, drops down twothousand feet into the rushing waters ofBear Creek; to the south, seventy-fivemiles away, is Pike’s Peak. Denver lies fif-teen miles away to the northeast. When apassing cloud covers the city with itsshadow, the plains seem barren of hous-es. Then suddenly the sunlight piercesthrough, and a great city stands revealed.

The summer White House becamea popular fundraiser among the citi-zens of Morrison and school childrenfrom around the country. Thousandsof students donated ten cents each,

and the Town of Morrisoncontributed $1,000, a signif-icant sum for a town whosepopulation totaled only150 people at the time.Walker, however, wasunsuccessful in encouragingthe support of all citizensin the country by havingeach donate one dollar tothe project. He was alsounsuccessful in uncoveringinvestors willing to pur-chase bonds for $1,000each in return for the plea-sure of renting the summerWhite House when thePresident was not in resi-dence.

In 1911, at his ownexpense, Walker purchasedthe cornerstone for thefuture summer WhiteHouse, and exhibited thestone at 17th and StoutStreets in downtown Den-ver. The native Yule mar-ble, inscribed “A gift tothe presidents of the Unit-ed States from the peopleof Colorado,” was cut fromthe same quarry used for

building the Lincoln Memorial inWashington, D.C.

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Architectural drawings by Jacques Benedict show four viewsof Walker’s proposed summer home for U.S. presidents.

Photo courtesy of the Historical Society of Colorado

Photo courtesy of the Jefferson County Historical Society

Cornerstone for proposed summer White House

World War I put a temporaryrestraint on Walker’s dream, and in1918, a lightning bolt brought ahasty conclusion to any hope ofbuilding a summer White House.Walker was no longer able to gener-ate interest in the project, and hisbad luck endured when his ownmansion burned to the ground thatsame year, also supposedly caused bylightning. Rumorspersist to this day,however, that thehouse was insteadrobbed and thenset on fire. Tiretracks leading awayfrom the homeand some of Walk-er’s paintings werefound in the forestseveral hundredyards away fromthe house leadingone to believe therumor was true.

Mount Falconwas purchased in1974 by the Col-orado Open Land Foundation (nowknown as Jefferson County OpenSpace) for $1.3 million. Today, twosets of ruins can be visited. One isthe cremated remains of Walker’shome, and the second is the relics ofhis burned western white house. Thepresent multi-use trails lead to theplains at the east end of the park, upthe foothills on a narrow road, andthrough forests and meadows to themany points of interest at the top. Ashelter house, once the home of amore recent tenant, provides apanoramic view from Indian Hills toEvergreen and Mount Evans. AtopMount Falcon, a wooden tower risesto yield intriguing views of the ruins,Red Rocks Park, and the plains. Thewest parking area provides anapproach to these areas from above.From the east parking area, south ofMorrison, a trail curves across plainsand gulches to an outcrop of red

sandstone. The trails are used by hik-ers, horseback riders, snowshoers, orcross-country skiers.

Part of the land Walker purchasedalong with the Mount Falcon proper-ty was a beautiful expanse near Mor-rison that he named Garden of theTitans, today known as the RedRocks Amphitheater. Walker acciden-tally discovered the natural acoustical

greatness of the park while he washiking between Creation and Steam-boat rocks where he impulsivelyshouted “hello.” His voice bellowedclearly throughout the canyon.“What a magnificent place for out-door concerts,” Walker ref lected and,on that day, Red Rocks Amphithe-ater was born. In his usually aggres-sive manner, Walker promoted hisnew outdoor theater by bringingMelba, opera singer Mary Garden,and the Chicago Opera Company toColorado.

For the price of a concert ticket,Walker included a trip to the summitof Mount Morrison via another oneof his creations˛ the “funicular rail-way”˛ cable cars that grappled to thetop of the mountain. Cars werepainted white and trimmed in redand black. One car was positioned atthe apex, the other at the foot of themountain. Each car was attached to

opposite ends of two 1¨ inch ropes,so while one car was lowered, theother was raised. The engine wasthen reversed and the cars moved inopposite directions. Ascending pas-sengers rode backwards so they couldenjoy the grandiose panorama. Aone-way trip was 20 minutes longand each car carried as many as 100people. At the summit, visitors found

themselves3,000 feetabove theexpandingDenver sky-line.

Walker alsodesigned the“Railroad tothe Peak”which was a45-minute ridefrom Denverto Morrisonvia the Col-orado andSouthern Rail-road. A round-trip ticket cost

60 cents, and the fare from RedRocks to the Peak and back was onedollar. Unfortunately, as the automo-bile became more celebrated and thecables pulling the funicular startedrusting, Walker’s railroad and funicu-lar lost popularity and both weresold shortly thereafter.

