Lalo and Eumelia C. de Baca, Community Leaders

“Cabeza de Vaca, head of the cow,” Lalo C. de Baca explained. “That’s the full name. There was a Spanish explorer named Alvar Cabeza de Vaca who spent about six years living with the Indians in New Mexico in the 1500s and we’re related to him. Of course, our name has shrunk from Cabeza de Vaca to Cabeza de Baca, C. de Baca and Baca. My dad’s uncle, Ezequiel C. de Baca, was governor of New Mexico in 1917. So we’ve been here awhile.
Born in 1919 on a small farm near Las Vegas, New Mexico, Lalo grew up in a family that included three girls and three boys. "We raised corn, beans and cows and it was real hard work...we were really poor but everyone else was too."
Like his Spanish ancestors, Lalo left his home in search of opportunity, arriving in Denver in 1936, and working a variety of temporary and seasonal jobs before joining the National Guard. His unit was mobilized in 1940, and he served in Fort Sill, Oklahoma during World War II.
1942 was a year of milestones, with Lalo being discharged from the Army, beginning a job at Swift & Company and marrying his childhood sweetheart, Eumelia Medina. Lalo and Eumelia would have seven daughters and one son, and instill in them a love for their Spanish heritage and culture.
Lalo moved his family moved to Globeville in 1960, "I bought the house on Sherman Street from Caspar Yeada because I could walk to work. I could walk everywhere I needed to go."
Lalo and Eumelia got involved in their new neighborhood right away. "I thought we ought to have light here on the street so I went to Public Service and got them to put it in." And Eumelia created a neighborhood watch, going from house to house to promote the program and wearing a whistle in case she was bothered by gang members. Lalo remembered, "There were some tough kids in the neighborhood at that time." Lalo and Eumelia became active in the Globeville Civic Association, battling the city's efforts to turn Globeville into an industrial area, and fighting the placement of halfway houses in nearby Denargo Market. There would be bigger battles ahead.
In 1997, Lalo, Eumelia and 390 of their neighbors filed a lawsuit against the the American Smelting and Refining Company, ASARCO, for contamination of the south side of Globeville. The company settled before the case even went to trial, agreeing to pay $12 million dollars to homeowners, renters and attorneys, and clean up the area south of I-70. 
A lot has happened in Globeville since the settlement. The south side of Globeville was eventually remediated, neighbors were compensated and the ASARCO site has been cleaned and redeveloped into warehouse space.
Eumelia passed away in 2003 and Lalo in 2014, but they are remembered in Globeville. C. de Bacas are held up as examples of persistence, caring for their community and the power of individuals to battle the city and a multinational corporation. They leave eight children, seventeen grandchildren, eighteen great grandchildren, four great great grandchildren, and a community that is grateful for their service.
 
* Between 1528 and 1536 Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca traveled between Florida, Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. An exciting account can be found by Tony Horwitz, “A Voyage Long and Strange. Rediscovering the New World” 2008 Henry Holt and Company LLC.

newmexicohistory.org/people/ezequiel-cabeza-de-baca

 Eumelia and Lalo C. de Baca‎

Globeville and the Platte River Flood of June 1965

Like many frontier towns, both Denver and Globeville started near a river, the usually sleepy, muddy Platte. The Arapaho and Cheyenne respected the river, gypsies camped along its banks, but white settlers mainly used the stream to dispose of refuse and paid little attention to what went on there over the years.
As Denver and Globeville grew, so did their abuse of the Platte. Animal carcasses from meat packing plants, refuse from factories, railroads and the city of Denver found their way into the river. Power stations, chemical plants, oil storage tanks, landfills, weeds, car bodies, tires and hobo camps lined the river's banks as it meandered through Denver. Storm drains poured road salt and raw sewage into the Platte. No one seemed to notice. Over the years, the river gained attention only when it overflowed after cloudbursts or record amounts of snow melt. There were periodic attempts to remedy the problem in Globeville, including a WPA project during the 1930s that redirected parts of the river and installed riprap along the banks. But the neighborhood, like much of Denver, wouldn't pay much attention to the river until June, 1965. 

