Fletcher and her Trolley: A Suburb's Link to the City, Our Link to the Past (1998)

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Fletcher and her Trolley: A Suburb's Link to the City, Our Link to the Past

Chris E. Geddes 12 May, 1998 Professor Liston E. Leyendecker HY 610A- State & Local History Colorado State University

The transportation system of early Denver was one of the most advanced at the time. "Denver could claim one of the most modem, all electric rail systems in the country." 1 While initially a group of smaller railway and streetcar companies served the suburbs, these companies were bought out by the Denver Tramway Company, who became the main railway company after the turn of the century. In 1899, just eight years after its incorporation, the Colfax Electric Railway Company was one of the groups who sold to the Denver Tramway. For close to fifty years the electric streetcar was the main link from city to suburb, and beloved by many when retired in 1950.

The beginnings of the Colfax Electric Railway are somewhat confusing. There are incorporation papers for the Colfax Avenue Railway Company dated February 16, 1887. There are also incorporation papers for the Colfax Electric Railway Company dated May 4, 1891. It would seem doubtful to establish the trolley line before major settlement of the town. The trolley line would depend upon riders to and from the city in order to earn a profit and continue service. Many trolley and streetcar lines developed in response to a growing number of people moving to the suburbs. In the book A Mile High I

& Three Feet Wide, author Ken Fletcher revealed that streetcars" ... influenced the

location of industry, neighborhood commercial and entertainment centers and, long before the auto, the development of what became known as 'streetcar suburbs' ."2 An oral history interview with Thurston Cox, lifelong Aurora resident and superintendent of the Denver Tramway, provides some clarification: The Colfax Electric Railway Company purchased the property of the Colfax Avenue Electric Railroad Company at a foreclosure sale, May 4, 1891, and was incorporated at that same time. Samuel 1 2

Ken Fletcher, A Mile High & Three Feet Six Wide, (Aurora, CO: Mountain West Enterprises, 1993), 10.

Ibid., 13.

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Perry, who was prominent in the early history of Aurora and Fletcher, was president of this company. He had supervised the construction of this railway. 3 It is interesting to note that Mr. Cox grew up in one of Aurora's First Decade houses at

1557 Dallas Street, where the trolley line terminated in 1893. Mr. Cox also stated that in 1898, the Denver Tramway bought out the Colfax Electric Railway. This is confirmed in

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The Denver & Northwestern Railway Co. & The Denver City Tramway Co.. Street Railway Franchises and Articles of Incorporation. published in 1904. In this book, the initial incorporation papers of the various streetcar/railway companies purchased by the Denver Tramway are printed in full. It stated that the Colfax Electric "Conveyed all its franchises and railways to The Denver Consolidated Tramway Company, January 26, 1899.'.4 However, up until1898/1899, the Colfax Electric operated as its own entity under the direction of Mr. Samuel M. Perry.

Mr. Peny, it should be noted, played a vital role in the development of the town

of Fletcher, as well as the establishment of a trolley line in the town. He was also quite involved with Denver's transportation system. In Mile High Trolleys, more attention is I

given to Denver and her streetcars, but there is brief mention of the prominent role that Perry played in The Denver Tramway Company.

Samuel M. Peny, while not a Tramway president, was intimately involved with the firm. He came to Colorado in 1880, and supervised construction of the Colfax Electric Ry. which was soon merged with the Tramway. Over the next forty years Perry served as a Tramway vice-president and held the presidency of several subsidiaries including the Leyden Coal Co., The Denver and Northwestern Ry., and 3

Carl Vincent McFadden, et aL, Early Aurora, (Aurora, CO: Aurora Technical Center, 1978), 291.

The Denver & Northwestern Railway Co. & The Denver City Tramway Co.: Street Railway Franchises and Articles of Incorporation, NY: The Evening Post Job Printing House, 1904), 210.

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the Denver Terminal Co. He died on July 2, 1929. 5 Without Perry, the history of Fletcher would have been much different. His active rol~ in the set-up of this rural suburb helped to shape the town into a viable thriving community.

