%1 http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/ en Montclair http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/montclair <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Montclair</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-article-image.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-article-image.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div id="carouselEncyclopediaArticle" class="carousel slide" data-bs-ride="true"> <div class="carousel-inner"> <div class="carousel-item active"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--3850--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--3850.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/stanleypaddington-school-montclair"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/StanleySchool_Montclair_0.jpg?itok=YoKAe5_Y" width="1090" height="655" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/stanleypaddington-school-montclair" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Stanley/Paddington School, Montclair</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Built in 1891, the <strong>Stanley School</strong> at East Thirteenth Avenue and Quebec Street in <a href="/article/denver"><strong>Denver</strong></a>'s <a href="/article/montclair"><strong>Montclair</strong></a> neighborhood featured Colorado’s first public school kindergarten. Named for the Welsh American explorer Henry M. Stanley, the school is now a designated Denver landmark and operates as the private Paddington Station Preschool.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> <div class="carousel-item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--3851--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--3851.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/montclair-park"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/MontclairPark_0.jpg?itok=N3DQCb6y" width="1090" height="726" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/montclair-park" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Montclair Park</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Platted in 1885, <a href="/article/denver"><strong>Denver</strong></a>'s <a href="/article/montclair"><strong>Montclair</strong></a> neighborhood was developed by <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/baron-walter-von-richthofen"><strong>Baron Walter von Richthofen</strong></a> into a thriving, affluent residential community.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> <div class="carousel-item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--3752--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--3752.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/montclair-colorado"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Montclair-Map-1887_0.jpg?itok=1rqhzI1i" width="1090" height="609" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/montclair-colorado" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Montclair, Colorado</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>This 1887 aerial drawing of Richthofen's Montclair development includes some real features, such as his castle, and some proposed amenities that never took shape, including a zoological garden.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> </div> <button class="carousel-control-prev" type="button" data-bs-target="#carouselEncyclopediaArticle" data-bs-slide="prev"> <span class="carousel-control-prev-icon" aria-hidden="true"></span> <span class="visually-hidden">Previous</span> </button> <button class="carousel-control-next" type="button" data-bs-target="#carouselEncyclopediaArticle" data-bs-slide="next"> <span class="carousel-control-next-icon" aria-hidden="true"></span> <span class="visually-hidden">Next</span> </button> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/nick-johnson" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">Nick Johnson</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2022-11-20T09:38:22-07:00" title="Sunday, November 20, 2022 - 09:38" class="datetime">Sun, 11/20/2022 - 09:38</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/montclair" data-a2a-title="Montclair"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fmontclair&amp;title=Montclair"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>Situated on the east side of <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/denver">Denver</a></strong> and rising some 330 feet above the <strong><a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado-state-capitol">State Capitol</a></strong>’s gold dome, the town of Montclair was platted in 1885. The common French place-name means “clear mountain,” and Montclair was so named for its panoramic view of the <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/front-range">Front Range</a></strong> between <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/pikes-peak">Pikes</a></strong> and <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/longs-peak">Longs Peaks</a></strong>. At the time, Montclair lay far beyond the city limits, out on the prairie. Its early boosters claimed that this made the town an escape from big-city problems such as crime, poverty, and unhealthy conditions.</p> <p>Annexed to Denver in 1902, the neighborhood—encompassing East Colfax Avenue to East Sixth Avenue, between Quebec and Holly Streets—now has roughly 6,500 residents and includes a smaller Montclair Historic District designated in 1975.