Jefferson County, Colorado: A Unique & Eventful History - Vol.2

By Carole Lomond

A massively in-depth description and history of Jefferson County, 650 pages illustrated with nearly 2,000 wonderful photos.

NOTE: Because of file size constraints, Chapters 1-12 are in Volume 1. This is Volume 2 of 2.

Jefferson County is one of Colorado's "Crown Jewels." More than one-third of JeffCo's 775 square miles of mountains and plains have been preserved by federal, state, county, and city governments. All 540,000 residents live within a ten-minutes drive of a Colorado Getaway to nature trails and historic Wild West sites. Excellent public and private schools and colleges serve diverse neighborhoods from urban condos to horse ranches in the rural foothills.

A brief video that shows some of the imagery included in this full color, 650 page book.

This first comprehensive history of Jefferson County celebrates 150 years since Colorado's initial "Provisional Territory Government" began at Mount Vernon and Golden in 1859. Once an agricultural and mining area, JeffCo residents developed a thriving economy where the great plains meet the Rocky Mountains with some of the most magnificent scenery in the world. CNN/Money rated it one of the best places to live.

Filled with information and photos of Jeffco's extraordinary natural splendors, historic treasures, recreation pleasures and 15 unique communities. An extensive glossary lists parks and recreation, cemeteries, unique places & museums, schools and people who created JeffCo since 1859.

Read about the rich history and what makes Jefferson County so unique — a must read for everyone living in the Denver area or interested in the history of Colorado and the West!

A wonderful gift idea — order your own copy and one as a gift!

• Language: English
• Publisher: ReAnimus Press
• Release date: Jun 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370957378

Book preview

NOTE: Because of file size constraints, Chapters 1-12 are in Volume 1. This is Volume 2 of 2.

Copyright ©2009 by Carole A. Lomond

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a Web site without prior written permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Chapter 13

Unincorporated North Plains Area

By Carole Lomond

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Extraordinary variety of land use north of Hwy. 58 and east of Hwy. 93 is surrounded by dense residential city development of Arvada, Broomfield, Golden and Westminster. Within vast tracts of undeveloped land are significant areas of Fairmount, Ralston and North Table Mountain, Rocky Flats, Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Colorado Railroad Museum and Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (Formerly Jefferson County Airport). There are industrial and office complexes and many reservoirs, ponds and creeks managed by a variety of ditch and water districts.

Nearly every location offers a scenic view of North Table Mountain and the Rockies beyond, overlooks the Coors industrial complex, or Denver’s downtown in the distance. Old farms and new elegant farms, huge trophy homes and enclaves of midsize homes are accessed by quiet two-lane roads. Even the churches and schools seem tucked away from traffic. Except for the Fairmount community, there are few active homeowner associations. Every developed property is unique. No massive tract home developments have arrived here… yet.

Historic resources are limited to remaining farm silos, abandoned railroads, wagon roads and trails (mostly converted to modern roads) and a few farms and houses. Jefferson County planners have developed unprecedented intergovernmental cooperation for land use planning in the area. Each sub area has unique specific policies. While large undeveloped open lands are integral to the overall character of the North Plains of Jefferson County, mixed land use, including commercial office and non-polluting industrial use, has been encouraged.

Jefferson County’s first community began on November 29, 1858 at the area now known as W. 44th Ave. near McIntyre St. Gold found by prospectors nearby left a Georgia rocker mining box to mark the spot in 1834. New arrivals found the marker and created Arapahoe Town Company in 1858. Arapaho Indians (including Little Raven) had camped there since 1750 when they were pushed west from the Great Lakes region, but 200 gold seekers gladly claimed free lots offered by the new town company. John Gregory and George Jackson discovered gold near Idaho Springs and Central City.

Arapahoe City lost the county seat to upstream Golden by a vote of 401-288 on January 2, 1860. JeffCo’s first post office was established there in February, 1860. By 1861, Arapahoe had 21 buildings and 80 inhabitants. Over time the townsite itself vanished, and evolved with the rural community of Fairmount. On April 28, 1946, the Colorado Historical Society placed a bronze marker on the site of Arapahoe City.

