Peter Nazarek and Nettie Homyak wedding photo

In 2014, K Stone wrote, "I recently discovered your blog, Globeville Story. My great-grandfather, Panko Homyak, is mentioned in your post, “Historic Holy Transfiguration of Christ Cathedral.” He was one of the church founders. I have been doing genealogy research and recently received from a distant cousin a November 1901 wedding photo, of a wedding that likely took place in that church. Panko Homyak is in the photo (far right), as a witness. We know the identity of one of the couples, but do not know who the other two couples are. The couple in the center is Peter Nazarek/Nazaryk and Mastazia Chomjah (Nettie Homyak). We contacted the church, but many church records were lost in a flood. I wonder if you would consider posting the photo on your blog, asking if any of your readers can identify those people?"
Some observations: Since the church was founded in 1898, this wedding would have been performed by Father Nicholas Seregelly, a Greek Catholic priest. In the Denver city directory of 1896, Panko Homyak is listed as a cigar maker and may explain his holding cigar in a wedding photos. Is Nettie his daughter? Why is Panko's wife not in the photo?
Does anyone have any information about these couples?
 

 

The wedding couple in the center is Peter Nazarek (Nazaryk) and Mastazia Chomjah (Homyak),
and the man on the far right (holding the cigar) is Panko Homyak.
The wedding took place November 3, 1901. Probably at Holy Transfiguration of Christ Orthodox Cathedral, then called Greek Catholic Church, Transfiguration of Christ

Stories to tell - Discover Denver

Janet Tekavec Wagner explains, “My great grandfather, Conrad Jacoby, and my grandfather John Jacoby, built this house at 4438 Lincoln Street, across from Garden Place School. The entire family, adults and children, worked in the sugar beet fields. My mother, Leah Jacoby, and her four brothers were born there. After they married, my mom and dad, Joe and Leah Tekavec, lived there. I was born in that house. Long after we sold the house in 1990, people still referred to it as the ‘Jacoby House’.”
Every building has a story to tell and Globeville's houses, businesses and churches have been gathering tales for over a hundred years. Do you know the history of your home? Would you like to? Discover Denver, a building and neighborhood survey means to identify historic and architecturally structures citywide. Led by Historic Denver in partnership with the City and County of Denver and History Colorado, the survey will gather information using public records, academic research, neighborhood canvassing, and tips from the public. Findings will be accessible online so that everyone can learn the stories form the buildings in their neighborhood.
To find out more, access survey reports from pilot areas, to volunteer, or offer information about your home, business or church in Globeville, visit www.discoverdenver.co/ or contact bglandon@historicdenver.org

Far right, Janet’s grandmother Mary (Claus) Jacoby holding baby Floyd Jacoby.
Man on porch is her father Conrad Claus, and middle woman is Mary’s sister.
Photo about 1915. Used with written permission from Janet Wagner.

Jacoby house about 1938.
Used with written permission from Janet Wagner.

4438 Lincoln summer, 2014
® Mary Lou Egan

James Benton Grant

1882 was a momentous year for James B. Grant. In July, ground was broken for what would be Denver's largest smelter, the Omaha and Grant, and in November, Grant would be elected the third governor of Colorado, the first Democrat to hold the office. He was thirty-four years old.
Born in Russell County, Alabama in 1848, Grant grew up in the Old South and served briefly in a Confederate regiment during the final months of the Civil War. With the southern economy in ruins, he set out for Davenport, Iowa and persuaded a well-to-do uncle, also named James Grant, to finance his education. Grant attended Iowa State and Cornell Universities, then the Bergakadmie in Freiberg, Saxony, studying metallurgy and mining.
Following his education, Grant began working as a mining engineer in Central City, but it was in the carbonate camp of Leadville that he would make his fortune and reputation. Examining ore in the region for the Pueblo & Oro Railroad in 1877, Grant visualized the profitability of building a smelter. In 1879, Grant enlisted financial backing from that same uncle, and formed a partnership with Edward Eddy and William James to construct the Omaha and Grant Smelter in Leadville. Processing ore from local mines like Horace Tabor's Little Pittsburgh, the smelter shipped $2,400,000 worth of metals the first year, contributing to Leadville's mining boom and influencing railroads to build to the camp. Grant was well regarded in Leadville, paying investors, suppliers, mining and coking firms promptly. On the night of May 24, 1882, a fire engulfed the Leadville smelter and it burned to the ground. Even as Grant and his associates scrambled to process ore already purchased, they decided to rebuild the plant north of Denver, east of the Platte River and near existing railroad lines. While the smelter was under construction, ore and fuel was shipped from the mountains, ready to be processed as reduction units were completed.
That summer, the Democratic Party persuaded Grant to run for the office of governor, and at the same time the Omaha and Grant Smelter became fully operational in November, Grant assumed the office of Governor. Like other politicians in the Gilded Age, Grant was able to devote time to both his role as governor, improving conditions for Colorado's commerce and mining industries, and to the profitable smelting business.
Grant's success in the smelting business brought him considerable wealth, and in 1902, he built a mansion at 770 Pennsylvania Street in Denver. The following year, strikes by the Mill and Smeltermen's Union, outdated methods of reduction and a scarcity of rich ores led to the closure of the smelter. When Grant passed away in November, 1911, his wife remained in their big mansion for six years before selling it to oilman Albert E. Humphreys in 1917. Today, the smelter site is occupied by the Denver Coliseum and the Grant Humphreys Mansion is owned by Historic Denver.