</p> <h2>Early Montclair</h2> <p>Montclair owes its existence mainly to <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/baron-walter-von-richthofen">Baron Walter von Richthofen</a></strong>. The bushy-bearded Baron came from a famous German clan. He was a kinsman of the geographer Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen, for whom the Colorado mountain is named, and a cousin of the Red Baron, the famed <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado-world-war-i">World War I</a></strong> fighter pilot. Walter, who was born in Kreisenitz, Silesia, in 1848, had fought in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. He then sailed to the United States and eventually landed in Colorado around 1877.</p> <p>In the mid-1880s, the Baron made his first investment in Denver real estate, a tract that ran from Lake Archer to Lipan Street between West First and West Ellsworth Avenues, known as “Richthofen’s Addition.” He also invested in some north Denver developments. All fizzled.</p> <p>Turning his attention to east Denver, he joined Matthias Cochrane’s Montclair Town and Improvement Company, then thriving during Colorado’s 1880s <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/precious-metal-mining-colorado">mining</a></strong> boom. Cochrane hailed from the suburb of Montclair, New Jersey, giving a second reason for the name. In 1885 the <strong><em>Rocky Mountain News </em></strong>described the welcome reprieve that Montclair, Colorado, would offer in an increasingly industrialized state: “Its cooling breezes from the mountains, uncontaminated by smelter smoke, bring health and vigor to this favored locality.”</p> <p>As a show home for the fledgling town, Richthofen built a <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/richthofen-castle">castle</a></strong> for himself at East Twelfth Avenue and Olive Street. This stone Romanesque Revival landmark boasted a crenelated parapet and a tower that dominated the east Denver skyline. To help his suburb flower, Richthofen and associates dug the Montclair Ditch off the Highline Canal. It flowed north along Quebec Street to Richthofen Castle and then downhill to the Molkery (milk house), a spa for health-seekers on East Twelfth Avenue.</p> <p>The Molkery’s rural feel, fresh milk, and open-air porches provided a respite for those suffering from <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/tuberculosis-colorado">tuberculosis</a></strong> and other lung disorders. In 1911 the Molkery was repurposed into Denver’s first neighborhood civic center. Now landmarked, it remains a Montclair neighborhood hub.</p> <p>To connect Montclair with downtown, Richthofen and other promoters coaxed streetcar lines along East Eighth, Colfax, and Seventeenth Avenues. These routes turned Montclair into a streetcar suburb. To attract the more affluent, Montclair offered lots twice the width of the core city’s twenty-five-foot-wide parcels. Houses initially had to be three stories, cost at least $10,000, and have plans approved by the Montclair Board of Supervisors.</p> <p>To attract residents, the Baron ran bright red coaches from downtown out to Montclair. As the Baron blew his tally-ho horn and all-aboard cry, his Russian wolfhounds dashed ahead, frantically leading Denverites to a house-site hunt. Customers were encouraged to buy a whole block where they could build their own house and either farm the remaining land or sell it to others. The pattern of one large old home per block distinguishes Montclair to this day, with most of the other lots filled by one-story houses added after <strong>World War II</strong>.</p> <p>Montclair was incorporated as a separate town in 1888 to provide its own services. A town hall was built at East Fourteenth Avenue and Oneida Street, where the Montclair Fire Station now stands. In addition to their own town government, the citizens of Montclair started a police and fire department, a school system, and a weekly newspaper, the<em> Montclair Mirror</em>. Richthofen even planned a zoo, which never materialized.</p> <p>The scramble for land in this suburban paradise ended abruptly with the <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/panic-1893">Panic of 1893</a></strong>. Prairie dogs repossessed vacant lots, while prickly pear cactus and <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/sunflowers">sunflowers</a></strong> decorated empty basement excavations. The 1900 Census counted only eighty-eight families living in the town (which originally included parts of what are now <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/park-hill">Park Hill</a> </strong>and <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/lowry-neighborhood">Lowry</a></strong>). In 1902 Montclair was annexed to the newly created city and county of Denver.</p> <h2>Schools</h2> <p>Early Montclair was home to a remarkable number of educational enterprises. In 1887 Montclair residents organized their own public school system, Colorado School District 44. A year later, Jarvis Hall, which evolved into the Colorado School of Mines, opened along East Tenth Avenue near Quebec Street. This Episcopal school stood four stories tall before it burned to the ground in 1901. The Jarvis Hall Chapel survives as today’s St. Luke’s Episcopal Church (1890) at East Thirteenth Avenue and Poplar Street, now a designated landmark. A few blocks north, Colorado Women’s College started in 1890 at Quebec Street and Montview Boulevard. The college merged with the University of Denver in 1982. Its main building, <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/treat-hall">Treat Hall</a></strong>, is now a designated landmark.