—Richard Gardner

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Courtesy Jefferson County Planning and Zoning

Arapahoe City 1858-1860

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Dedication of historic marker of the site of Arapahoe City, April 28, 1946

Photo: courtesy Colorado Historical Society

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Prospectors who found gold here and further west are John Hamilton Gregory (above) and George Andrew Jackson (below).

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Photos: courtesy Golden Pioneer Museum

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Arapaho Little Raven

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Historic marker of the site of Arapahoe City, 2008

Photo: courtesy Gardner Family Collection

The Old Stone House

East of McIntyre Ave. along West 44th Ave. stands an old stone house built in 1864 by George Allen. The hand cut stones were hauled by ox and mule freight trains from Council Bluffs, Iowa. There was a cupola on the top of the roof, a large one, 8’ x 8’ all of glass, used as an Indian lookout in the early days.

J.B. Hill lived in the house from about 1899. His son Sam remembered a heavy storm of rain, sleet, and wind came up one October night. He was sleeping in the room directly under the glass cupola and in the night he heard a terrible crash, glass falling everywhere, and the worst commotion overhead, honking and shrieking. A large flock of wild geese or ducks had been driven off their course in the heavy storm and they went right into this glass cupola.

—Shirley Spencer

North Table Mountain

This scenic gem, visible many miles away, is about two miles long, one mile wide, and covers an area of 2120 acres at the base of its steep slopes. The high point of the mountain is about 6566 feet altitude, about 1,000 feet above the plains below. The soil types vary. The center of the mountain is a productive area with deeper soils, heavy clay with a few springs and small lakes. The eastern area has very shallow soil on less clay, with grassy vegetation good for grazing. Rock outcrops and cliffs surround the rim.

Indian artifacts were gathered years ago by early settlers. The only known residents on the plateau were Frank Bussert and his son Roy. Frank arrived in Denver in 1892 and worked at Tabor Opera House as a carpenter for two or three dollars a day. In 1894, he homesteaded on North Table Mountain and built an 18 x 14 foot stone house. While working at a brick yard in Golden, he raised cows, chickens, pigs, a garden and hunted wild rabbits and collected wild honey. In 1916 he harvested 1800 bushels of wheat, raised turkeys and domesticated coyotes (coyote hides sold for three to five dollars). Frank died in 1918 and his son Roy moved down to Golden in 1922. After Heine Foss bought the Bussert land in 1950, he planted $1000 of grass seed annually to restore the land that had been heavily overgrazed. Fires on the mountain in 1977, 1983, and 1988 burned shrub types of vegetation and stimulated growth of grasses.

The mountain is home to a resident population of about 80-100 mule deer, golden eagles, red-tailed hawks and prairie falcons as well as a small population of prairie dogs. Shore birds and ducks can be found around the three ponds that dot the top of the mountain. These spring fed ponds are the headwaters of two major drainages on the mountain that form narrow bands of riparian vegetation that almost completely bisect the property.

Jefferson County Open Space acquired 1,945 acres of the mountain gradually from 1993 to 2003. North Table Mountain Park is currently being developed for the future.

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Legend says the house was once used as a county jail. The 145-year-old stone house is still in use as an office for a construction company.

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North Table Mountain

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The Fairmount Community

The vision statement of Fairmount Improvement Association is …although unincorporated, to be recognized as a distinct enclave with a strong sense of community, to be defined as a quieter transitional region in the midst of three surrounding municipalities that we support economically. In this transitional area the focus should be on the natural environment, with protection and enhancement of lower density development, lower posted speeds along all roads within the heart of the community, multi-use paths maintaining safety and access of pedestrian-equestrian movement with connections to surrounding residential parks and trail systems and zoning to protect the semi-rural and cultural history characteristic of our area.