Thirty-four year old James B. Grant, third Governor of Colorado, in 1882

Grant Humphreys Mansion

Death and burial in Globeville

Zombies, coffins, haunted houses - death is entertainment during Halloween, but for Globeville's early settlers, it was a constant companion and wakes and funerals were important rituals.
In the first decades of the twentieth century, the departed was given a three-day send-off with the coffin in the parlor of the family home, surrounded by flowers, and family and friends eating, drinking and sharing memories. Visitors often kept an overnight vigil with the corpse. Before motorized hearses were common, horse-drawn vehicles draped in black fabric with silver trim transported the coffin from the home to the church and then to the cemetery.
One of the largest and most memorable funerals was that of Antoni Benca's (Benson) in 1910. Aside from the sheer numbers, the service was notable because, on the way to St. Joseph's Church, the horses drawing the hearse suddenly refused to go any further in front of Konstanty Klimoski's home on 48th and Washington. The procession was forced to turn around and proceed to the church by another route. The incident contributed to an Old World superstition that the home of prosperous and ostentatious Klimoski was inhabited by a devil. More probable was the explanation that the horses were disturbed by the fumes from the Smith Brothers and Keith tannery on Washington Street.
By the 1920s, the Denver Tramway ran a funeral car from 38th and Walnut Streets to Mt. Olivet (the coffin still had to be transported from the neighborhood to the tramway stop, and then carried by the pallbearers from the funeral car to the gravesite, an uphill walk. Mt. Olivet Cemetery would later provide a wagon to meet the funeral party and carry the coffin). Mourners would then return to the family home for more food and reminiscing. 1.

1. Cuba, Stanley. "A Polish Community in the Urban West", Polish American Studies - A Journal of Polish American History and Culture. Volume XXXVI, Number 1, Spring 1979, pg 48

Antoni Benca's funeral 1910, photo ® Mary Lou Egan

Before Holy Rosary Church was built in 1920, Slovenians and Croatians held wakes and funerals at St. Jacob's Hall at 4485 Logan Street. Photo used with written permission from Alma Mandarich.

Preserving, canning, roasting in Globeville

The Eastern Europeans and Russians who settled Globeville in the 1880s came from humble roots where everything was preserved and nothing went to waste. Self sufficient and painfully frugal, families planted substantial vegetable gardens, as well as raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb, grape vines and fruit trees in their tiny yards. In the spring, asparagus could be harvested along the Farmers and Gardeners Ditch or the banks of the Platte River. (the employees of the Globe Smelter even had a vegetable garden on the grounds of the smelter).
In an era before refrigeration, canning, pickling and salt were a means of preserving food. All summer long, fruits would be canned as soon as they were ripe - cherries in July, peaches and pears in August. Raspberries and strawberries turned into jam, apples into applesauce, while grapes were made into juice, jelly and wine. And there were dill pickles, bread and butter pickles, pickled watermelon rinds, onions, and beets. And, of course, sauerkraut.
In addition to "putting up" fruits and vegetables, people preserved meat in infinite varieties of sausage, pickled pigs feet, head cheese, and pork chops packed in a barrel between layers of salt. Sausage would then be smoked, and all would be stored in a cool cellar.
Today's residents continue the tradition of raising fruits and vegetables, in part, because there is no grocery store in the neighborhood, but also because they enjoy growing their own and preserving their culinary heritage. Tomatoes are still a staple and varieties of chili peppers complement tomatillos, onions, squash, and beans. Chili peppers are then roasted, skinned and frozen for use during the rest of the year.
In the fall, the aroma of smoked sausage rises from "Polack Valley" and the fragrance of chilies roasting throughout the neighborhood are reminders of traditions - of preserving food and your ethnic heritage.