</p> <p>Montclair’s original frame schoolhouse sat next to the fire station and town hall on Oneida Street near East Colfax Avenue. In 1891 it was replaced by the still-standing, brick-and-stone Stanley School at East Thirteenth Avenue and Quebec Street, which featured Colorado’s first public school kindergarten. Named for the Welsh American explorer Henry M. Stanley, the school became so crowded that a gymnasium and kindergarten building was built on its west side. Now a designated Denver landmark, it has been converted to the private Paddington Station Preschool.</p> <h2>Health Spa</h2> <p>Desperate and overextended after the 1893 crash, the Baron remarketed Montclair as the Colorado Carlsbad, named for the famed German resort. When told that Montclair had no hot springs or mineral waters, Richthofen proposed building an aqueduct to channel in hot water from Idaho Springs. He planned a neoclassical-style resort with a lavish bathhouse, casino, and hotel. None of this materialized.</p> <p>A decade later, future US senator and business tycoon <strong>Lawrence C. Phipps </strong>built the Agnes Phipps Memorial Sanatorium, the largest tuberculosis sanatorium in Colorado, at the site, naming it for his mother. In the 1930s, the site would become part of Lowry Air Base. When that was decommissioned, it was replaced in the 1990s by the Lowry neighborhood.</p> <p>With the Phipps Memorial Sanatorium nearby, many health seekers built houses in Montclair, where distinctive residences feature screened porches and open floor plans to help capture fresh air. Tuberculosis was then the deadliest killer in the country, and there was no sure cure, though a sunny, dry climate was often prescribed. The explosive growth of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (now Anschutz Medical Campus) and National Jewish Hospital just west of Montclair reflected Denver’s emergence as a national health care center by the 1920s.</p> <h2>Modern Montclair</h2> <p>After World War II, Montclair finally began to boom, when many in the medical profession or veterans once stationed at nearby Lowry Air Base moved into the neighborhood. To accommodate the influx of residents, the Montclair Elementary School opened in 1943 at Richthofen Place and Newport Street, and nearby St. James Catholic School opened five years later.</p> <p>In the 1950s, one of Denver’s early shopping centers, Mayfair, opened with a new grocery chain called King Soopers as its anchor. As a new commercial anchor, Mayfair gave its name to the nearby area, which officially remains the western portion of the Montclair neighborhood. By 1960 Montclair had grown to 7,396 residents. Some whites fled the area during the busing and integration initiatives of the 1960s and 1970s. The remaining residents revived the inactive Montclair Civic Association, founded back in 1911, to deal with busing and other local issues. After the courts ordered districtwide busing to create racially balanced schools, Black kids from other neighborhoods were bused into predominantly white Montclair schools, while white Montclair students were bused to largely Black neighborhood schools. To facilitate this controversial change, the neighborhood group, renamed the Historic Montclair Community Association, began issuing a quarterly newsletter, hosting seasonal activities, and sponsoring house tours.</p> <p>The association also supported the 1975 designation of the Montclair Historic District. The district covered the heart of the original neighborhood, stretching roughly from East Seventh to East Twelfth Avenue between Newport and Poplar Streets. Opponents pointed out that most houses were built after World War II and were of dubious architectural merit. City councilwoman Cathy Donahue responded, “This successful blending of the new and the old is precisely the charm of Montclair.” Montclair features residential styles from the late 1800s to today, including Queen Anne, Tudor Revival, Four Square, Spanish Revival, Classic Cottage, bungalow, ranch, modern, and contemporary. Designs in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright were contributed by notable resident architects Victor Hornbein and Joe Marlow.</p> <h2>Today</h2> <p>By 2020 Montclair had a population of 6,541. The decline since the postwar period was because the area had far fewer children than in previous decades as the suburban baby boom moved outward. The 2020 population was about 73 percent white, 20 percent Latino, 2 percent Black, 1 percent Asian, and 4 percent two or more races, with a median income of nearly $125,000.