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.

 

Interstate 25 - The Valley Highway

A January 12, 1945 headline in the Denver Post read, “Plans for Postwar Superhighways are Outlined by Denver.” The new highway would be 9.3 miles in length, beginning at 52nd Avenue between Acoma and Bannock Streets on the north and continue to Colorado and Buchtel Boulevard on the south. Because the route followed the valley west of the Platte River, it was named the “Valley Highway.” The state highway department, the city and the U. S. Public Roads Administration would bear the cost, an estimated $14,500,000. Not mentioned in the article, but shown on the map, was a large interchange and east-west arterial along 46th Avenue, that would cut through the heart of Globeville.
By July 1946, an agreement had been reached between the state, federal and city officials to purchase all of the right-of-way, with construction slated to begin in 1947. While the newspapers were brimming with enthusiasm, Globeville residents were sick at heart. The high-speed artery along 46th Avenue would cut their community in two.
In April 1947, Ernest P. Marranzino was running for the City Council seat in District 9, which included Globeville, Swansea, and Elyria. Marranzino was a thirty-one-year-old veteran who had seen combat in the Pacific and now hoped to fight the well-armed, national, state and city juggernaut that backed the highway’s construction through his district. At a meeting on April 27 in the home of John Wolf, Marranzino stated, “As the East 46th Avenue Highway now looks, it means the destruction of Denver’s industrial hub, the blighting of three of Denver’s oldest and finest communities and inconvenience to thousands of persons.”
Marranzino won the council seat and raised enough doubt about the project for the City Council to postpone a vote for six weeks of further study. As the Council continued to debate, the number of angry citizens attending council meetings continued to grow. Some 700 in attendance at a June 30 meeting heard Joseph A. Byers of the Globeville and Elyria Business Association lambaste the council for not providing the neighborhoods with specific information. Mayor Quigg Newton assured people that the city would deal with them fairly, establishing an office to “assist persons in finding new homes and business sites, and to aid them in solving other related problems.”
Sarah Wolf was not impressed. “We went to many council meetings. When it’s your home you have to stand up.” On July 8, 1947, City Council authorized the highway’s construction and the meeting exploded with angry Globeville residents. Two squad cars of police escorted Councilmen James Fresques and Clarence Stafford, chief proponents of the highway, through the crowd that was “in an ugly mood.”
In the end, Sarah Wolf’s family negotiated their own agreement with the city: the city would move their house to a new lot in Globeville and pay the expenses involved. Others were faced with accepting whatever money the city offered and finding a comparable home somewhere else. Residents felt bullied by city appraisers, who threatened them with condemnation of their property and low assessments of their home’s value.
Ground was broken for the highway project on November 19, 1948. Homes were leveled, the city continued to acquire property and residents who remained pondered their future in Globeville. Many feared that the east-west artery along 46th Avenue would eventually be expanded, divide Globeville in two, and lead to the destruction of the community. People contemplated moving to newer, larger homes in the suburbs with better city services, new schools and shopping malls. Returning veterans were lured by low-interest VA loans.
The north-south Valley Highway was completed in 1958, but the question of whether to stay or leave Globeville was one that would trouble residents for decades to come.

Map of the proposed Valley Highway,
Denver Post, January 12, 1945

Construction of the Valley Highway,
used with written permission from Janet Wagner

 

Construction of the Valley Highway,

Grant Smelter Stack in the distance

used with written permission from Janet Wagner

Floods in Globeville

Globeville has suffered its share of floods over the years whenever heavy rain or record amounts of snow melt caused the usually sleepy Platte River to run out of its banks. There were periodic attempts to correct the situation, 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, would be forever changed by the 1965 Platte River Flood.

Streams were already running high with continuous rain and heavy spring run off when a cloudburst on Wednesday afternoon, June 16, dropped record amounts of moisture over an area south of Denver. Six inches of rain at Palmer Lake and three more at Cherry Creek Reservoir caused the Platte River to grow to a 20-foot high wall of water that carried mud, cars, trailers, dead animals, parts of houses, trees and propane tanks and headed toward Denver. Police set up barricades to bridges and viaducts that crossed the Platte, and kept traffic from using the low-lying Valley Highway. Debris slammed against bridges, propane tanks exploded, power outages darkened much of the city and  radio and television stations struggle to stay on the air. The river spread across the rail yards close to Globeville as emergency sirens wailed and the National Guard went door to door in the neighborhood ordering residents to higher ground.Dorothy and John Nevelos lived on Arkins Court, right along the Platte River. Dorothy recalls, “The emergency sirens were blowing and we had seen the story on the TV news...with the trailers and boxcars in the river. John stacked as much stuff as we could on top of the furniture and we left.” Dorothy and John were fortunate; the river spilled over on the other side and their home was untouched.Others were not so lucky. The rail yards, the Slovenian Gardens, the Polish hall, Transfiguration Cathedral, the Old Saw Mill and the meat packing plants all sustained damage. Marvin Pepper recalled, "We had just remodeled the plant [Pepper Packing] but the force of the flood caused meat hanging on high rails to fall. All of it was contaminated and condemned." The city's Northside Treatment Plant shut down when the power failed and raw sewage spilled into the river, and backed up through drains into people's homes. Lalo C. de Baca recalls, "We didn't really get flooded by the river but by the sewage plant. Everything was ruined." 
There were two fatalities in Globeville associated with the flood. On Thursday morning, the body of Adam Haffnieter was found floating in three feet of water near East 48th Avenue and Lincoln Street. He and his wife Molly had left their home at 4726 Sherman about 7 pm Wednesday night to stay with a relative. Adam had decided to return to his home about 10:30 pm after he heard reports of looting in the area. His body was discovered by police the next morning, and it appeared he had suffered a heart attack. 
Madfa (Matt) and Olga Davidovich were seriously burned when the furnace in their home at 4777 Logan exploded on Thursday morning. Like their neighbors, they had been evacuated from the area, but returned after the flood crest had passed. Olga lit the stove to prepare breakfast, igniting gas that had accumulated in the home. Olga would survive the blast but Matt would not. 
The National Guard would remain in Globeville all summer and Public Service would help residents pump water, clean and light furnaces furnaces as neighbors helped each other put things back in order. But church and lodge records as well as family photos and heirlooms would be lost forever.
Globeville still lies in a flood plain, but is less likely to suffer the same kind of catastrophe since the completion of a flood-control project in June of 2008.

Body of Man Found Afloat Near Home, Denver Post, Thursday, June 17, 1965
Furnace Explosion Burns Two, Denver Post, Thursday, June 17, 1965
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/globeville-flood-control-project-complete

Lincoln Street at 45th Avenue in June, 1927

photo used with written permission from Lauren Summers

Rail yards June 1965

Denver Public Library