Easter Cards

I try to keep up - email, tweets, texts, Facebook, YouTube and two blogs - reporting, documenting and keeping in touch with folks. This constant chatter lies somewhere between feeling engaged and a chore.
But I have a collection of old postcards (an anachronism) addressed to family members in Globeville that I keep in a cigar box (another anachronism). These postcards include elaborate versions covered with glitter and embossing, to more simple cards with seasonal messages. All would require some effort to purchase, compose and mail.
These two Easter cards were from the Mautz family, long-time friends of my grandparents, who kept in touch while living in Salida, Pueblo, Leadville and Denver. Changes in jobs, locations and family situations can be gleaned from the messages, "Happy Easter to Andy and Ida," then to "Andy, Ida, Andy Jr and John." I enjoy the heartfelt messages, the craft of the printing and tenderness of the images. Will anyone want to save our Tweets and emails?

Women's Work

The women in the photo appear pleasant although few are smiling. Surely they welcomed a short break from the heat and noise inside the building to pose for the photographer. Their employer, the New Colorado Laundry at 2207 Larimer Street, was the kind of business that hired women in the early 1900’s, since they could be paid little money and required minimal training. Many ladies from Globeville worked at one of the commercial laundries in downtown Denver, such as Silver State at 2441 Broadway, Ideal at 2500 Curtis Street and Enterprise Laundry at 17th and Champa, all within a couple of miles from Globeville.
These women weren't pursuing satisfying careers but supplementing the family's income with the kind of jobs available to them. Steve Machuga remembered, "My mother worked outside the home when I was growing up, scrubbing floors and cleaning rooms at the Brown Palace Hotel for 50¢ a night. She walked with two other ladies from Globeville, up 38th Street to short Larimer and 20 blocks to the hotel. The street car cost 10¢ each way, so they walked."  
Many other Globeville ladies worked as "domestics" doing cooking, cleaning and laundry in the homes of Denver's wealthier citizens. There were also situations available in the many local family-owned taverns, with the bar in the front of the building, living quarters for the family in the rear, and rooms upstairs for the men employed in the smelters. Newcomers like Jennie Hocevar could prepare meals for the family, pack lunches for the boarders and begin the process of learning English and American ways. Jennie later worked at Cudahy, trimming the fat from meat as it came down the chute. “I trimmed more than anybody else and I couldn’t even speak English,” she remembered.
Most women in the 1900s regarded work was a necessity and appreciated the kind of job that would help their family live a better life.

Photo used with written permission from Agnes Tanko. Her mother, Mary Holland, is one of 

the young women in the photo.

Jennie Hocevar Sadar, photo used with written permission from Dorothy Nevelos

John and Katherine Peketz

The story of John and Katherine Peketz is one of opportunity and upward mobility in America. An immigrant from Slovenia, John Peketz is listed as a laborer in the 1905 edition of the Denver city directory, but by 1911 he is recorded as working as a bartender at John Predovich's saloon. In 1915, Peketz opens his own tavern at 4511 Washington Street.
Before Prohibition (Colorado went dry in 1916, four years before the rest of the nation) immigrant saloons operated as banks, social clubs and clearinghouses for newcomers where a recent arrival could get a drink, a good meal, news from the Old Country, a place to stay, a loan, and advice concerning jobs and meeting other young and single people from home. Tavern owners like Peketz knew everyone and everything happening in Globeville.
By Globeville's standards Peketz was prosperous, owning his own home and operating a successful business, but he never forgot his humble beginnings. Peketz helped found the Western Slavonic Association (WSA), a fraternal organization that provided financial help to families in case of sickness or injury. Katherine Peketz then formed a women's branch of the association, Holy Rosary Lodge, Number 7, which focused on service to the community. Using their business and fraternal connections, the couple then worked to raise money to build Holy Rosary Church in 1919. Their lives and contributions can be remembered in two windows in the church that feature St. Catherine and St. John the Baptist.
Top photo: John and Katherine Peketz in their grocery store. After Colorado went dry in 1916, many former taverns became grocery stores. Photo used with written permission from Don Snider
Second photo: 4511 Washington, site of the Peketz Saloon
Third photo: Location of Western Slavonic Hall, today the McDonald's on Washington Street. Photo used with written permission from Joe Sadar
Bottom photo: Peketz windows in Holy Rosary Church.

