1918 Spanish Influenza

In 1918, the nation was at war and people were on the move. So too was a mysterious and lethal illness that first appeared in the spring in Fort Funston, Kansas and then traveled with soldiers going to Europe. There the virus mutated into a more deadly form before returning to the United States in the late summer of 1918, carried by men returning from the battlefields. 
At first the virus targeted military camps on the East Coast, but rapidly spread to civilians and to inland cities and rural areas. By the time influenza was reported in Denver in September, it had already killed over 1000 people in Boston and 100 in Chicago.
Denver's manager of health, Dr. William H. Sharpley, hoped to avoid a panic and gave newspapers rules for combating the disease..."breathe deeply when the air is pure" and to remember the three C's: "clean mouth, clean heart and clean clothes." As the epidemic progressed, Denver's Board of Health ordered all schools, churches, and theaters to close and indoor gatherings banned. Dairys and grocers stopped delivering to homes. 
In Globeville, it seemed that every family had at least one member who was ill. Steve Machuga remembered two of the men who were boarding in their home. “John Stashenko and John Pastor both worked at the Globe Smelter and shared a room at our house. Stasienko got the flu in the morning and died that night and Pastor died the next week.” Records from St. Joseph Polish Church show a burial nearly every day, and sometimes two or three a day from September 1918 to the spring of 1919. Parishioner Tony Mandich lamented that he had served as a pallbearer eighteen times in four months. 
Gradually, the occurrences of the flu subsided. Like the rest of the nation, Globeville lost fewer of its citizens in the World War than to the Spanish Influenza.* 


* Globeville's two casualties in World War I were John Wysowatcky and Martin Clement. Numbers of people lost to the flu have not been compiled, but could be surmised from church burial records. 
Statistics on the epidemic are not entirely reliable, but it is estimated that between September 1918 and June 1919, the lethal virus known as "Spanish Influenza" and its complications, particularly pneumonia, killed nearly 1,500 Denverites.


**The 1918 influenza outbreak: An unforgettable legacy by By Stephen J. Leonard, The Denver Post, May 5, 2009


Photo of Joseph Chintala's headstone, one of many graves at Riverside Cemetery with a story to tell. Photo by Mary Lou Egan

The Haunted House of Globeville

A lot of decorations and haunted houses will appear in yards around Globeville during the month of October, but none of them will be as interesting as Globeville's real "haunted house."
The story begins with the discovery of gold in Colorado in 1858 and John B. Hindry, who  made a fortune supplying lumber and cattle to others who came seeking mineral riches. In 1870, the wealthy Hindry purchased 110 acres of land north of Denver along the South Platte River to build a country home away from the grime and noise of frontier Denver, with plans to create an exclusive subdivision. He constructed his two-story Victorian mansion in 1873, a masterpiece crowned with an ornate cupola and an entrance watched over by two massive iron lions. The interior was decorated with black walnut paneling and Italian marble. A two-story brick stable for trotting horses and a greenhouse stood behind the house. A miniature playhouse for the Hindry children, William, Nettie, Horace, and Charles, was built in the style of the mansion.

By the turn of the century, Hindry’s fortunes had turned. He suffered the death of his son Charles in 1878 and of his wife in 1881; his other children had married and left to begin lives of their own. John Hindry was alone in his mansion.

His dream home soon become a nightmare. Not long after his mansion was completed, the Boston and Colorado Smelter began operating (1879), followed by the Grant (1882) and Globe Smelters (1889). The construction of railroads, foundries, and meat-packing plants made the area more suited to heavy industry than to exclusive homes. The fumes from the smelters killed the trees, and ate through the carpets and curtains in the mansion, and the stench from the meat-packing plants ruined any hopes for a subdivision. When Hindry's lawsuit against the Globe Smelter was unsuccessful, he became increasingly bitter.

Rumors circulated that the lonely old man had a hoard of money hidden in the house, and thieves began to prowl the property. After being robbed several times, Hindry set up a trap with a shotgun that would fire straight out the window when the sash was raised. It didn’t take long to get results.

On the morning of September 18, 1901, Hindry set his trap as usual, and went to Golden on business. When he returned home at 6 pm, he found a man dead in his front yard.*

Eventually the trap became Hindry’s undoing. One night he entered the room when he thought he’d heard a prowler, tripped over the trigger cord and was wounded by his own gun. Although he recovered, he abandoned his former dream home to move to California in 1906. 

As the neglected and abandoned property deteriorated, stories of ghostly apparitions began to circulate. Some said they saw Hindry’s ghost, while others claim the figure was that of the man who had been shot there. The former mansion became known as Globeville's “haunted house.”
In 1921 Leo Bomareto bought the house at a tax auction for $6000 and leased it to the city for an isolation hospital for tuberculosis patients for five years, beginning in 1923. In the 1940s, the Bomareto family moved in, fixed up the house and converted the former stable in the backyard to a meat-packing plant. During the 1950s the family sold Christmas trees from a lot set up in the backyard. In July 1962, an unexplained explosion threw Frank Bomareto out of bed and the resulting fire destroyed the house. 

Today nothing remains of the Hindry Mansion but memories.

*Automatic Gun Kills Thief” Rocky Mountain News, September 19, 1901



Top photo, Hindry mansion in its prime, Colorado Historical Society
Middle photo, deteriorating "haunted house" Colorado Historical Society
Bottom photo, the site today is occupied by Bomareto's Market, Mary Lou Egan

Easing the Way - Emigration

Political unrest, religious and cultural oppression and economic uncertainty were some of the factors that motivated Eastern Europeans and German Russians to emigrate in the years before World War I. Improvements in transportation eased the way. Steamships crossed the Atlantic in as little as two weeks and offered a variety of accomodations and rates, including the opportunity for men to work off their passage. The invention of the prepaid ticket and the development of inexpensive and reliable means of transferring funds abroad made it easier for families to finance their own exodus. 


