At the time of Globeville’s incorporation in 1891, four elementary schools, Argo, Ironton, Globeville and Garden Place, served the area's children. The Argo School was built in 1890 for the children of the company town known as Argo, home of the Boston and Colorado Smelter. The school was richly endowed with funds from the smelter and the railroads and embodied all that was modern in its day: toilets that flushed, a basement, and a furnace. The school also housed the office of the superintendent, who was responsible for all four schools.
After a fire destroyed the Boston and Colorado Smelter in 1906, the population of the town diminished, the smelter was dismantled, and the school torn down in 1916. The convergence of interstate highways known as the "Mousetrap" occupies the site of the once-massive smelter, and the Plaza Hotel (now the Quality Inn) at 48th Avenue and Broadway occupies the site of the Argo School.
Photo of the Argo School about 1891 courtesy of Nora Landberg Duryea.
Photo of Plaza Hotel, Mary Lou Egan.