A little background about Fletcher should probably be provided before going any further. There were many investment companies that purchased the land in the original town plat (Yosemite east to Havana Stand Colfax north to 26th Avenue). However, the same gentlemen were members in all of these companies, namely the Aurora Land Company, the Colfax Trust Company, and the Colorado Home Company. And so most of Fletcher's original parcel was owned by Samuel M Perry, Charles E. Dickinson, Thomas S. Hayden, and numerous trustees. Samuel Perry was also president of the Denver and Northwestern Railroad, the Northern Finance Company, the Leyden Coal Company, and board member of the Tramway Mutual Aid Association as well as being active in the above named real estate companies.

The Colfax Trust Company, of which Perry was president, was responsible for the house construction and promotion of settlement in Fletcher. In Aurora: Gateway to the Rockies. there is a copy of the Trust's advertisement in the Rocky Mountain News from 1890 which promoted the suburb as having rapid transit, pure water, and electricity in the houses. 6 Unfortunately, this wasn't the case; trolleys wouldn't arrive until early 1893, electricity at approximately the same time, and any kind of water, let alone pure, would have been a welcome sight to the early town residents. Water issues plagued the area starting with the homesteaders who arrived in the 1860s.

' William C. Jones, et al., Mile High Trolleys: A Nostalgic Look at Denver in the Era of Streetcars. ~enver, CO: National Railway Historical Society, 1975), 119.

Steven F. Mehls, et al., Aurora: Gateway to the Rockies, (Aurora, CO: Cordillera Press, 1985), 18.

When 1892 came and the town was barely a year old, there were approximately five to six houses on Galena Street (originally Hathaway) and two to three houses on _ Dallas Street (originally Lynn), with a few others scattered in the area. What is interesting about the pattern of development is the class division within this fledgling suburb. The buildings themselves are physical evidence of this economic division.

Dallas Street consisted of I Y2 story, gabled root: brick dwellings with stylistic embellishment limited to decorative shingles. On Galena Street there were 2 story brick dwellings with complex rooflines, large porches, balconies, and decorative elements on large spacious lots.

The census reports of 1900, 1910, and 1920 are an excellent way to document this class distinction Living on Dallas Street in 1900 were a carpenter, two street motormen, a brick mason, two miners, and a commercial traveler- Edward Lockwood, renting the house at 1557 Dallas from owner Emilie J. Smith. In 1910, one would have found a carpenter, painter, milliner, and a freight inspector/railroad operator (probably the trolley/streetcar in town). Edward Lockwood was still renting 1557 Dallas at this time.

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In 1920, Dallas Street had carpenters, a painter, machinists, a barber, and a servant Benjamin Cox was the owner of 1557 Dallas and his occupation was a miner in the silver mine. (His son, Thurston Cox, became superintendent of the Denver Tramway and gave an oral history on his remembrances of early Aurora.) Over on Galena Street a different picture emerged Living here in 1900 were a bookkeeper, a dairy proprietor, a physician, an engineer, the town attorney, the town marshal, and two real estate agents (one being Francis A Perry, Samuel Perry's brother). In 1910, we see an engineer, a draftsman, a clergyman, a mining company manager, a physician, and the dairy proprietor along with

his neighbor, a milker. And in 1920 there were teachers, soldiers, and a grocery merchant residing on Galena Street.7 Yet another aspect of suburban life that separated the working and upper middle class was the introduction of electric streetcars or trolleys. As noted in Aurora: Gateway to the Rockies, "The goal was to connect the state capitol with Dallas Street in Fletcher.

Planning began that same year, construction went forward in 1892, and the line opened for limited business in early 1893."8 What this reveals is the rail line coming out to Dallas with the working class living next to the tracks and the upper middle class living just beyond the trolley link. In The American Family Home. Clifford Clark discusses

the role of transportation by stating that, "Given the availability of new transportation, both the middle and the upper classes created new strata of social distinctions that could be seen in the expanding residential neighborhoods where house and lot size became a visible and understood sign of social rank. "9 The houses on Dallas and their spacious lots were a buffer zone between the noise of the town and trolley and their peaceful, rural expenence.

