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151 chapter seven The Denver Mountain Parks and Foothills Her whole life was city life, but somehow or other she thought it would be nice to live out in the country, so she located the Greystone property and her whole idea there was . . . not a log cabin—that wouldn’t have fitted in with her at all—but it would be like the camps in the Adirondack mountains, and so this is what she set out to do. She got her architect, Maurice Briscoe [sic] . . . it was in the late summer . . . There were tents—she had her own tent, my sister and I had our tent, the maid that had been with her so long, and then there was a larger tent for the men that worked on the place, and there was a cookshack, also a tent, and so we spent [our time] . . . until this house was completed. —Helen Bromfield interview, speaking of her mother, Genevieve Chandler Phipps Historically home to ranches, logging and mining operations, and early cabin resorts, the foothills directly west of Denver were renowned for their great scenic beauty. As with Estes Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, the national forests, and Lincoln Hills, tourists and summer homeowners here sought natural environments and outdoor recreation. But in the foothills, proximity to Denver also was a significant draw. Middleclass Denver residents flocked to small cottages and cabins. Developers started summer home communities called Kittredge, Starbuck, and Indian Hills. Many of Denver’s prominent families hired the city’s most renowned architects to design their summer homes in choice locales. Most astonishing, the Denver foothills served as the setting of a fantastic dream 152 high country summers never realized—a Summer White House for the president of the United States. The Denver Mountain Parks Although they had long served as a high-country escape for urban dwellers , the Denver foothills received a boost in recreational amenities in 1912, when the city of Denver began acquiring mountain land well outside its urban boundaries. Promoted by wealthy businessman John Brisben Walker among others and inaugurated by Mayor Robert W. Speer, the Mountain Parks were seen as a unique extension of Denver’s urban park system. Serving for three terms starting in 1904, Speer was a mayoral juggernaut in the tradition of the powerful yet often visionary city “bosses” who ran major urban centers across the country.1 He won his first election under suspicion of voting fraud, and immediately sponsored a city charter aimed at facilitating and funding urban beautification and improvement projects.2 During his time in office, Speer paved over 300 miles of streets, added sidewalks and street lights, rebuilt drainage and sewer systems, constructed a Municipal Auditorium that hosted the Demo­ cratic National Convention in 1908, donated more than 100,000 shade trees to Denver citizens, and launched the free weekly magazine Municipal Facts—all to boost Denver’s image and his eminence.3 In 1893, Speer had visited the World’s Columbian Exposition, a world’s fair built along Chicago’s lakeshore to honor the discovery of North America by Christopher Columbus.4 The Exposition was an exemplar of City Beautiful principles and was christened a “White City” of gleaming alabaster neoclassical buildings, broad boulevards and great canals, a vast and carefully landscaped wooded park with paths for strolling and a lagoon for rowing, and all manner of reflecting pools, statues, and fountains . Inspired by what he saw there, Speer later created an ambitious three-part master plan for Denver that boldly conceived Civic Center Park; additional parks and parkways radiating from this urban hub; and, most unusually, the westward expansion of roads and parkways through the city to a mountain park system owned by the city.5 To Speer’s credit, all three major components of the master plan were implemented to at least some degree. In 1912, Speer’s Mountain Parks plan was launched with astonishing speed, particularly considering the complexity of local, state, regional, and federal approvals and legislative amendments required.6 Voters quickly approved the measure, as well as an annual tax to fund land acquisition, park development, and ongoing maintenance. The state of Colorado passed a resolution permitting the city to acquire and manage land out- The Denver Mountain Parks and Foothills 153 side of its boundaries. The federal government passed a law permitting local governments to acquire land from the federal government. Denver hired the firm of Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., son of nationally renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted...

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