Sadar's Saloon in Elyria

“The saloon was at 46th and Humboldt. It’s gone now. It’s a parking lot.” Joe Sadar remembered.

Matt Sadar arrived in Colorado before 1900 from a town in Slovenia called Novo Mesto. He opened a tavern and boarding house at 3rd Avenue and Powell Street in Elyria (now 46th and Humboldt Street.) Men who worked in the Grant and Globe Smelters could get a room, a lunch packed in a pail, an evening meal and laundry services. Newcomers from the old country, like Jennie Hocevar, cooked, and cleaned in the boarding house while learning English.

Joe Sadar reminisced, “We’d go down to Matt’s with a lard bucket. You could say, ‘I want 25¢ worth of beer,’ and they’d fill it. We’d pass the pail around and everyone would take a sip.

“Matt was so nice. He had the most beautiful hair. It was all gray, but very thick. He had this long bar. and tables you could play cards there and they had a little shelf where you could set your beer. He had pictures of the men working in the smelter. There were these pictures on the wall of a horse and wagon and some kegs of beer on the wagon.”After Prohibition was repealed in 1934, Joe Sadar recalled, “From out of nowhere, beer instantly appeared.”

In 1946, Jack and Frances Brinkerhoff purchased the business and renamed it the Shambles Inn. The bar and restaurant were well known for their beef chili, beef stew and pot roast sandwiches. In 1978, it was bought by the National Western and demolished for a parking lot.

Matt Sadar’s Saloon in 1903 in Elyria

Community Activist - Sarah Wolf

“The highways ruined Globeville,” Sarah Wolf explained.“Before the highways, Globeville was the best place in the world. We had people from all over the world - Austrians, Swedes, Germans, Russians, Polacks, Irish and one black family - and we all got along.” 
For years, rumors about construction of interstate highways were whispered and debated. In 1950, the Valley Highway (I-25) sliced off the western edge of the neighborhood, and in 1960 work began on I-70, the east-west thoroughfare that cut through the heart of the community. Battling the Valley Highway led to Sarah’s first experience fighting the city.  
“We had meetings at St. Jacob’s Hall, at churches, businesses and at city hall. When it’s your home, you have to stand up.” The neighbors even hired lawyers, but the decision to build the freeways through Globeville had been made long ago. Construction began and many long-time residents moved away. Not Sarah Wolf. “I was born in this house.” 
The house was built by her father, John Wolf. Sarah had a faraway look in her eyes.“My dad worked for the Globe Smelter for a dollar a day, using a wheelbarrow to move ore around. He worked nights, and during the day, he built this house. As soon as he saved a little money, he sent for other family members from the old country. My dad’s family and my mother’s family were all here and we all lived on Leaf Court.
“When they were in Russia, they had no say about their lives and had to answer to the czar. In this country, my dad, a poor immigrant, was elected a trustee of Globeville. He really liked having a say in making his town a good place to live.” 
Sarah inherited her father’s pride in his community as well as his talent for organizing. When plans to enlarge the Mousetrap were revealed in the mid 1970s, ramps to the neighborhood had been eliminated. Sarah’s voice rose. “Globeville would be cut off. There would be no access for the people who live here, fire trucks and ambulances would take longer to answer calls, and trucks would have to go through the neighborhood to get to their plants. 
“We held meetings at the churches, the lodges and the Globeville Civic Association. I persuaded the presidents of Noble Sysco and Anheuser Busch to write letters, and I got Councilmen Eugene DiManna and State Representative Ted Bendelow involved.” 
The letters and meetings paid off.
A bridge at 48th Avenue to the Pecos Street interchange was built and dedicated on August 30, 1978. Shortly after the bridge opened, Sarah’s neighbors petitioned the city to have the bridge named in her honor. In 1988, their wish was granted by Mayor Federico Peña. A bronze plaque that read “Sarah’s Bridge” was embedded in the base on the east side. The plaque represents much of what Sarah believed: that in America, an immigrant can make good, that persistence can prevail, and that the city government can be held accountable to all its citizens.   

 

The family of John Wolf about 1914.
Front row, left to right, Grandfather Peter Wolf, David,
John Wolf Sr., Sarah, Ann Marie (nee Kilthau).
Standing, left to right, Christine, Katherine, Adam, John and Hulda.
Used with written permission from Sarah Wolf.

Dedication ceremony, August 30, 1978
Left to right, Councilman Larry Perry, Councilman Sal Carpio,
Sarah Wolf and Manager of Public Works Harold Cook,
Used with written permission from Sarah Wolf.

 

Crossroads Commerce Park - No Trace of the Globe Smelter

 

Crossroads Commerce Park on the site of the
Globe Smelter. Photo ® Mary Lou Egan

Islands of fresh landscaping and parking lots surround new warehouses on the hill at 55th and Washington. There is no statue, no plaque, no historical marker to indicate that this site was once home to the American Smelting and Refining Company's [ASARCO] Globe Smelter. There is no mention of the men who worked 12 hours a day, six and seven days a week in crushing heat and toxic chemicals in order to separate gold, silver and lead from the ores that held them. There is no acknowledgment of the fact that, by 1900, the area’s three smelters, the Boston and Colorado, the Omaha and Grant, and the Globe, processed nearly two-fifths of the ore mined in Colorado. 1. 