Fairmount is a rural community with mature trees along two-lane roads with a village atmosphere. First settlers were farming homesteaders surviving as truck gardeners. This seven square mile unincorporated community is bounded on the south by Clear Creek, on the north by 64th Ave., including Dry Creek (now Van Bibber Creek), on the east by Ward Rd., and the west by North Table Mountain and Hwy. 93. Fairmount history is reflected in the story of the evolution of one structure at 5211 McIntyre, most recently a feed store.

The Old Feed Store

In 1926 Albert Clinton Baker purchased an acre from the Stephaniges, who lived in the original home just south of this property. By the mid ‘30s Baker had rezoned the 5211 McIntyre property to commercial use, built the small store to sell groceries and erected the family home on the north side of the site.

Never having been planned, the McIntyre Rd. existed because the farmers of the area drove it. It was a dirty, muddy rut that bent to the east around a grocery store, lucky to have gravel on it. Baker ran the store until about 1950 when he sold to the Montzingos. Monty Montzingo and ‘his darling wife Betsy’ not only operated a grocery and butcher store, they opened a one-chair barbershop ($2.25 shave and haircut). The vintage red-and-white striped barber pole stood at the northeast corner of the store well into the late ‘60s. It became an ‘important little country store.’

Monty added items to reflect the community desires: a single gas pump and a weigh-station to weigh the farmers’ hay loads. Every spring hundreds of baby chicks were sold to raise for eggs and chicken on every table. Children loved the dime pops and penny candy. Just before the aging Montzingos sold in 1960-61, McIntyre was paved.

Bill and Sally Kopf purchased the store and turned it into an auto and tractor repair shop. Bill removed the old wooden floor and widened the west wall to accommodate vehicles. The old ‘50s butcher shop refrigerator still kept milk; a line in the middle of the shop marked the county-proposed center line of McIntyre. The shop was sold to a trampoline manufacturer in the late ‘60s, but the noisy 24-hour workday drew neighborhood complaints, which led to the closing of that business.

In the late ‘70s Ray Bowles, a Coors employee who saw a likely venture in this little commercial spot, purchased the property and operated an indoor flea market business on weekends. The next occupants were Mike Avery and Hank Binder who leased the store in order to move their feed store business from W. 44th Ave. into the heart of Fairmount. Richard Binder and Felix Garamone, the older generation, ran the feed store and inspired the ‘around the cracker barrel’ atmosphere.

Judy Messoline, a Paint horse breeder from Fairmount, purchased the feed business in April 1984. The feed and tack industry bloomed under her friendly attitude. Among her innovations were Kentucky Derby parties complete with favors and a return to the past by marketing baby chicks, ducks, fancy chicken breeds and even rabbits. Messoline moved to the San Luis Valley in 1995 and leased the feed store to Linda and Mike Wright who continued the neighborhood-favored feed and tack business until August 2001. Wright’s politically-flavored chalkboard signs gained notoriety throughout the Front Range.

Now the old Fairmount landmark is For Sale. Whatever happens to this store-by-the-side-of-the-road, it is an important piece of the nostalgia and history of Fairmount. It seems to say: Forget-me-not.

Maple Grove Grange No. 154

When Maple Grove Grange was organized on Feb. 27, 1907, at the Maple Grove Schoolhouse, it had 25 members. At its second meeting a month later, it had 65. Oysters being cheap and milk easy to come by, Grangers customarily ended every meeting with a steaming pot of oyster stew. In the mid-1920s, and at the behest of state fire officials, Maple Grove No. 154 moved its social agenda out of the schoolhouse and into Earl Pettigrew’s barn, and started saving its nickels and dimes for a Grange hall to call its own. As it happened, charity slowed construction considerably, as Maple Grove dipped into its building fund to, among other things, help Fruitdale School establish a library, send aid to the poor of Greece and buy war bonds during World War II.

By 1945, Maple Grove was Colorado’s largest Grange (Its motto? Make Grange a habit!) and the Grange hall project gained a new priority. Purchasing a likely acre at 44th Ave. and Youngfield St. just south of the schoolhouse, members labored evenings and weekends for about six months, cutting the ribbon on their new home on June 14, 1951. Today, that stout brick structure still provides a solid foundation for the 25 active members of Maple Grove No. 154.