Western Slavonic Association
Holy Rosary Church

Ghost of ASARCO

Each day, thousands of commuters pass ASARCO's Globe Smelter site with hardly a second glance at the Globeville landmark. Built in 1886, the plant operated first as a smelter that separated valuable metals from raw ore, then as a producer of specialty metals. The company closed in 2006, and plans for remediation and development of 77-acre complex are now moving forward. The many buildings and structures now being dismantled provide a glimpse of a 120-year-old company with an interior life of its own.
High, wire-topped fences surround the site and it's difficult to see all the buildings, but Steve Stevens, Safety and Personnel Manager from 1967 to 1988 recalls many of them."The tall building housed the Godfrey Roaster that roasted low-grade products from Amarillo and from Leadville, and East Helena, Montana. And there was the unloading building, the bag house, the calcine building, the tank house, and the solution department. They also had the retort department where they purified the metal, and the cadmium sulphide department where they made the paint pigment for cadmium yellow. There was the thallium department, the indium department, the litharge department, the casting department, the premelt room, the change house, the respirator room, the laundry room and the locker room.
"The two-story home near the 51st Street entrance to the plant was the superintendent's house from the old days when he lived on the property. The house contained an old safe with 'Globe Smelting and Refining' written on it. There are also ledgers with the names of employees - Slovenians, Croatians, Poles, Germans, Russians and some Hispanics - from a time when there were three shifts running seven days a week. 
"In the old days, we used to have a garden right on the property and we grew vegetables. And we had a baseball team and played for the championship in 1948 at Overland Park, beating Central Bank one to nothing."
Long gone is the housing provided by the company: the 125-room Globe Hotel for single men and the 10 or 12 houses along Sheedy Row, with accommodations for families. And there was the Globe Mercantile where men could cash their paychecks and purchase everything from food to bicycles.
"A lot of guys were very grateful for jobs at the Globe because they were able to raise a family and buy a house." 
It is hoped that the clean up of the site will also offer jobs and the opportunity for families to settle in Globeville. 

Top photo, Godfrey Roaster building

Second photo, cell house 1926

Third photo, warehouses A, B, and C in October 2010

Bottom photo, warehouses A, B, and C in January 2012

Argo Park

The Rocky Mountain News described Argo Park as “…a delightful retreat on the banks of the Platte…whose grounds have been prettily laid out… a charming suburban retreat.” The occasion was the dedication of the park on July 25, 1880, a decade before Globeville existed as a town. The park, which extended from Logan Street on the West to Washington Street on its eastern edge, was intended to serve the residents of Argo, the company town built by the Boston and Colorado Smelter, as well as the citizens of Denver. Philip Zang purchased the “resort” in January, 1885 and made improvements that included a theater, dance pavilion, bowling alley, ball fields and a small zoo. The park was home to the Strawberry Festival, picnics, band concerts, athletic activities, community gatherings and “pleasure parties of all kinds.”1. Welsh workers from the Boston and Colorado Smelter held annual eisteddfods, or singing contests, in remembrance of customs in their native land.
Martha Kulik Birch remembered, “It was one block square and they had a dance pavilion with an orchestra. People used to work hard all week and then come on the streetcar and dance under the stars. 
In the summer, there were swings, sandboxes, and a little cement wading pool for us kids. When I was about nine or ten [1917], we had this wonderful, husky teacher named Mrs. Roosevelt who wore a middy blouse, a big skirt, and carried a big whistle. We kids never ran wild because everyone obeyed her. She showed us how to make baskets by soaking rattans, and at the end of the summer, we each had a little basket.”2.
The park diminished in size as various owners sold parcels for development, and became part of the Denver parks system when Globeville was annexed in 1902. As part of the New Deal, a swimming pool and changing rooms were added in 1940, and a memorial honoring Globeville veterans killed in World Wars I and II was dedicated on August 25, 1948. More recent improvements have included a lighted baseball and softball field, basketball court, playground, and picnic tables. The pool underwent $1 million in renovations in 2005, a “sprayground” was added in 2007 and walking path in 2014.

1. Rocky Mountain News, July 25, 1880
2. An interview with Martha Kulik Birch with her niece Debbie Strein.
3. Fell, James E., Jr. Ores to Metal: The Rocky Mountain Smelting Industry. Lincoln: 
University of Nebraska Press, 1979
4. www.recreationparks.net/CO/denver/argo-park-denver

Top photo, Miss McCammon taught the third and fourth grades - 

photo of her class taken in 1914 with the dance pavilion in the background. 

Photo used with written permission from Minnie Boge Herbert.

Middle and bottom photos, Argo Park today, Mary Lou Egan