In 1924, Walker offered to sell RedRocks at a fraction of its cost, butthe City turned him down. He laterlost the park because of increasingfinancial instability and, it was ulti-mately taken over by the City in1927. Amphitheater constructionbegan in 1932 but it was not untilafter Walker’s death that the fullpotential of Red Rocks Amphitheaterwas realized. In the 1940s, the Parkwas made more accessible and seat-ing for 10,000 was provided for con-certs and religious services.

At about the same time Walkerwas promoting Red Rocks Amphithe-

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Photo by Carole Lomond

John Brisbane Walker cultivated the acoustical powers of Red Rocks.

ater, he declared that tourism mightbe one of Colorado’s greatest enter-prises. Walker once said: “Denver is apretty city but it makes me heartsickto think of it dawdling along with213,000 population when we could aseasily as not have a million.” In 1913,Walker suggested an advertising cam-paign to the tune of one million dol-lars to boost tourism in Denver andthe surrounding counties, somethingno city had ever done. In harmonywith this idea, Walker wanted to seesome of Colorado’s pristine land setaside for future generations. Walkerzealously championed developmentof a mountain parks system becausehe believed that America’s uncontrol-lable love affair with the automobilewas threatening conservation of theland in order to build roads.

Once Coloradans were convincedof Walker’s arguments and the needto set land aside, they left no stoneunturned in designing a succession ofparks, with a major parcel of the sys-tem located on Lookout and GeneseeMountains in Jefferson County.However, getting the parks systemorganized was quite another story.Tempers blistered before the proposalwas even written and introduced tothe legislature. One argument hurledout by the Anti-Saloon League wasthe fear that the City of Denverwould permit “disreputable houses”in the mountain parks. They wantedthe City to enact rules that wouldclearly state what businesses wouldbe allowed within and surroundingthe parks. After the dispute reached acrescendo, the bill was written,passed through the legislature, andsigned by the governor. Denver thenvoted on a charter amendment toprovide for future land acquisition.

Within a few days after the lawwas inaugurated, Denver appropriated$65,000 for the building of roadsthrough the foothills and into Gold-en and Morrison. Two roads toGenesee Park were on the drawingboard and a third road was appraised

for Mount Lookout and, ultimately,to Idaho Springs (part of thetranscontinental highway). Provisionswere made to prevent liquor frombeing sold, or licensed to be sold,within 500 feet of the outer bound-aries of the parks. In addition, noadvertisements or other annoyanceswere to be erected within thoseboundaries.

While Walker watched his dreamof a mountain park system becomereality, other dreams had dissolved.Oddly, Walker was now regarded as anuisance rather than as an innovativebusinessman. The final crushing blowcame when he was forced to resignfrom the Denver Chamber of Com-merce because others felt his ideaswere too bizarre.

Sadly, after losing Red Rocks andwatching his future home and thesummer White House go up insmoke, Walker returned to the eastcoast, never to return to Colorado.He died in Brooklyn, New York in1931. At the time of his death, Walk-er was still trying to turn dreams intoreality, this time on a road-gradingmachine that would use cotton as asurfacing material.

One of the most colorful andprophetic of Colorado’s pioneers,Walker was married three times andraised ten children. He was post-humously inducted into the JeffersonCounty Hall of Fame in 1988. Hislife may have been regarded as eccen-tric, but his methods for turningdreams into reality were unequivocal-ly years ahead of what is now con-ventionally accepted as commonplacesalesmanship techniques. If Walkerwere alive today, he would be amazedat how much Denver and JeffersonCounty have grown. While he mightbe astounded by today’s traffic jams,he would undoubtedly celebrate themodern automobile. But he’d keephis old Stanley Steamer in the garagejust to remind everyone of the goodold days. Walker would enjoy con-certs at “his” Red Rocks Park, but

he’d nudge his neighbors just toremind them who had discovered thePark in the first place. And if Walkerhad the opportunity to visit MountFalcon Park, he’d be pleased that theland had been preserved, but he’dfall silent when remembering whatMount Falcon was, as well as what itcould have been. So must we all.

ReferencesAnonymous. A Landmark in History of

North Denver. Rocky Mountain News,January 6, 1974.

Anonymous. New Move is Made to BuildSummer White House in State. RockyMountain News. February 19, 1926.

Arps, Louisa Ward, Denver in Slices, AllanSwallow Press, 1959.

Blackburn, Ben, Mount Falcon a JewelNear the City. Rocky Mountain NewsSunday Magazine. July 9, 1989.