As the town continued to grow, service was expanded out to Geneva Street, one block east of Galena. Although the trolley was now closer to the wealthier residents, it is important to note that a waiting room was constructed for them, something that did not exist at Dallas Street. In fact, in 1900, "considerable work was done on the waiting room

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United States Census Records, 1900, 1910, 1920, Denver Public Library- Western History Center.

Mehls, Aurora: Gateway, 25.

9 Clifford E. Clark, The American Family Home 1800-1960, (Chapel Hill, NC: University ofNorth Carolina Press, 1986, 91.

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of the Colfax Electric Railway at the comer of Colfax Avenue and Hathaway Street. " 10 Along with having their own waiting room at the trolley stop, Galena was one of the fi!st streets to have sidewalks. At an 1892 town Board meeting it was recorded that "the wooden sidewalk on the main residential street, Hathaway, needed repairs. " 11 In 1893, the "Colfax Trust Company sold its land to the Aurora Land Company, who agreed to lay the sidewalk on Hathaway Street. But it was not done. By the first of August, the town had laid the new sidewalk and presented the bill to the property owners. " 12 Meanwhile,

Dallas Street with its working class inhabitants struggled along without the niceties that their wealthy counterparts experienced, ever mindful of their lower status next to their afiluent "neighbors." As the tum of the century approached, electric streetcars came clanging into town, more people were moving to this rural suburb, and new architectural styles were introduced. Aurora had survived its first decade; it was a town with a main avenue of shops and services, a working class aspiring towards their upper-middle class counterparts, and a trolley that was a vital link to the outside world The trolley was the heart of the town. It allowed for people to escape the dirtiness of the city and yet remain connected to the services it provided. Families could live out in the open countryside with fresh air and still go into the city for newspapers, shopping, and cultural activities. It was the best of both worlds, living in the suburbs. The Munn Hotel, located at Colfax Avenue and Beeler Street, was a stop on the trolley line in Aurora. An oral history interview was done with Mr. Wilden Munn, whose parents

10

Gladys J. Metcalf: Ed., Aurora's First Fortv-five Years: A Brief Chronological Histol)' 1891-1936, (Aurora, CO: Aurora Public Schools, 1981), pamphlet- no page numbers.

11 Ibid., pamphlet, no page number.

12 Ibid., pamphlet, no page number.

owned and operated the hotel just a few blocks west of the Dallas Street terminus. The hotel housed the trolley workers of the Colfax Electric Railway. Mr. Munn, who grew_up in Fletcher at the turn of the century, recalled that "Colfax Avenue had a street car line raised to keep the tracks out of the mud Stops were wooden platforms, but after leaving that platform, passengers were on their own. " 13 A interesting account of a trolley ride from Denver to Aurora in the 1920s by Lucile Maul, Wilden Munn, and Carl McFadden provides insight into the early stages of a town still connected to the city by way of the rail system. (This is only a portion of the entire account) There are plenty of empty seats because Aurora in the twenties Had only a few less than one thousand people.... Here comes the Cottonwood Motel. [formerly the Munn Hotel] ... North of Colfax, Chester Street is fairly well-developed.... Then comes Sam Feldman's Grocery, Mehl's Hardware and the good ol' General Store. Dallas Street has many remembered names- Sarah Wood, Mcintosh, Washburn, Cox, McDowell, Dr. Starbird, and Chicken Farm Mulnix- these are just a few.... Galena Street, upper Aurora, is the only well developed street in Aurora with houses from Colfax Avenue all the way to 23rd Street We really have some beautiful houses on that street. Here we are at the end of the line.

The trolley will tufn around at Geneva Street and head back to the big town to the west, Denver. 14 In the thirties during the Great Depression, many people couldn't afford to keep their

automobiles, and so the streetcar remained popular through the decade when public transportation was all that most people could afford The streetcar was saved once again

by World War II due to the shortages of fuel, forcing people to utilize public transportation. However, by the late forties, the automobile had replaced the streetcar as

13 14

McFadden, et al., Early Auror!!, 339.