We survived because the hall has always been used, explains Grange Master Bert Myers. We were on the verge of closing down about 15 years ago, then we opened up the hall to non-members and non-farmers. We mostly rent to dance groups, now. We get square-dance callers, round-dance callers, and the dances are open to the public. It helps pay the bills.

It also provides the capital necessary to continue No. 154’s mission of community service, a mission that Maple Grove gladly shares with its neighbors.

There’s a lot of cooperation between Jeffco Granges, Myers says. In the early days, the Granges were pretty independent, and that’s what kept them strong. These days, it’s cooperation that keeps them strong.

—Reflections of a Community was compiled by Peggy Hunnicutt from interviews with Al and Lynn Goedert, James Baker, Hank Binder, Carl Churches, Lawrence Marriott, Judy Messoline, and Frances and Elmer Simpson.

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Prospect Recreation and Park District

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Maple Grove Center

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In 1955, Jefferson County managed a recreation area as a department with a funding limit of 1 mill. In 1999, Fairmount and Applewood voters approved creating the Prospect Recreation and Park District, funded with 3 mills. The district has become a primary resource for the community, developed and maintains eight parks, sports leagues and Arbor House at 14600 W. 32nd Ave.

As steward of public lands and recreational development, Prospect Recreation & Park District is dedicated to protecting, managing and expanding its parkland, and promoting opportunities for citizens to pursue sports, historic, cultural, and leisure activities. Prospect sponsors an annual Easter Egg Hunt, Pumpkin Fest, Holiday Tea, and Apex District sponsors music concerts and stories for children on Friday mornings.

Residents of the Prospect area may purchase an annual pass for all Apex Park and Recreation District facilities.

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Mount Olivet Cemetery

More than 120,000 Catholics are buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery at 12801 West 44th Ave. The founder was Father Joseph Machebeuf (1812-1889) a little, energetic Frenchman who yearned to be a missionary in the vast wilderness of the American frontier. He set sail from the Old World to the New in 1839 for a life of challenge and ceaseless work. His grandiose dreams caused him to become a shameless beggar traveling by mule or on foot to badger friends and strangers for donations. He first entered Jefferson County on an 1860 survey of Golden City, the bustling and prosperous Territorial Capital. He initiated St. Joseph Church in 1867, the second church built in Golden.

As Colorado’s first Catholic bishop, Machebeuf sent itinerant Franciscan priests into the foothills and beyond. In 1883, he purchased the Swiss Cottage in Morrison to establish a Jesuit college, which was moved in 1887 to land donated by John Brisben Walker at 52nd and Lowell. It became known as Regis College and Walker transformed the Morrison property to a famous resort.

By the end of his life, The Apostle of Colorado had built 102 churches and chapels, nine academies, a college (Regis), ten hospitals, an orphanage (Mount St. Vincent), and a reform facility (Lookout Mountain Correctional School for Boys) in Colorado. He achieved this at a time when people were generally looking for gold rather than God. Thousands attended his funeral in 1889 to honor his patient suffering of hardships and tiresome journeys to establish religion in Rocky Mountain Country.

Machebeuf acquired 500-acre Clear Creek Ranch at today’s 44th Ave., just north of Hwy. 58 between Eldridge and Youngfield. In his Last Will & Testament, he bequeathed his ranch to become Mt. Olivet Cemetery where he is buried. Other important historical figures buried at Mt. Olivet are Apollo 13 astronaut Jack Swigert, the first Governor of Colorado William Gilpin, The Bonanza King of Leadville Horace A.W. Tabor, his beloved Baby Doe, Denver Mayor Bill McNichols and many more. A historic tiled aquifer discovered by Machebeuf still feeds Mt. Olivet as an important source of irrigation water.