The spring of 1965 must have seemed like the end of the world along Colorado's front range, with small earthquakes, cool temperatures, rain, hail and tornadoes. Streams were running high with heavy spring snow melt. On Wednesday afternoon, June 16, a cloudburst dumped record moisture over an area south of Denver, turning normally quiet creeks into powerful rivers that  joined the swollen South Platte near Littleton to become a half-mile-wide rampaging flood. 
By early 7:00 pm, mud, cars, trailers, dead animals, parts of houses, uprooted trees, propane tanks and boxcars slammed against bridges in Denver, propane tanks exploded, power outages darkened much of the city, and radio and television stations periodically went off the air. 1.
The rail yards near Globeville, the Slovenian Gardens, the Polish Hall, Holy Rosary Church and the meat packing plants all sustained flood damage. When the power went off, the city’s north side sewage treatment plant near East 52nd and Franklin shut down and raw sewage spilled into the river and backed up through floor drains the in neighborhood. Holy Transfiguration, as well as St. Joseph's Polish Church lost records and many homes and businesses suffered damage. 
The Colorado National Guard was mobilized Wednesday evening, June 16, and remained in the damaged areas all summer, while neighbors helped each other put things back in order. Denver and Globeville would be forever changed by the 1965 flood, but it would take almost a decade for any meaningful change to take place. One of Globeville's citizens would play an important part in the change.

John Zapien remembers, "This river trail, the whole thing came about under the administration of Mayor Bill McNichols, who appointed his Republican rival, Joe Shoemaker, to form a committee to decide how to use $1.9 million in federal revenue-sharing money." The Platte River Development Committee [PRDC] included Dana Crawford, Hiawatha Davis, Jr., Daniel Trujillo and John Zapien. 
"So we formed this committee and we got busy and our biggest adversary was the city! They washed out their concrete trucks in the river and they wanted to put an asphalt plant right where that little park is by the McDonald's.

"We identified 240 places that were polluting and got all but 40 of them to agree to change. Do you remember the old dynamite plant, the Hercules Powder Company, that used to be where the Pepsi plant is now? They had these elevated stands and balls of black powder with little tin roofs over them! That's the kind of challenge we had." 

The first successful projects were Confluence Park and Globeville Landing, with a multi-use trail connecting the two sites. More parks and trails were completed and hundreds of sources of pollution were identified and eliminated. Over the past 40 years, the committee has evolved into the 501(c)3 Greenway Foundation, responsible for over 100 miles of hiking and biking trails, 20 parks and natural areas and has improved the quality of the South Platte River. 2.

Zapien sums it up, "That's the best thing we ever did."

1. Deluge of Century Unloads Fury Upon Foothills, Plains. Denver Post, June 20, 1965 

2. The Greenway Foundation

John Zapien

Globeville Landing Park

Hispanics in Globeville

After World War II, the children and grandchildren of Globeville’s pioneers would move out of the neighborhood and another group would take their place.

Hispanics who moved to Globeville were not new to Colorado or to America. Lalo C. de Baca came to Globeville from a farm in Las Vegas, New Mexico in 1936, but can trace his family’s ancestry to Spanish explorer Alvar Cabeza de Vaca, who traveled through northern New Mexico in the early part of the 16th century. Bea Trevino moved to Globeville from a farm near Firestone but her family’s roots go back farther. “My ancestors from my mother’s side all came from Spain. My dad’s mother was an Indian.”

Hispanics came to Globeville for the same reasons as the ethnic groups that preceded them: affordable housing, more opportunity for their children than farm life could offer and jobs that were nearby. In the 1950s and 60s, many of those jobs were in meat packing, the city’s largest industry, at ASARCO's Globe plant and in construction.

Unlike the Eastern Europeans who had preceded them, Hispanics found many of the institutions that were important to them already in place with Catholic Mass at St. Joseph’s Polish or Holy Rosary Church. Improvements in workplace safety also made forming a fraternal insurance association less of a necessity.

Today, 82 percent of Globeville's population has Hispanic heritage and the community reflects that change with church services at the Globeville Community Church at 5039 Lincoln and a Spanish-speaking priest, Father Noé Carreón, at Holy Rosary Church.

What has remained constant in the neighborhood's 150-year history is pride and neighbors caring for one another.