People

Elizabeth Paepcke (1902–94) is best known for working with her husband, Walter , to transform the former mining town of Aspen into a cultural hub after World War II . Trained in art and design, she was perhaps most influential in getting Walter interested in the modernist styles that shaped much of...

Henrietta “Kate” Malnati Ferretti (1891–1987) was an early twentieth-century entrepreneur who established a successful millinery business in Denver . A first-generation Italian American, Ferretti founded her business in Denver’s Little Italy and catered to some of the city’s most elite clientele...

Katharine Grafton Patterson (1839–1902) came to Colorado in 1872 with her husband, Thomas Patterson , and soon established herself as an influential clubwoman, suffragist, and philanthropist. Devoutly religious, Patterson dedicated the majority of her life to the service of others. She was a...

Emma Florence Langdon (1875–1937) was a linotype operator, historian, and labor leader celebrated for her courageous defense of the freedom of the press during the Colorado Labor Wars . When National Guardsmen arrested five prounion employees of the Victor Record , Langdon outraced the military to...

Antonia Brico (1902–89) was the first woman to gain wide acceptance and recognition in the field of symphony conducting. Despite being told that women could not and should not be symphony conductors, she completed the rigorous conducting course at the University of Berlin and conducted many major...

Billy Fiske (1911–40) was a two-time Olympian who drove the US bobsled team to gold medals in the 1928 and 1932 Winter Olympics. A founder of Colorado’s ski industry , Fiske saw the potential for the state to rival the great winter resorts of Europe and helped lay the groundwork for Aspen to become...

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was founded in Chicago in 1905 as an explicitly anarchist-socialist alternative to the major labor unions of the time, which the IWW’s leaders deemed too conservative. In the following decades, the organization suffered from government suppression on both...

Mary Hauck Elitch Long (1856–1936) was the first woman in the world to own and operate a zoo, located at Elitch Gardens in Denver . She and her husband, John Elitch, Jr. , opened the attraction in 1890, and after his death in 1891, Mary continued on as a pioneering businesswoman and entrepreneur...

John Edward Williams (1922–94) was a novelist and professor at the University of Denver, where he founded Denver Quarterly and helped build the school’s creative writing program. He is best known for his three major novels: Butcher’s Crossing (1960), a revisionist Western set partly in Colorado...