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Father Joseph Machebeuf

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Colorado Railroad Museum

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Robert W. Richardson and Cornelius W. Hauck opened the Colorado Railroad Museum in 1959. It is dedicated to preserving for future generations a tangible record of Colorado’s flamboyant railroad era and particularly its pioneering narrow gauge mountain railroads. In 1964, the nonprofit Colorado Railroad Historical Foundation was formed to assume ownership and operation of the museum.

The mission of the Colorado Railroad Museum is to acquire, preserve and exhibit to the general public, railroad equipment, artifacts, paper records, books, art work and photographs emphasizing Rocky Mountain area railroads, to explain and interpret the role of railroads in the history of this region from the 1860s to the present by means of exhibits, a reference library, educational programs, publications and information sharing with other historical groups. Furthermore to provide incentives that will enhance interest in railroads and railroading history.

The 15-acre site is managed from a replica of an 1880s-style depot that houses thousands of rare old photographs, artifacts and documents illustrating the colorful histories of the railroads which have served the state for over 125 years. The Cornelius W. Hauck Restoration Facility, better known as the Roundhouse, maintains many locomotives on tracks.

The Robert W. Richardson Railroad Library houses over 10,000 books specific to railroads. This includes car and locomotive encyclopedias, bound magazines of the 19th century, such as Railway Age, and other trade publications. Many industry records are also maintained at the library.

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Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge

In the spring of 1951, JeffCo elected officials discovered through news reports that a $45 million, top secret, atomic plant would be built in Jefferson County off Hwy. 93 away from Denver residents. Dow Chemical Company operated the plant for the U.S. Department of Energy. Most JeffCo residents innocently assumed the plant was safe and was necessary to defend America during the historic Cold War against Communism. Thousands of employees manufactured plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons from 1953 until 1989 when others were employed to remove or bury hazardous waste.

The 6,240-acre site is on a plateau between Hwy 93 and Indiana St., between Arvada and Boulder. The majority of the land was used as a security buffer around a 384-acre industrial area at the center of the site. The FBI and EPA halted production to address environmental and safety concerns in 1989. By 1995, the DOE began to demolish approximately 800 industrial structures for one of the most significant environmental cleanups in the history of the United States. In 2005, the DOE hired contractors to complete a $7 billion cleanup of hazardous chemical and radioactive contamination. The DOE office of Legacy Management is responsible for long-term surveillance and maintenance of 1,300 industrial acres.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has developed a conservation plan for the remaining 4,000 acres of Rocky Flats to be completed by 2012. The refuge vision for Rocky Flats is a healthy expanse of grasslands, shrub lands and wetlands, including rare xeric tall grass prairie, where natural processes support a broad range of native wildlife. The Refuge offers striking mountain and prairie views and opportunities to restore and preserve the native ecosystem, provide habitat for native plants and wildlife and conserve threatened and endangered species.

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Rocky Flats Plant 400 Complex, June,1988

Rocky Flats clean-up

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Aerial photos show the reconfigured Rocky Flats Environmental Site after buildings and pavement were removed 10 years later.

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2005

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1995

Fairmount Fire Protection District

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The community of Fairmount is nestled in between the towns of Golden, Arvada, and Wheat Ridge. The community grew rapidly and Fairmount Fire District was organized in 1962 after adjacent fire districts cooled on the idea of working outside their boundaries. Basically, the Golden and Arvada fire departments were getting a little strained answering calls in Fairmount, explains Fairmount’s operations chief, Joel Hager. Four or five individuals started it, but it took another year to find enough firefighters to staff it.

With two stations manned by 18 career employees and about 65 volunteers, the Fairmount Fire Department answers about 700 calls per year in an area covering 25 square miles, roughly bounded by Clear Creek on the south, Ward Rd. to the east, 60th Ave. to the north, and the Rocky Mountain foothills on the west. An 8.43-mill levy on the district’s 17,000 resident yields an annual budget of approximately $3.4 million.

