Archpriest Joseph Hirsch 1944-2009

Father Hirsch remembered, "In 1984 a bishop in Chicago asked me if I would come out to Denver for a couple of years and see what I could do about this church. I found out a little about the history of the parish and that there were two points of view — that some people thought that they ought to stay here and some people thought that they ought to sell and move. So I talked with them and I told them that, if they were willing to stay here and work on the situation, that I would come. I didn’t want to be responsible for abandoning a church that had as rich a history as this church did. That would have to be their choice." The people decided to stay and Father Joseph and Matushka Paulette Hirsch came to Transfiguration Parish and the Globeville neighborhood. Both the church and the neighborhood have been blessed by their presence.

Father Hirsch recalled, "First we had to fix up the property, so that people would feel better about it. And then we had to fix up the neighborhood around the church."

"Fixing up the property" included replacing the "old saw mill" with a new church hall, obtaining historic designation for the Temple and restoring the foundation and floor of the church. "Fixing up the neighborhood" resulted in developing and implementing a comprehensive neighborhood plan, obtaining development funds for lighting, successfully battling the highway department and instituting the Old Globeville Days and Orthodox Food Festival. Holy Transfiguration and the Globeville neighborhood have both blossomed.

These many accomplishments don't describe the joyful, spiritual, generous man that left so profound a mark on so many people. Father Joseph passed away August 24, 2009 after a brief illness. He will be greatly missed.

Baseball in Globeville

Baseball was big in Globeville. Andy Jackson remembered, "The lodges had teams, all the packing houses, Armour & Company, Western Packing and Burkhardt, each had a team. The brickyards had a team that played at a ball field at 45th and Leaf Court on Sunday mornings. There were also ball fields at 49th and Washington and at 23rd and Welton. Lots of people played for several teams."

Top photo, 1923 team sponsored by the Gerhardt Mercantile Company.

Left to right, standing: Henry Heinz, Pete Shinall, Nick Walters, Pete Sterkel, Ollie Krieger, and Alec Hilzer, manager.

Left to right, seated: Henry Schlit, Horst Nickels, Charley Jack, Pete Spomer, Jake Sterkel, Henry Honstein, and Albert Tribelhorn, mascot. Photo courtesy Larry Summers.

Max Beer Parlor Baseball Team 1934. Photo courtesy of Paul Goreski

Orthodox Food Festival & Globeville Days

From its beginning, Globeville has been known for its ethnic diversity, with people from Eastern Europe and Russia settling the area in the 1880s for jobs in the smelters and meat packing plants. The neighborhood continues to embrace and celebrate diverse cultures during its annual Orthodox Food Festival and

Old Globeville Days, held Saturday

and Sunday July 18 and 19, 2009.

Visitors could find homemade food

and crafts from Eritrea, Greece,

Italy, Mexico, Romania, Russia

and Serbia. There were local

beverages, Coors, Bud and Miller

beers, as well as the Czech

Pilsner Irquel and the Slovenian

brandy Slivovitz.

The entertainment was a varied

with 10 different acts taking

the stage over the two-day

festival. Some highlights included

Mark Brissenden playing the

Gaida, a Bulgarian bagpipe,

Planina singing songs of

Eastern Europe and Willie &

the Po' Boys with Southern rock.

There were games and activities

for the children and tours of

the beautiful Orthodox Cathedral.

Mark the third weekend in July

for next year's event.

Top photo, lamb roasting

on a spit provides a delicious aroma.

Middle photo, Fotia from

Hellenic Dance Academy of Denver.

Bottom photo, food vendors

offer a multitude of choices.

Sheedy Row

Dennis Sheedy’s Globe Smelter provided some company housing for its employees. The company built the Globe Hotel on Washington Street, a four-story building containing a kitchen, dining hall, and 125 rooms, where single men boarded two to a room, alternating shifts to use a single bed.

Houses for families were available in an area called “Sheedy Row,” east of Washington Street at about 54th Avenue. Betty Zalar Paprocki’s family occupied a two-story brick home with a rather large yard. “There were ten houses on Sheedy Row and that was the name of the street, Sheedy Row. It was a cul de sac just east of Washington Street. They were nice little houses and each one was a little different from the others. They each had a kitchen and dining room, and a small yard with room for a garden. My grandfather worked in the smelter and that’s how we got a house there."

