All the News About Denver’s Best Residential Community Since 1960 • Volume 59, Issue No. 8 • August 2020 By Stephen J. Leonard Special to the GPHN
PAGE 8 PAGE 10
On the heels of a pandemic, wide unemployment and antiBlack riots, Denver’s tramway strike and resulting madness a century ago can be explained as a kind of earthquake triggered by an over-stressed society.
PAGE 7
A Few Bloody Days Of August, 1920
PAGE 5 PAGE 6
A large crowd watches as Denver Tramway Company strikers and supporters climb into a damaged trolley car. Harry M. Rhoads photograph collection/Western History and Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library
Seven people were killed and scores injured during a few bloody days in Denver in early August 1920. Three teenagers died in the mayhem of a tramway strike that spiraled out of control. Among those shot and injured were a 9-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. Rioters tore through downtown and tried to burn the offices of The Denver Post. The newspaper’s co-publisher Frederick G. Bonfils – one of Denver’s richest men and reputedly its most hated – took no chances. He posted guards with machine guns atop his mansion on the southeast corner of 10th Avenue and Humboldt Street near Cheesman Park. Surely they could beat back attackers. The conflagration was largely sparked by the Denver Tramway Company (DTC), a transit monopoly vital to the city’s functioning. Owned by some of the city’s richest men, including Charles Boettcher and Gerald Hughes, company officials claimed that it had high expenses and hence could not raise wages. (Historian Phil Goodstein has since discovered that the DTC was turning a more than 4 percent profit.) City officials might have eased both the company’s and the workers’ problems by allowing a fare increase, but voters and politicians opposed that. Tramway workers saw their purchasing power badly eroded by rampant World War I inflation. In a brief 1919 strike they won some concessions. In 1920 they hoped to do better. At 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 1, 1920, drivers stopped manning the streetcars. continued on page 4
Inside This Issue Letters: Calling Bull On Golf Course Land Developer; Save Johnson & Wales Campus News Briefs: Affordable Housing; Calls For Unity; Dear Mr. Scott Gilmore Make 2021 A Great Year For Planet Earth and Racial Justice Heading Back To School: What White Parents Should Know Hiking Among Bristlecones and Hummingbirds
Upcoming GPHC Meetings Community meetings are currently conducted virtually on the first Thursday of each month. The next meetings are Aug. 6 and Sept. 3 at 6:30 p.m. Link to attend at greaterparkhill.org/ join-us/community-meetings/. Check greaterparkhill.org for information and details to participate.
RAW POLITICS | Penfield W. Tate III
A Real Mess On Our Hands 30 Camps, 664 Tents – and Counting
The homeless camp in Lincoln Park downtown, with the state Capitol in the background. At the end of July as the GPHN was going to press, police swept the camp, displacing the estimated 200 people who had been living there for several months.
You see them all over downtown. The voters. We debated camping bans and jarring images of Lincoln Park between the right to rest. the state Capitol and the Civic Some advocates for people Center. In front of the Goverexperiencing homelessness pronor’s Mansion. At the Denver posed a controversial solution Public Library, Morey Middle by repealing the city’s camping School, at California and Welban. It was maybe not the perton Streets. fect approach, but at least it was They are tent cities and ensomething to consider in the campments of the homeless – place of an administration that and often hopeless – of our socihad done little to address the ety. On July 17, Denver Homeless problem – other than to say it Out Loud volunteers spread out Penfield W. was one of the most “difficult” to count all the encampments in problems we faced. tate III the city. They tallied 664 tents, Yes, it may be difficult for the erected in 30 different camps. They are city, but it’s life threatening for people there because our city administration experiencing homelessness. has done little to try and solve the probLast year’s effort to repeal the camplem. ing ban failed badly, in large part due After months of inaction, people livto the $2.4 million campaign to defeat ing in nearby residences have been outthe measure that was run by the mayor’s raged by the growing presence of the friends. The well-heeled operatives adencampments – appalled that little progopted the tagline, “We Can Do Better,” ress has been made to ease the sufferbut of course, they didn’t do better and ing of people and address the problem. neither has the City. As this paper was headed to press, the In fact, they have done next to nothcamp in front of the Capitol was swept, ing. There have been no new policies and its 200 residents dispersed with few or plans. Ironically, they haven’t even options. Temporary designated outdoor enforced the camping ban that they spaces for people without homes in Denclaimed was necessary for health and ver – which had been announced weeks safety. earlier – have not yet been finalized. Last year’s point-in time-census of the homeless estimated more than 4,000 They didn’t “Do Better” people living on our streets. That number has surely done nothing but grow. During last year’s municipal election Until recently, none of the proposals season, rampant homelessness, and the floated by other candidates last year (yes, related problem of the lack of affordable housing, were the top priorities of most continued on page 6
Stories For The Ages
The Park Hill Community Bookstore: Where Aimless Perusal Is A Day Well Spent By Cara DeGette Editor, GPHN
Six months ago – seemingly a lifetime and certainly a pandemic ago, we geared up to do a big spread about the Park Hill Community Bookstore in the April issue of the newspaper. In part the story was to mark National Independent Bookstore Day, which is celcontinued on page 9