Brown, Georgina, Shining Mountains, B&BPrinters, 1976.

Dittman, Catherine, John Brisbane Walker—The Man and the Myth, 1978.

Fay, Abbott, Famous Coloradans, Moun-taintop Books, Paonia, Colorado, 1990.

Frazier, Deborah, Walker Saw ColoradoRetreat. Denver Post, August 26, 1975.

Golden Chamber of Commerce, For theGolden Times, 1977.

Hutchins, Jim, Walker’s Dream Fades intoRuins. The Transcript, July 28, 1976.

Jefferson County National Register of His-toric Sites, 1979.

Jefferson County Open Space, Mount Falcon Park Map.

Jones, William C. and K. Forest, “Denver: APictorial History”, Colorado Railroad His-torical Foundation, 1973.

Melrose, Frances, Time Shatters Tycoon’sDream of a Colorado White House.Rocky Mountain News. July 10, 1983.

, Idea Man. Rocky MountainNews. June 13, 1948.

Morgan, Bernice, Castle on the Platte.Rocky Mountain Empire Magazine,May 21, 1950.

Moulton, Robert H., New Summer Homefor our Presidents, Technical World Maga-zine, Volume 17: March, 1912.

Penn, L.R., Old Castle Under ViaductMarks Early Day Resort. Denver Post,December 1, 1918.

Rohrer, Dan. Morrison Collected Papers.Tarbox, Jane, Mt. Falcon to be Bought by

County. Golden Transcript, November 24,1974.

Vigel, Richard, Empire’s Most SpectacularTrail Blazer, Denver Post Rocky MountainEmpire Magazine, September 8, 1946.

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ownzoningDDuring the Pike’s Peak gold rush,Golden Gate Canyon was a goldenhighway. Would-be bonanza kings hurried up the face of Enter Moun-tain bound forthe Gregory dig-gings. Manyreturned thesame way, beat-en by bad luck.

Inspired bytwo tall rock pil-lars that markedthe entrance tothe first heavilytraveled road toclimb into themountains,prospector TomGolden laid out a city in 1859.Within twomonths, “Golden Gate City” and“Golden Gate Canyon” saw thou-sands of prospectors passing through(also named “Golden’s Gate,” the pil-lars were destroyed by road construc-tion in the early 1900s). Many believethe present city of Golden was namedafter Tom Golden. The canyonbecame a region bounded roughly byClear Creek Canyon on the south,Blue Mountain on the north, High-way 119 on the west, and the prairieon the east.

In the intervening 138 years, manyof GGC’s historical credentials havebeen blown up, dozed away, andhauled off. But, large sweeps of ter-rain remain largely undisturbed,

allowing the historian with a littleimagination to see what the NativeAmerican and Anglo Pioneer saw.

There is no gold in Golden GateCanyon andvery little water.Even by aridColorado stan-dards, the lowerelevations of thecanyon continueto be unusuallydry. Parchedwashes and gul-lies crease thehillsides, brownwith brittlegrasses. Every-where pine andspruce trees,stressed by lackof water and fed

on by beetle and budworm, wait likeold ghosts for fire and wind to bringthem down.

Neither a mining district nor asummer playground, roads and struc-tures were relatively slow to develop.

The terrain is a natural for park land,with rugged pine forests to the westand deeply washed foothill canyonsto the east. Golden Gate CanyonState Park was established during the1960s, followed by Jefferson CountyWhite Ranch Open Space Park in1975.

In 1978, residents knew the areawas targeted by aggregate mining andrelated industry interests. Canyonitesjoined forces with Goldenites to pre-vent Brannan Sand and Gravel Com-pany from opening Pit 24, a 623-acreaggregate quarry at the entrances ofClear Creek and Golden Gatecanyons. Plans called for a 7-year,open-pit quarry followed by 50 yearsof underground mining.

Residents teamed up with LookoutMountain landowners in 1988 to stopO. R. Goltra from opening the 320-acre, multimillion-ton, 75-year SheepMountain Quarry on the Elk Creekdrainage in Clear Creek Canyon.They also fought to prevent a secondJeffco rock quarry (Pit 6A) fromoperating well into the 21st century

Mary Ramstetter operates

the C Lazy Three cattle

ranch with her husband,

Charlie, in Golden Gate

Canyon. She is a retired

secretary for the Colorado

School of Mines and has

four grown children. Her

first historical novel,“Over

the Mountains of the

Moon,” has won many

awards. Her book of histo-

ry of Golden Gate Canyon

will be published in 1998.

Many of Golden Gate Canyon’s

historical credentials have been

blown up, dozed away, and hauled

off. But large sweeps of terrain

remain undisturbed. With a little

imagination one can see what

the pioneers saw.

