This month, several Denver-area histories serve as summer tour guides.
“The Scenic History of Denver Cemeteries: From Cheesman Park to Riverside,” by Phil Goodstein (New Social Publications)
“The Scenic History of Denver Cemeteries: From Cheesman Park to Riverside,” by Phil Goodstein (New Social Publications)
Of the first dozen people buried in Mount Prospect, Denver’s first cemetery, two were hanged for murder, five died from gunshot wounds, and one committed suicide. No wonder the early city fathers wanted the graveyard to be far from the city center.
Mount Prospect was expanded to include a Jewish section. Areas were set aside for Catholics, Asians and Blacks. As Denver expanded, residents objected to a cemetery so close to houses, and the bodies were moved. The low bidder on the removal project ($1 per grave) found his costs were high and divided bodies — a head in one coffin, a legbone in another — to defraud the city. He abandoned the project and many graves remained. Today, outlines of those abandoned graves can be seen when a dusting of snow covers Mount Prospect, now Cheesman Park.
As Mount Prospect declined, Riverside sprang up as Denver’s go-to cemetery. The names on graves there are a history of early Denver. Tabor, Cheesman, Hallack/Steck, Zang, Barth, Sopris. Phil Goodstein, known for his meticulous research, tells the stories of many of them in this first volume of a trilogy on Denver cemeteries. Along with brief biographies of the famous and infamous of Denver dead, Goodstein relates the history of the earliest Denver cemeteries and their fates. Even better, Goodstein includes directions to various gravesites.
“Discovering Denver Parks,” by Chris Englert (Mountaineers Books)
“Discovering Denver Parks,” by Chris Englert (Mountaineers Books)
Who knew there were so many parks in Denver? Most of us are aware of City Park and Cheesman, Overland and Civic Center, but Mamie Doud Eisenhower Park and Madame C.J. Walker Park?
In fact, there are 150 parks in Denver, plus another dozen Denver mountain parks. Chris Englert details every one of them in a pocketsize “Discovering Denver Parks.”
One reason Denver has so many parks is Mayor Robert Speer. He wanted Denver to look like Paris, so he launched a system of parks and parkways. They range from sprawling Washington Park to tiny Sonny Lawson Park, named for Five Points’ first druggist, who operated the Radio Pharmacy.
The guidebook, which lists the locations, history and amenities of each park, is a handy reference for exploring the city.
“Cherry Hills Village,” by Dino G. Maniatis (Arcadia Publishing)
“The present country club is no longer in the country. It’s almost in the heart of town,’ complained a member of a local club, probably the Denver Country Club. “There are too many members and the golf links are overcrowded,” complained another.
And so Cherry Hills Country Club was formed and around it one of Denver’s most exclusive neighborhoods. Regulations in what became Cherry Hills Village forbid commercial development and kept out urban sprawl.
Founders and residents of early Cherry Hills read like a list of Denver’s who’s who: Grant, Gano, Buell, Shafroth, Blackmer, Koelbel. And later, musical comedy star Ethel Merman, who was married to Continental Airlines CEO Robert Six.
Dino G. Maniatis tells Cherry Hills history from its beginning as farmland (including Rufus Clark’s potato patch) to the present day, where true to the founders’ intentions, urban detritus is still kept out.
“Northglenn,” by Elizabeth Moreland Candelario (Arcadia Publishing)
“Northglenn,” by Elizabeth Moreland Candelario (Arcadia Publishing)
Northglenn, a sprawling suburb of middle-class homes, commerce and 39,000 residents, is just the kind of development that Cherry Hills wanted to keep at bay. While Cherry Hills may turn up its nose at Northglenn, Life magazine once called it “the most perfectly planned community in America.”
Thanks to its foresighted developers, thousands of Coloradans could afford to own homes in Northglenn, where prices in 1959 began at $11,600. Families today live in a self-contained community of parks, churches, schools and commercial development.
In “Northglenn,” Elizabeth Moreland Candelario puts together a series of then-and now pictures, including churches, schools, homes, commercial developments, parks and recreation facilities and streetscapes that show how the community thrived and grew.