Left to right, Betty Zalar, and her cousins Juanita and Bob Chermas, taken from the front porch of her home on Sheedy Row. Photo, Betty Zalar Paprocki

Globeville Day Nursery

Early in the 20th century, many women in Globeville found it necessary to work outside the home in commercial laundries, the packing plants or as domestics in the homes of Denver's wealthy citizens. Although some families had grandparents who could watch young children while mothers were at work, those who didn't could rely on the Globeville Day Nursery.

Garden Place teachers Annie Kelly and Luann B. Hanna were instrumental in founding the nursery in 1909, and served on the board of directors for the life of the center. The center was located at 4414 Logan Street and was managed for many years by Miss Mattie Parkhurst.

For 10 cents a day children were given "a nutritious hot lunch and a 3 pm snack of bread and jelly, milk and fruit." The children were under the medical supervision of Dr. Robert S. Burket, "who visits each day." The nursery was open six days a week.

In addition to caring for children, the center was a resource for immigrant families assimilating into American life. A Mother's Club met on the third Tuesday of the month to study "America, her needs and ideals" and the English language.

The nursery served the neighborhood until 1948 when it closed because of declining enrollment. The house is now a private residence.

photos courtesy of Paul Goreski

Top photo, children in the front yard of the Globeville Day Nursery

Lower photos, left to right Florence Fanning, Mattie Parkhurst, unknown, Louise Goreski

Saturday, February 25, 1950

Photos used with written permission from Janet Wagner

Both the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News featured the story, KOA radio carried the broadcast live and a score of airplanes flew overhead. An estimated 100,000 people gathered near the site while an additional 250,000 watched from rooftops and ridges all over the city. The occasion was the demolition of the Grant Smelter smokestack, a 350-foot remnant of Denver's glory days of mining and smelting.

The giant chimney was built in 1892, part of the expansion of Denver's largest smelter, the Omaha and Grant. The stack was the tallest structure in the region and a symbol of the city's largest industry.

A year after the completion of the chimney, the nation experienced a depression that hit mining and smelting hard. Changes in technology, the depletion of rich ores and the long, violent labor strike of 1903 resulted in the closing of the smelter, leaving the massive plant and stack.

The smelter was dismantled until only the enormous smokestack remained, and it became a playground for neighborhood children who rode their bikes in and out and dared each other to climb the steep walls. Issues of safety and economics eventually dictated the that the stack would be demolished.

Saturday, February 25, 1950, was the day selected for the demolition. Denver Mayor Quigg Newton, politicians and newspapermen made speeches eulogizing the structure as most of Denver's population waited. There was delay after delay until 5:00 pm when five blasts, each two seconds apart, exploded in the base of the 7000-ton tower. Incredibly, nothing happened. When three more blasts were detonated, a million bricks crashed to earth and a blinding cloud of dust enveloped officials and spectators. It took more dynamite on the following day to finish the job. Denver had shed a piece of its industrial past and, in 1952, constructed the Denver Coliseum on the spot. 

Photos of the stack courtesy of Janet Wagner

Sanguinette's Farm

Brothers Louis and William Sanguinette are first listed in the Denver City Directory in 1876. Originally from Genoa, Italy, they stayed for a time in New Orleans before opening a saloon in the mining town of Georgetown, Colorado. Louis, William and their father Peter moved to Globeville after Peter purchased 10 acres of farmland from former Globeville mayor William Clark, who lived on Washington Street.

The Sanguinettes worked together to build a big home for their large, extended family (Louis and his wife Mary had 14 children) and raised enough vegetables, turkeys, and chickens to support themselves and supply local markets. The Sanguinette farm was best known for its celery, crisp, sweet and almost white in appearance.

Mary Sanguinette Dudymott, the great granddaughter of Peter, still lives close to her family's former farm in Globeville. She recalls her grandfather Jim who was born in 1882, and his tales of visiting with the gypsies and the Indian tribes who camped along the Platte River. She remembers his alarm as the area became increasingly industrial with the arrival of the smelters, railroads and the meat packing plants.

Family photo, top, left to right, Leroy Mosconi, Rose Sanguinette Mosconi, John, 

Lily and Louis Sanguinette. Photos courtesy of Mary Sanguinette Dudymott.

Bottom photo features Leroy Mosconi and Peter Sanguinette plowing fields 

along Watervliet, the name of Washington Street before 1903.