Preservation by

By Mary Ramstetter

at the entrance toMiller Gulch inGolden GateCanyon.

But another prob-lem was brewing.The county wasusing a zoning grid(see “Potential LandUse” in the JeffersonCounty North PlainsCommunity Plan)allowing “buildable”lots from a fractionof one acre to 10acres. When the Planwas established in1992, canyonites requested A35-acrezoning. But rezoning, as initiated bythe Board of County Commissioners,didn’t appear feasible at the time.

The region continued to develop

gradually in 35-acre parcels, whichprovided an air of false security. TheJefferson Soil Conservation District,working in conjunction with localranchers, promoted the use of native

grass seed tosupport the nat-ural ecosystemfor wildlife.

But thebooming metropopulation andCentral Citygambling inter-ests created anenormousappetite formountain land.In 1996, anentrepreneursought countyapproval todevelop six 10-acre WindowRock sites at thetop of a moun-tain overlookingthe WhiteRanch Park. Res-idents wereshocked to dis-cover that thedeveloper onlyhad to provecompliance with

county subdivision regulations.The county’s subdivision regula-

tions allowed development as long asbuilders provided adequate evidenceof quality, quantity and dependablewater supply. Enter the Greeley WaterCourt, where land speculators canbuy paper water that exists one placebut can, on paper, be said to exist atanother. The Window Rock developerwas able to buy a Veldkamp wellwhich diverts non-tributary groundfrom the Laramie-Fox Hills Aquifer ofthe Denver Basin.

The Colorado State Engineer andthe Division Engineer, though power-less to overrule the Water Court,nonetheless filed objections based onwater quantity. Their concern resultedin a court ordered shared-well agree-ment.

“Not overlooking our park!” said

Right: GuyHill School inGolden GateCanyon, circa1880.

Below: Viewof landscapeand historicstructure indownzonedCrawfordGulch area.

Photo by Carole Lomond

Photo by Carole Lomond

-35-

Photo courtesy of Golden DAR Pioneer Museum

residents, who rallied to save the area.They drew up a petition asking theJeffco Commissioners to rezone thearea to an overall density of onehome per 35 acres. Residents selectedan area of approximately 10,212 acresthat seemed to be the most defensi-ble in terms of park boundaries andgeological outlines. It is boundedroughly by Ralston Creek on thenorth, the state park and southernshoulder of Mt.Tom on the west,the highwaythrough TuckerGulch and downinto Guy Gulch onthe south, and thecounty open spacepark and drainageof Crawford Gulchto the east.

When the dustsettled, the subdivi-sion got fiveparcels and a hostof regulationsdesigned to make itas compatible aspossible with thesurroundingterrain. The coun-

ty gained a new category for“Potential LandDesignation” toinclude in a revision of theNorth MountainsCommunity Plan.

Organizers ofthe grassroots peti-tion hoped thatthe concept of clustering new homeson small lots within larger 35-acreenvelopes would leave large blocks ofland open for agriculture. The BearTooth Ranch development north ofGolden on the old Glenco range is afirst attempt to preserve large parcelsof terrain. However, investors hold-ing land for speculation within the

area to be rezoned mounted stiffopposition, and petition supportersdecided to stay with the simple con-cept of one house per 35 acres.

After numerous public hearingsand careful scrutiny of the attendantpaperwork, the county created thenew category, officially called Agri-culture 35. This change was precipi-tated at the grassroots level, so theBCC exempted those who did not

want the rezoning—some two dozenlandowners. But 9,023 acres are nowprotected by the new A-35 zoning. Arare accomplishment indeed.

A-35 does not prevent parcelsfrom being divided in the future. Aland owner can apply to subdivide,but the application must movethrough the rezoning process, which

gives neighbors ample opportunity tosupport or oppose the application.Nor does A-35 guarantee that thebad traffic days will not increase theharvest of automobiles, deer, andsmaller animals.

For a region to ask of itself what ithas for years been asking of mininginterests (to put aside opportunitiesfor financial gain in favor of protect-ing and preserving the environment)

is a remark-able thing, anamazingthing. Andjust in time.The presenceof water, eventheoreticalwater, is creat-ing an illusionthat the richhistorical sig-nificance ofthe foothillsis better suit-ed to culturalalteration.

Before A-35, the onlyprotectionagainst thef lood ofdevelopmentwas regula-tions outlin-ing how itshould bestproceed. WithA-35 in place,developmentcan proceedat a slower

pace, creating a longer time frame todetermine how best to save wildlifecorridors and water. Hopefully otherJeffco areas will find A-35 an attrac-tive alternative to urban sprawl—andleave the region what it is now, anundisturbed and harmoniousapproach to lovely parks.