Actually, it’s not really that easy to say exactly what Fairmount’s population is, because it changes during the day, Hager says. We have a mixture of commercial, agricultural and agricultural in our district, and multiple types of light and heavy industries. Half of Coors Manufacturing is in our district, plus three CoorsTek buildings, Ball Manufacturing, and lots of research buildings. On a weekday, Fairmount’s population goes way up.

And so does the fire department’s workload. With all that industrial, we have to be prepared for all types of incidents, from confined-space fire suppression to hazardous material fires to industrial injuries. Despite its youth, FFPD has much to be proud of, including a new training center on Hwy. 93 and a prominent role hosting the Colorado Wildland Fire Academy. A commitment to wildfire suppression, says Hager, is the biggest feather in Fairmount’s cap.

There are 55 members on our wildland fire team, and they’ve been deployed all over the United States. They’re on the cutting edge of wildland firefighting, and they train the entire staff in those techniques. The result is a very high-quality department.

—Stephen Knapp

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Loch Lomond Grange No. 76

When Loch Lomond Grange was organized on July 26, 1887, the 14 members each paid dues of 10 cents per month. Its first master was Elwood Easely, who would later serve as president of the Grange Mutual Fire Insurance Co. Its first home was a little grout schoolhouse, where it languished until it could rent space in a brick schoolhouse in Fairmount for the princely sum of $25 a year. In 1912, Loch Lomond cut the ribbon on its own substantial Grange Hall on 50th Ave. near McIntyre St., hanging temperance-timely signs warning festive members that Intoxicating liquors will not be permitted on the premises, and that Smoking in the hall – especially when ladies are present – will not be allowed, nor at any other time.

We always had some kind of craft project we were working on, and we put on at least one drama every year, recalls Loch Lomond’s 89-year-old secretary, LaVeta Trezises, who’s been a Grange stalwart for more than three quarters of a century. I became an adult member when I turned 14, and I’ve been with it ever since.

During the First World War, the Grange hall did its patriotic duty as a Red Cross sewing center. In 1926, it burned to a cinder, but sprang up again the next year, better than ever. From a peak of more than 200 Grangers, Loch Lomond No. 76 has dwindled to just six active members in 2009. The declining enrollment forced Loch Lomond to sell the historic hall, which now provides spiritual shelter for New Hope Lutheran Church.

I was raised on a farm, so all my neighbors were in the Grange, says Loch Lomond president Wilbur Mays. I like the people, and I like the social activities. We continue to get together once a month in members homes, says Mays. It’s still a great organization, and we can still make a contribution to the community.

—Stephen Knapp

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In 1956, Golden had an airport north of town at the west edge of Hwy. 93, just north of the intersection with Hwy. 58. There was also an airpark for military planes at the Federal Center in Lakewood.

Jefferson County owned two airports: one at south Kipling and Ken Caryl Ave. and another at 2121 Youngfield known as Creighton Field. It was graded in 1944 on meadowland before houses were constructed nearby. The airstrip ran parallel to present day Youngfield Ave. (from roughly the 21st to 26th hundred block of Youngfield) with planes taking off and landing on the south end near Crabapple Rd. However, growth on the eastern slope of South Table Mountain was choking the life out of the Creighton Airport.

On Saturday, July 21, 1956, Lloyd Collier, his wife Carol, Joe Piz and his wife, Louise, taxied onto the runway of the Creighton airfield. They planned to fly to Dodge City, Kansas. Collier tried to gain airspeed on the first try to take off but aborted when the plane failed to lift. He taxied back to the beginning of the runway and tried again. The plane again failed to lift. On the third try the plane lifted gently, banked to the west, sputtered and plummeted to the ground.

The plane crashed into W. 32nd Ave. and Eldridge St. (at the 2009 entrance to Applewood Golf Course) after skimming the rooftops of newly constructed homes in the new Applewood subdivision. A half dozen construction workers ran to the crash site and pulled the occupants away from the twisted metal. Joe Piz walked away from the crash site with minor injuries. The other three, including the inexperienced pilot, were taken to St. Anthony