Photo @ Freepik

Photo @ Mary Lou Egan

Denver's First Labor Day Celebration Held at Argo Park

During the 1880s, Denver was booming. The arrival of the railroads attracted manufacturing, meat packing, food processing and small businesses. That growth spurt would include the Boston and Colorado, the Omaha and Grant and the Holdenville Smelters, brickyards, Denver Rock Drill and several meat packers offering jobs to both immigrants and American-born workers. Clusters of workers settled near their jobs in rural-sounding tracts like Garden Place, Greenwood Addition, Tacoma heights, and Cranberry Place. (Globeville would not be incorporated until 1891).
Industries focused on productivity, with workers toiling 12 hours a day, six, sometimes seven days a week, in gritty factories with few safety regulations, little fresh air, sanitary facilities or breaks. Women found employment in sugar factories, cigar making, commercial laundries or as domestic servants, while children could be found in factories, mines and agriculture. Injuries and deaths were common and left families very much alone and often destitute. The only holidays were Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and Sundays, and employees were not paid if they took the time off.

Workers responded by banding together, campaigning for shorter hours, more pay, better working conditions and recognition of their right to organize. New York City was home to the first Labor Day celebration on September 5, 1882, a peaceful event organized by the Central Labor Union (CLU) promoting the notion of a 10 hour work day. By 1885, “Labor Parades” were being staged in a number of industrial cities across the U.S., and municipal ordinances recognizing the holiday emboldened workers to take part. The first statewide Labor Day law was passed by the Oregon legislature on February 21, 1887. Colorado followed suit, with the measure being put before the voters, passed by the Colorado Legislature and signed into law by pro-labor Governor Alva Adams on March 15, 1887.

The city's first Labor Day celebration was held Monday, September 5th, 1887 with Denver's labor unions deciding to hold picnics and concerts, rather than a parade, in Argo Park.

The Rocky Mountain News from September 6, 1887 described the festive celebration, reporting that around 2000 people attended, listening to a band play at the pavilion and speeches by Governor Adams and various labor leaders. 

The inaugural holiday was a celebration of a day off, as well as the contributions of workers. It would be many years, and hard-fought battles before labor won the many rights we take for granted today.

Workers pose in front of the Boston and Colorado Smelter at Argo

Photo Colorado Historical Society

Map of the area in 1887, before the appearance of the Globe Smelter 

and before Globeville is incorporated

The odor - packinghouses

For many people a whiff of apple pie or fresh-baked bread can evoke memories of a visit to their grandma's house. For me, that sensory connection occurs when the breeze carries the odors from the Purina Plant in Swansea during a temperature inversion or ozone alert.
Visiting my grandparents, Ida and Andy Jackson, during the 1950s and 60s was a trip to another world. Although the construction of the Valley Highway had lopped off the western edge of the neighborhood and taken out most of the adjacent town of Argo, Globeville was mostly intact, with several small groceries, a drug store, hardware and numerous shoe shops and barbers. We walked everywhere - to the swimming pool at Argo Park, Holy Rosary Church and to the grocery where grandpa worked as a butcher (in anticipation of purchasing penny candy).
Also prospering in the 1960s was the city's largest industry, meatpacking. The Big Four, Swift, Armour, Wilson and Cudahy, as well as the smaller firms, Pepper, Litvak, Linders and Plus Poultry, were all within walking distance of Globeville. The stockyards held cattle, pigs, poultry, sheep and the feed to fatten them, all adding to the distinctive smell. But the most offensive odor came from several rendering plants  where “bone crushing, bone boiling, bone rendering, bone burning, fat boiling, gut cleaning...and the manufacture of fertilizer material..." occurred. * The stench, particularly during the summer, could take your breath away.
Residents of Globeville constantly complained and demanded that Denver regulate odors.
Denver passed regulations but they were difficult to enforce (and still are) and the city seemed to adopt the attitude the the neighborhood was already polluted and additional odors hardly made any difference.
In the end, consolidation and mergers accomplished what regulation could not. Firms like Monfort in Greeley raised, fed, slaughtered and shipped cattle from a central location, gradually eliminating the meat packers near Globeville.
I confess that the smell that permeated Globeville didn't bother me. I didn't deal with it every day and associated the stench with the happy memories of visiting my grandparents. The Purina Plant in Swansea is the last vestige of that era and sometimes, when there is a temperature inversion, I'll catch a whiff that takes me back to a visit to my grandma and grandpa's. It's apple pie to me.

*As defined by Denver City Ordinance No. 760.12

Built in 1928, Purina still provides jobs to the neighborhood.

Photo @ Mary Lou Egan