Ibid., 298.

the favorite and it was merely a matter of time before the trolley was a part ofhistory. 15 The Aurora trolley route, number 14, was run by the Denver Tramway until June 3,

1~50.

According to the Denver Tramway Corporation Log Book, June 3, 1950 marked the last day of electric trolley-car service for passengers in Denver. All lines were then converted to rubber, which meant the electric streetcars with their wires criss-crossed along the streets were no longer the efficient mode of transportation they had been for so long. By 1955, rubber tired trolley-co~ches had been completely abandoned in favor ofbuses for all of the routes run by the Denver Tramway. And in 1971, The Denver Tramway closed

up shop and was replaced by the current Regional Transportation District. 16 The trolley was gone but not forgotten. Starting out as horsecars in 1871, switching to cable cars in 1888, and quickly shifting to electric streetcars in 1889, the trolley was an important link for the surrounding suburbs to the city ofDenver. 17 Families could live in the country and not be exposed to the dangerous crime-ridden city filled with dirt and sin. These trolleys also helped to delineate social groups with the suburbs, as seen in Fletcher. The trolley divided the working class from the upper middle class based upon the where the house was in proximity to the tracks. The trolley is more that just an obsolete mode of transportation, it is an artifact of the past It links us to the people of an earlier time whose social and economic place in life was detennined by their relation to the trolley.

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~ Ken Fletcher, Centennial State Trolleys: The Life and Times of Colorado's Streetcars, (Boulder, CO: Johnson Printing Company, 1995).

16 James E. Kunkle, Ed., Denver Tramway Corporation Log Book. (Denver, CO: Privately published, 1971), 22, 23, 37.

17

Fletcher, Centennial State Trolleys.

Bibliography The Denver & Northwestern Railway Co. & The Denver City Tramway Co: Street Railway Franchises and Articles of Incorporation. NY: The Evening Post Job Printing House, 1904. (Colorado Historical Society Library) Feitz, Leiland Colorado Trolleys. Colorado Springs, CO: Little London Press, 1971.

Referenced but not cited Fletcher, Ken. A Mile High & Three Feet Wide. Aurora, CO: Mountain West Enterprises, 1993.

-----------. Centennial State Trolleys: The Life and Times of Colorado's Streetcars. Boulder, CO: Johnson Printing Company, 1995. (Colorado Historical Society Library) Jones, William C., et al. Mile High Trolleys: A Nostalgic Look at Denver in the Era of Streetcars. Denver, CO: National Railway Historical Society, 1975.

Kunkle, James, Ed Denver Tramway Corporation Log Book. Denver, CO: Privately Published, 1971.

Martin, Bert, Ed Souvenir of the Denver City Tramway Company and Employees Denver, CO: The Reed Publishing Company, 1904. (Colorado Historical Society Library) Referenced but not cited McFadden, Carl Vincent, Leona M McFadden, Gladys J. Metcalf, and Helen Preston.

Early Aurora Aurora, CO: Aurora Technical Center, 1978.

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Mehls, Steven F., Carol J. Drake, and James E. Fell, Jr. Aurora: Gateway to the Rockies.

Aurora, CO: Cordillera Press, 1985.

Metcalf, Gladys, Ed. Aurora's First Fortv-five Years: A Brief Chronological History 1891-1936. Aurora, CO: Aurora Public Schools, 1981, Pamphlet.

Also used: Aurora History Museum Archives United States Census Records- Denver Public Library- Western History Center City Directories- Colorado Historical Society Library County Clerk & Recorder's Office- Adams, Arapahoe, and Denver Counties.

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As a cost cu111ng measure in 1932, the Tramway discontinued the portion of the East Colfax lme lrom Poplar to Geneva slreels in Aurora. A large, brick passenger sheller served the loop at Poplar where we see car 804 preparing to make its return trip to· downtown. Route 14, along with the short turn Route 10 that looped at Birch and Colfax , remained in service until the end, June 3, 1950. (two photos, David K. Clint, Jr., Gene McKeever collection)

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