Turning gold into Wood/ Instant fortunes from mining found home on

PART 11 OF A 24-PART SERIES introducing the rich heritage of our region. Find stories and additional materials online at www.gazette.com/wellsprings.

In the late 1880s, Colorado Springs was shaping up as founder William Jackson Palmer envisioned it. Wealthy people from good families were building lovely homes along the broad avenues north of the central business district. Then, in the 1890s, the unprecedented influx of money from the Cripple Creek gold mines made millionaires out of some folks whose origins differed from Palmer's aristocrats. Winfield Scott Stratton was a carpenter before striking it rich at the Independence Mine; James F. Burns was a plumber before his Portland Mine yielded $60 million.

Around the turn of the century, new money began to mingle with old, and Wood Avenue became THE place to live. So many people enriched by Cripple Creek lived in the two blocks running north from Uintah Street that it was nicknamed "Millionaires' Row."

The showplace of the avenue was Burns' home at 1315 Wood Ave., on the northeast corner of San Miguel Street. Another majestic mansion, owned by Cripple Creek stock broker and investor Irving Bonbright, was across San Miguel Street from Burns' place. Percy Hagerman, the son of Midland Railroad builder James J. Hagerman, lived across the street on the west side of Wood. So did A.E. "Bert" Carlton, the "King of Cripple Creek," who owned the Cresson Mine and the Golden Cycle Mill. Nearby was the home of William Hassell, owner of Hassell Iron Works, whose ornamental fences adorned many affluent homes in Colorado Springs, Colorado City, Manitou and Cripple Creek. (Tuberculosis, not mining, brought Hassell to the Pikes Peak region.)

Near the south end of Wood Avenue is the home of Philip B. Stewart, a director of the Colorado Title and Trust Co. who was active in Republican political circles. Vice-president Theodore Roosevelt was Stewart's guest on his second visit to the Pikes Peak Region Aug. 1-3, 1901, for the Colorado Quatro-Centennial celebrations. (Six weeks later, Roosevelt became president after the assassination of President McKinley.)

With this concentration of money and power, you can't help but wonder what deals were made over brandy and cigars in Wood Avenue's libraries and smoking rooms. But the residents' contributions to the area weren't confined to business. They extended into the realms of education, the arts and philanthropy that Palmer saw as essential to make the town "the most attractive place in the West."

Wood Avenue resident Eugene P. Shove, president of the Elkton Mine in Cripple Creek, gave Colorado College one of its landmarks, the Shove Memorial Chapel, dedicated in 1931 to his ministerial family.

Palmer had set aside a tract of land for the establishment of a college when Colorado Springs was laid out in 1871. But the Rev. T.N. Haskell, a Congregational minister, is credited with founding the institution. He advocated the creation of a university at a church conference in January 1874, and the conference voted to establish it in Colorado Springs. The school's name was to be The Colorado Springs College. Later, the word Springs was dropped.

Before the first building was constructed, preparatory classes started on May 6, 1874, in the Wanless building at Pike Peak Avenue and Tejon Street. Haskell persuaded people to open their homes to students until dormitories could be built. The first major building, Palmer Hall (later named Cutler Hall to honor a substantial benefactor, Henry Cutler of Massachusetts), was begun in 1877. The first class - consisting of two students - graduated in 1882.

The college struggled at first, but it prospered under the presidency of William F. Slocum, beginning in 1888. The first men's dormitory, Hagerman Hall, was built during his first year. Slocum developed a master plan for the campus and established the college's endowment. Coburn Lib-rary, named for another benefactor, was completed in 1894.

Another substantial benefactor was Judson M. Bemis, founder of the world's largest bag manufacturing company, who moved his family to Colorado Springs after his wife, Alice, became ill. Bemis Hall was named in her honor.

Judson Bemis' daughter, Alice Bemis Taylor, carried on her family's philanthropic tradition after her father died in 1919. Alice grew up on North Cascade Avenue and in 1903 married Frederick M.P. Taylor, whose uncle was president of Vassar College. Her house was on Wood Avenue, next door to the Hagermans.

Alice Bemis Taylor's gifts to Colorado Springs earned her the nickname "Lady Bountiful." She built the Colorado Springs Day Nursery to help working mothers in 1923 and donated a pipe organ to Grace Church in memory of her husband, who died in 1927. But her crowning achievement was creation of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, in collaboration with her friends Julie Penrose and Elizabeth Sage Hare.

Julie Penrose had launched the Broadmoor Art Academy in 1919 by donating her home at 30 W. Dale St. for its quarters when she and her husband, Spencer Penrose, moved south of town to their new home, El Pomar. The school flourished, but by 1930 it was in financial trouble. Taylor planned to help by buying the school's garden to erect a museum to house her collection of Hispanic and pueblo art. In 1931, she decided instead on an addition to the Coburn Library at Colorado College. Penrose and Hare, who was on the academy's board, convinced her that a center for the fine arts on the site of the Broadmoor Art Academy would be more beneficial to the community.

The three women were admirers of Santa Fe architect John Gaw Meem, and he was chosen to design the center, which would house an art school, galleries, a music room and a theater. Meem's design won raves: It somehow managed to be modern, southwestern and classical at the same time. For the opening in 1936, Hare organized a week of programs that included a performance by world-famous dancer Martha Graham.

Taylor continued her interest in the Fine Arts Center until she died in 1942.

These institutions remain a vital part of our community. Most of the homes on Wood Avenue have been lovingly restored and stand as elegant testimony to the city's past.

PREVIOUS WEEKS' WELLSPRINGS

MAY 8: The First People: The Utes

MAY 15: Pathfinders and Pioneers

MAY 22: The Fifty-Niners

MAY 29: Colorado Springs: Built on sunshine and gold

JUNE 5: Spa in the Rockies

JUNE 12: Old Westside

JUNE 19: The Broadmoor

JUNE 26: A Mountain Forged

JULY 3: The Northwest - "Chasing the Cure"

JULY 10: Springs' economy

SOURCES

Juanita L. and John P. Breckenridge, "El Paso County Heritage" (Dallas: Curtis Media Corp., 1985)

Dorothy McGraw Bogue, "The Van Briggle Story" (Colorado Springs: Dorothy McGraw Bogue, 1968)

"Colorado College, 1874-1999: A History of Distinction," Supplement to the Colorado College Bulletin (Colorado Springs: Office of College Relations, Fall 1998)

"Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center: A History and Selections from the Permanent Collection" (Colorado Springs: Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 1986)

Manly Dayton Ormes and Eleanor R. Ormes, "The Book of Colorado Springs" (Colorado Springs: The Dentan Printing Co., 1933)

Douglas R. McKay, "Asylum of the Gilded Pill: The Story of Cragmor Sanatorium" (State Historical Society of Colorado, 1983)

Douglas R. McKay, "UCCS - The First 25 Years" (Colorado Springs: University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, 1991)

"Modern Deco: An Architectural Guidebook for the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center" (Colorado Springs: Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 1996)

"The Shooks Run Inventory of Historic Sites" (Colorado Springs, 1978)

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