3543 Brighton Boulevard

One of my favorite houses is gone. I travel through Globeville at least once a week and drive around to check on the places I love - barns, iron fences, shotgun homes built of railroad lumber. I reflect on the pride settlers must have felt in building these structures.
I hadn’t been on Brighton Boulevard for some time because of all the construction, and when I discovered the home at 3543 Brighton was gone, it felt like losing a family member.
Brighton Boulevard was once called Wewatta Street, and the area was platted as part of the Ironton subdivision in 1881. There were jobs nearby: Rocky Mountain Ore Production Works, Denver Rolling Mill, Colorado Iron Works (where The Source is today), Denver Ore Sampling Works, and the Omaha and Grant Smelter. By the late 1880s, single-family homes on 25-foot lots were starting to sprout up along Wewatta and Delgany Streets, close to the heavy industries. (It was advantageous to be able to walk to your job).   
The home at 3543 Wewatta was built in 1888 by William A. Farrow, who worked as a stone cutter for R.C. Greenlee and Sons, a firm that specialized in masonry and decorative architectural elements. Farrow demonstrated his artistic skill on his own home. Delicately carved lintels and faces adorn the windows, and stone quoins mark the corners. Even the chimney is decorated. This exquisite little gem is gone. If you google 3543 Brighton Boulevard, you can see what’s being built there now.
I get it - this tiny home sold for $400,000 and is worth more as redevelopment than as a historical site. Although the RiNo (RiverNorth) neighborhood touts its industrial roots, evidence of that story is being systematically erased, and with it, the community’s history and personality. The generic condos and apartments that line Brighton Boulevard could be anywhere - Glendale, Broomfield or Aurora. The area once attracted artists, painters, sculptors, and fabric designers, because is was more affordable than lower downtown. Can artists even consider the district now?
One artist, William A. Farrow, has had his work demolished. Farrow will join the nameless craftsmen whose artifacts are acquired by salvage firms and find another life in some new condo or trendy tavern - maybe even in RiNo.

 

With the completion of the Broadway Extension project,
Wewatta Street was renamed Brighton Boulevard
by the Denver City Council in 1924. Denver Urbanism

Ironton

The 1880s were a heady time of optimism and expansion in Denver. The arrival of the railroads in the 1870s had fostered a sense of permanence - the rough frontier town was here to stay. Industries sprouted along the rail lines, and men looking for jobs followed. As the city's population exploded, real estate developers set to work.
William D. Todd, a prominent businessman who had extensive real estate holdings in Denver’s Five Points neighborhood, platted the Ironton Addition in 1881. Bounded by the Platte River on the west, Union Pacific rail lines on the east, 38th Avenue to the north and 32nd Avenue to the south, Ironton featured small plots for houses close to the factories, foundries and rail yards. In an era before streetcars or automobiles, it was a selling point that a person could walk to his job. Blocks of neat, cozy homes lay adjacent to heavy industries - 
Denver Fire Clay (33rd and Blake), Colorado Iron Works (34th and Wynkoop), the Ironton Machine Company (36th and Wynkoop) and the Union Pacific
It wasn't all work - the Ironton Social Club is listed at 3419 Delgany. 
A handsome school building was constructed at 36th and Delgany in 1890, part of the Denver Public School system, and some children attended Annunciation School in the Cole neighborhood (34th and Humboldt).

The industries that attracted workers eventually overtook the neighborhood, and families moved away. 

Today, the area is undergoing a metamorphosis with former factories and foundries being adapted by artists for studios and living spaces. Ironton is now part of the vibrant River North District, or RiNo, adjacent to Globeville and Denver’s Five Points neighborhood.
RiNo Neighborhood

This jewell on Brighton Boulevard, photo 

Riverside Cemetery

1876. The United States would celebrate its first centennial, Colorado would achieve statehood and Denver would begin to evolve from a rough mining camp to a respectable city. The stability was an incentive for business and families to put down roots and create permanent institutions: churches, schools and cemeteries. 1876 was a fitting year for the founding of Riverside Cemetery.
Globeville would evolve as well, from an area populated with prospectors and homesteaders to an industrial hub with smelters, railroads and meat packing plants, incorporating as a town in July, 1891. Many of Globeville's early settlers are buried at nearby Riverside Cemetery, in the company of mayors, Colorado governors, moguls, madams and military veterans. You can visit the well known and the humble at this historic and park-like burial ground. 
Riverside Cemetery will celebrate its 135th anniversary this Saturday, October 1, from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm with free history displays, vintage baseball and historic tours. For information, see 
http://fairmountheritagefoundation.org

Top photo by Mary Lou Egan: office, chapel and crematorium
Bottom photo by Mary Lou Egan: chapel