Globe Smelter about 1900, William Henry Jackson,
Photo Denver Public Library

The Omaha and Grant, Globeville's largest smelter, closed during the bitter labor battle of 1903 and Globeville's first smelter, the Boston and Colorado, was gradually dismantled after a fire in September 1906. After 1906, ASARCO's Globe Plant was the only remaining smelter in the neighborhood.
The Globe Plant struggled. High-grade ores were harder to come by and newer technologies had been developed to treat low-grade ores at other plants. Demand for metals reached a high point during World War I and fell off dramatically afterward. In 1919, ASARCO decided to discontinue smelting at the Globe plant, “...closing down all stacks,” using the plant to recover valuable elements in ores shipped from other plants. 2. The work force of about 100 men extracted whatever was useful from the flue dust that arrived in covered railroad gondola cars, including cadmium, thallium, indium, copper and lead.

Cell house about 1926,
Photo used with written permission from Steve Stevens

During World War II, the Globe concentrated on recovering cadmium, a rust-proof element considered essential to the nation’s defense and used to coat airplanes, tanks and radio equipment. The company supplied nearly 60 percent of the nation’s cadmium, operating seven days a week.

An award from the National Safety Council in December 1960
for one million man hours worked without an accident or lost time from work.  left to right, Steve Stevens, Ralph Rickenbaugh, Jim Ryan, Margaret Philpot,
Max Coats, Lou Landers, Bill Miles
Photo used with written permission from Steve Stevens

The plant was considered a safe place to work, but the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act [OSHA] of 1970 changed the criteria for measuring safety in the workplace and would hold companies accountable to different standards. The result was more than twenty years of health studies, regulation, environmental claims and landmark lawsuits. By 2003, ASARCO was facing claims in excess of $100 million to cleanup its sites throughout the country. An environmental trust fund was established, but the money would not cover all the remediation that needed to be done. The EPA prioritized restoration of residences, businesses, schools, parks, which had been completed by the time the trust fund was set up. Work on the Globe Plant itself had not.
On August 9, 2005, ASARCO filed for protection under Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and said it would then attempt to sell the property for “brownfield redevelopment,” a process in which a contaminated property is cleaned and developed for a nonpolluting use. In February 2008, the Colorado Legislature passed a measure that would allow a municipality to include unincorporated county land in an urban renewal project, but by the end of the year the economy was faltering and Brownfield Partners was unable to proceed with the acquisition. Gradually, collaboration, creative financing and federal loans allowed the project to move forward.
In May 2011, a public-private partnership was created that included both Denver and Adams Counties, the Denver Urban Renewal Authority (DURA), the State of Colorado and developer EFG Brownfield Partners (who later merged with EnviroFinance Group), and its subsidiary, Globeville I, LLC. Denver and Adams Counties funded the infrastructure, and in 2014, Denver developer Trammell Crow agreed to buy the smelter site from EnviroFinance Group and build the biggest industrial park in central metro Denver. Today, the $85 million Crossroads Commerce Park contains warehouse, distribution and light-manufacturing buildings encompassing 1 million square feet and could bring an estimated 800 to 1,500 jobs to the Globeville neighborhood. 3.
Perhaps Trammell Crow would consider some visual commemoration of the Globe Smelter site that would honor the contributions of the immigrant laborers who toiled there and settled the Globeville neighborhood.

1. Fell, James E., Ores to Metals, The Rocky Mountain Smelting Industry, University of Nebraska Press, 1979

2. “Smelter to Cut Force to 100 Men,” Denver Post, May 28, 1919
3.  Trammell Crow signs on to redevelop ASARCO site in Globeville, Denver Post, October 29, 2014 

Westerkamp Grocery - 5106 Washington Street

Pepsi Cola, Carlson Frink Dairy, Beef 39¢ a Pound, Fruit, Vegetables and Free Delivery! The building on 51st and Washington is still in existence, but, compared to the former Westerkamp Market, doesn't have much personality.
August Westerkamp was born in New York City in 1861, moved to Ohio and then Colorado, where he found a job with the Globe Smelter. In 1892, August married Matilda Nelson and they settled in Retreat Park, walking distance from his job, and raised seven children. Sons Francis and Ralph worked at the Globe Mercantile on nights and weekends while they were in high school.
Francis' son, Ed Westerkamp remembered, “That was the old smelter store. They got paid in cash. The grocer just wrote down what you bought and when the paymaster gave out the money, every couple of weeks, he deducted what you owed the store. About 80 percent of their business was on credit. After World War I, anti-trust legislation required the smelter to sell its company store and Francis and Ralph were able to purchase the it in 1919.
“Each customer was assigned a number, which was printed on a box. Each morning, they would take orders, fill the boxes and deliver the groceries. They had three trucks and three delivery men. There was no charge for delivery or for carrying customers until the end of the month. Many people paid their grocery bill in eggs and the store had so many eggs, they began boxing them and selling them to the Union Pacific commissary stores in Wyoming and Nebraska. The business grew and the brothers built a larger store in 1926, located a couple doors south on Washington.”
People in Globeville didn't trust banks (and there wasn't any bank located in the neighborhood) and would ask for a loan from someone they knew, like the Westerkamps. During the Depression, the Westerkamps carried people for several years. Ed recalled, “For years, people have asked me if I was related to Ralph or Francis Westerkamp and I would say ‘yes.’ They’d tell me, ‘Your dad saved our family.’”
Both the Globe Smelter and the Westerkamp Grocery are gone now. But a small grocery with free delivery and a proprietor who knows your name is just what Globeville needs.