A sample of a wire transfer of funds in 1902

Riverside Cemetery

1876. The United States would celebrate its first centennial, Colorado would achieve statehood and Denver would begin to evolve from a rough mining camp to a respectable city. The stability was an incentive for business and families to put down roots and create permanent institutions: churches, schools and cemeteries. 1876 was a fitting year for the founding of Riverside Cemetery.
Globeville would evolve as well, from an area populated with prospectors and homesteaders to an industrial hub with smelters, railroads and meat packing plants, incorporating as a town in July, 1891. Many of Globeville's early settlers are buried at nearby Riverside Cemetery, in the company of mayors, Colorado governors, moguls, madams and military veterans. You can visit the well known and the humble at this historic and park-like burial ground. 
Riverside Cemetery will celebrate its 135th anniversary this Saturday, October 1, from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm with free history displays, vintage baseball and historic tours. For information, see 
http://fairmountheritagefoundation.org

Top photo by Mary Lou Egan: office, chapel and crematorium
Bottom photo by Mary Lou Egan: chapel

Conscription

The people who arrived in Globeville during the 1880s were a diverse lot - Poles, Slovenes, Croats, Czechs, Slovaks, Bohemians, Ruthenians,  Montenegrans and German Russians - yet census data would likely have recorded them as citizens of Germany, Austria-Hungary or Russia. These three powerful empires had annexed, or subdued those regions in a rush to increase their territory, suppressing native languages, cultures, and religion and making people second-class citizens in their own land. These occupying powers created the greatest resentment, however, with the conscription of young men to serve in their armies. 
Poles could be forced into either the German or the Russian military depending on whether they lived in the western or eastern part of their partitioned homeland, while German-speaking colonists in Russia were required to serve a six-year term in the Russian army regardless of whether or not they spoke the Russian language. Likewise, citizens of the area absorbed by Austria-Hungary could be conscripted and possibly forced to fight fellow countrymen or family members. The situation motivated many to emigrate.
Andrew Boytz, a blacksmith, was conscripted into the Austrian army to teach soldiers the art of blacksmithing, but he rebelled against the idea. In the days before photos were used for identification, he was able to borrow a passport, desert the army and come to America, eventually settling in Globeville. Fred Gerhardt, however, served his six-year term in the Russian army before settling in Colorado.
Although their new life in Globeville could be difficult, these immigrants appreciated the freedoms we often take for granted.

top photo, Andrew Boytz lived a long life in Globeville
bottom photo, Fred Gerhardt in his Russian army uniform

Orthodox Food Festival & Globeville Days

Strains of accordion music drift across Argo Park, along with the rich aroma of roast lamb, Serbian povitica, Italian sausage, Romanian Mici, Mexican tamales and Eritrean coffee. Crowds gather in the cool shade to watch dance troops and enjoy the music of various cultures, while children try to win prizes at games. Each summer, Globeville invites all of Denver to experience the ethnic diversity that defines the neighborhood with The Orthodox Food Festival & Globeville Days. Save the third weekend in July for next year's celebration. 

Globe ASARCO

According to historian Jerome C. Smiley in 1901,“...their [smelters] economic value to the city of Denver far exceeds that of any other industry; indeed, it may be said that it overshadows that of all other industries.”1. The remnants of one of the state’s most significant smelters, the Globe, rests on a hill just west of the neighborhood that shares it’s name. 
The plant began life as the Holden Smelter and was organized in 1886 by entrepreneur Edward R. Holden as a silver/lead smelter, using the latest technology. Holden was known as a promoter and speculator and had borrowed great sums from the Colorado National Bank to build the operation. When the smelter veered toward bankruptcy under Holden, the bank appointed Dennis Sheedy manager and he reorganized the firm as the Globe Smelting and Refining Company on January 16, 1889. A company store, hotel and houses surrounding the plant, once called “Holdenville” were then referred to as “Globeville.”2. 
The Globe Smelter was “integrated” with its own sampling works, crushing mills, roasting units, blast furnaces, refinery and was considered a major force in the industry. In 1899, the Globe joined a number of other smelting concerns to form a powerful trust, the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO), with the clout to negotiate rates for labor, freight, ore, smelting and political influence. 
The price of metals increased during World War I and mines and smelters prospered, but by 1919, market conditions had changed and many of the nation's rich ores had been depleted. The Globe discontinued smelting operations and turned to producing cadmium, becoming a leading supplier of the element used as a protective coating for aircraft during World War II. In 1993 the firm again changed direction and focused on the development of specialty metals, such as bismuth.
1993 is also the year a group of residents won a lawsuit against the corporate giant, alleging air, soil and groundwater pollution. A second group of citizens were awarded funds in 1997 to remediate the soil in the southern section of Globeville. ASARCO declared bankruptcy in 2006 and the plant sat empty and abandoned.
2011 marks the beginning of a new life for the area as EFB Brownfield Partners plans remediation and development for the property. It is hoped that an industry once so vital to the economy of the region could bring life and rebirth to the Globeville neighborhood.
1. Smiley, Jerome C. History of Denver, Denver, Colorado: The Times-Sun Publishing Company, 1901, page 556
2. Fell Jr., James E., Ores to Metals, The Rocky Mountain Smelting Industry, 1979,
University of Nebraska Press pg 149.

3. Contaminated Globeville May Get a Second Chance, March 24, 2011, 
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/27303143/detail.html

top photo. Globe Smelter 1890, Denver Public Library

middle photo, Globe Smelter about 1926, photo used with written permission from Steve Stevens

bottom photo, Globe plant today