A-35 zoning isthe beginning ofpreservation. It’sa demonstrationthat people whoare smart enoughto inventmachines toreshape the earthare smart enoughto know when tolet the earthalone. It is alsoan excellentexample of localelected officialsresponding tocitizens, workingwith them, aswell as citizensopposed tochange, anddeclare a mutually benefi-cial outcome.Left:The areawith texturedshading has beenrezoned to A-35.

-36-

Map courtesy of Jefferson County Planning Department

• Oral History Project• Contest for Commission logo (won

by a junior high student) • Produced slides and script of the His-

tory of Jeffco Schools• Produced a videotape of Jefferson

County Museums• Produced “Festival of the West” 1975-

1980 (continued independently)• Wrote and published From Scratch: A

History of Jefferson County (1985) • Produced two editions of a historical

map (1980 and 1986)• Presented plaques for 25 sites of his-

torical interest• Provided plaques for all Jefferson

County sites listed with the NationalRegister of Historic Places and Colorado Register of Historic Properties

• Established the Jefferson County Hallof Fame exhibit at the county building

• Published 17 editions of HistoricallyJeffco magazine

• Published and distributed thousandsof brochures of historic places

• Reviewed and recommended over 30applications for Colorado Historical

Fund grants which helped bring$1,215,609 to Jefferson County

• Researched and assembled data forover 2,500 historical place names

• Researched and proposed a preserva-tion policy for historically significantproperties

• Supported the establishment of theJefferson County Archivist

If you are interested in volunteering withthe Jefferson County Historical Commis-sion or want more information, call Jeffco Archivist Duncan McCollum at271-8448.

ELIGIBILITYThe Contest is open to all persons, andentrants will be divided into two categories:1. Youth (age 17 or younger)2. Open (all ages)ENTRY PROCEDURE1. Each entry must be accompanied by a

completed and signed entry form. Thereis no limit on the number of entries.

2. Entries can consist of up to 7,000 words,including footnotes. Entries must betyped on 8 1/2” x 11” white paper, dou-ble-spaced, with at least 1” margins. Ifpossible also submit a computer disk intext only format.

3. The composition must be the originalwork of the individual in whose name theentry is submitted and must be writtenspecifically for this contest.

4. The entry form (below) must be signedand sent with composition.

JUDGINGThe contest will be judged by a panel ofthree qualified judges whose decision will befinal. The JCHC reserves the right not topresent awards if the judges determine thatno meritorious entries are received.

AWARDS1. Young entrants prize is $250.2. Open division first prize is $750 and sec-

ond prize is $250.3. JCHC may edit and publish both award-

winning and other entries in its publica-tion, Historically Jeffco.

GUIDELINES1. Topics must relate directly to the factual

history of Jefferson County, Colorado.2. All entries become the property of JCHC.3. Members of JCHC and appointed judges

Jefferson County Historical Commission Mission Statement (continued from p. 2)

and relatives of both are ineligible forprizes.

4. Entries must not infringe upon therights of any third person.

DEADLINE: April 1

SEND TO:Historically Jeffco Writer’s Award ContestJefferson County Historical Commissionc/o Archives & Records Mgmt, Ste 1500100 Jefferson County ParkwayGolden, CO 80419-1500

HISTORICALLY JEFFCO WRITER’S AWARD CONTEST RULES & APPLICATION

HISTORICALLY JEFFCO WRITER’S AWARD CONTEST APPLICATION

NAME: AGE:(If under 17)

ADDRESS:

PHONE:

I certify that I am an eligible entrant and that the composition now submitted was prepared byme for this contest and has not been previously published or copyrighted. I agree to abide bythe decision of the judges on any questions raised in connection with the conduct of the con-test and the selection of the winning compositions. By submission of my entry, I grant the Jef-ferson County Historical Commission the right to edit and publish the composition in itspublications, regardless of whether I receive a monetary prize.

Date: (Signature of Entrant)

Jefferson County Historical Commission

The Jefferson County Historical Commission membersare appointed by the Board of County Commissioners.The current County Commissioners are (from left):John Stone, Michelle Lawrence and Pat Holloway.

The information inthis magazine is solelyprovided by theauthors. JCHC andthe Board of CountyCommissioners arenot responsible forits content.

(Please copy application)

THEN AND NOW: View of ski jump today fromChimney Creek, Genesee

Bulk RateU.S. Postage

PAIDPermit #148Golden, CO

Jefferson County Historical Commission100 Jefferson County Parkwayc/o Archives and Records Management, Room 1567Golden, CO 80419