 

One of the delivery trucks in front of the former Globe Smelter Store.

Photo used with written permission from Ed Westerkamp

 

5106-5108 Washington Street

Photo Denver Public Library

 

5106-5108 Washington Street, 2016

Photo ® Mary Lou Egan

Dennis Sheedy

“…among the men who have witnessed and aided in an empire’s development the like of which will never be seen again.” This florid description in Jerome Smiley’s 1901 History of Denver applies to Dennis Sheedy,  a recognized leader in several business ventures in Colorado and the man responsible for the success of the Globe Smelter. 1.

Born in Ireland in 1846, Sheedy moved with his family to the United States when he was a small child, first to Massachusetts, then Iowa. In 1858, his brother, sister, and father died, leaving him the sole support of his mother and surviving sister, Ellen. He attended school during the winter months and worked the rest of the year at a general store, “acquiring a practical knowledge of business.” 

In 1863, at the age of 17, Sheedy came to the young city of Denver and found work in a general store. By 1868, he had saved enough money to move to the Montana Territory, set up his own wholesale grocery and begin buying and selling cattle in Wyoming, Texas, California, Kansas, Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico. By 1882, Sheedy had made a fortune, married Katherine V. Ryan, daughter of a prominent Leavenworth businessman and returned to Denver to settle permanently. 

Success in business led to other opportunities. Sheedy acquired an interest in the Colorado National Bank, becoming a director, and then, in January 1886, vice president. When the bank became concerned about losing their investments in the Holden Smelter in 1889, Sheedy was elected to take over as the President and General Manager, reorganizing, renaming the company the Globe Smelting and Refining Company and turning the business into one of the most successful smelters in the country.

Sheedy’s success in transforming the Globe may have put him in a position to rescue the McNamara Dry Goods Company, which had gone bankrupt during the Silver Panic of 1893. Sheedy’s experience in merchandising led to his being named the president of the re-organized Denver Dry Goods Company in 1894. Once again profitable, the store built a six-story building designed by architect Frank Edbrooke, on the corner of California and Fifteenth Street in downtown Denver. 
Sheedy contributed generously to many Catholic institutions, including St. Joseph's Hospital and the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, and to many other civic causes. On October 16, 1923, at the age of 77, Dennis Sheedy passed away at his home from pneumonia and is buried at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Wheat Ridge.

Photo Denver Public Library

The Sheedy mansion at 11^th and Grant was built in 1892.

Photo ® Mary Lou Egan

1. Smiley, Jerome C., History of Denver, Denver, Colorado. 

The Times-Sun Publishing Company, 1901, page 562

Sheedy Row

Dennis Sheedy’s Globe Smelter provided some company housing for its employees. The company built the Globe Hotel on Washington Street, a four-story building containing a kitchen, dining hall, and 125 rooms, where single men boarded two to a room, alternating shifts to use a single bed.

Houses for families were available in an area called “Sheedy Row,” east of Washington Street at about 54th Avenue. Betty Zalar Paprocki’s family occupied a two-story brick home with a rather large yard. “There were ten houses on Sheedy Row and that was the name of the street, Sheedy Row. It was a cul de sac just east of Washington Street. They were nice little houses and each one was a little different from the others. They each had a kitchen and dining room, and a small yard with room for a garden. My grandfather worked in the smelter and that’s how we got a house there."

Left to right, Betty Zalar, and her cousins Juanita and Bob Chermas, taken from the front porch of her home on Sheedy Row. Photo, Betty Zalar Paprocki

Globeville Story

Every day, thousands of commuters speed along Interstate 70 at Washington Street, barely noticing the neighborhood of Globeville. There isn't enough time to see that the lettering on the tower of St. Joseph's Church is written in Polish or to catch a glimpse of the tiny golden dome of the Transfiguration Orthodox Cathedral. Other ethnic churches, taverns, lodge buildings and homes are lost from view on the elevated freeway. The remains of the Globe smelter, for which the neighborhood was named, is hardly visible at all. This neighborhood has a rich history, worth slowing down and taking a closer look.

 E 45th Avenue, photo property of Mary Lou Egan
cannot be used without written permission