</p> <p>In the 1880s, Montclair was one of the first communities to coax Denverites out of the city. Today it draws people in, leading to rising housing prices. In recent years, the eastern portion of Montclair near the Mayfair shopping center has been transformed as wealthy buyers tear down one-story postwar houses and replace them with much larger and more expensive residences. Still, Baron von Richthofen’s dreams persisted in the tree-shaded streets and parkways he planned. Montclair has preserved its historic sites and streetscapes. The castle and the Molkery remain standing and fully restored. The old Richthofen Stables became town houses but retained a horse-watering trough. Richthofen Parkway and Richthofen Place were included in the Montclair Historic District, along with the granite Richthofen Fountain.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/noel-thomas-j" hreflang="und">Noel, Thomas J.</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/tuberculosis" hreflang="en">tuberculosis</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/montclair-neighborhood" hreflang="en">montclair neighborhood</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/montclair-denver" hreflang="en">montclair denver</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/denver-neighborhoods" hreflang="en">denver neighborhoods</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/denver-neighborhood-history" hreflang="en">denver neighborhood history</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/colfax-avenue" hreflang="en">Colfax Avenue</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/state-capitol" hreflang="en">State Capitol</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/baron-walter-von-richthofen" hreflang="en">Baron Walter von Richthofen</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/world-war-i" hreflang="en">world war I</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/molkery" hreflang="en">molkery</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/highline-canal" hreflang="en">highline canal</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/richthofen-castle" hreflang="en">Richthofen Castle</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/lawrence-c-phipps" hreflang="en">lawrence c phipps</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/lowry-air-base" hreflang="en">lowry air base</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/university-denver" hreflang="en">University of Denver</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/anschutz-medical-campus" hreflang="en">Anschutz Medical Campus</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/national-jewish-hospital" hreflang="en">national jewish hospital</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p><em>Montclair: The Beautiful Suburban Town of Denver, Colo, U.S.A.</em> (Denver: n.p., 1885).</p> <p>Thomas J. Noel and William J. Hansen, <em>The Montclair Neighborhood</em> (Denver: Historic Denver, Inc., 1999).</p> <p>Thomas J. Noel, <em>Richthofen’s Montclair: A Pioneer Denver Suburb. A Brief History, Illustrated Walking Tour, and Research Guide to Denver House and Neighborhood History</em> (Boulder, CO: Pruett Publishing, 1976).</p> <p><em>Prospectus of the Montclair Realty Company</em> (Denver: Montclair Realty, 1898).</p> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p>Stephen J. Leonard and Thomas J. Noel, <em>A Short History of Denver</em> (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2016).</p> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Sun, 20 Nov 2022 16:38:22 +0000 Nick Johnson 3852 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org Baron Walter von Richthofen http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/baron-walter-von-richthofen <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Baron Walter von Richthofen</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-article-image.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-article-image.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div id="carouselEncyclopediaArticle" class="carousel slide" data-bs-ride="true"> <div class="carousel-inner"> <div class="carousel-item active"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--3752--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--3752.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/montclair-colorado"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Montclair-Map-1887_0.jpg?itok=1rqhzI1i" width="1090" height="609" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/montclair-colorado" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Montclair, Colorado</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>This 1887 aerial drawing of Richthofen's Montclair development includes some real features, such as his castle, and some proposed amenities that never took shape, including a zoological garden.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2020-07-08T16:07:23-06:00" title="Wednesday, July 8, 2020 - 16:07" class="datetime">Wed, 07/08/2020 - 16:07</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/baron-walter-von-richthofen" data-a2a-title="Baron Walter von Richthofen"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fbaron-walter-von-richthofen&amp;title=Baron%20Walter%20von%20Richthofen"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>Baron von Richthofen (1859–98) was a flamboyant, versatile booster and developer who came to Colorado in 1878; he was one of many <strong>Germans</strong> who constituted the state’s largest foreign-born contingent between 1880 and 1910. Richthofen invested in <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/denver"><strong>Denver</strong></a> real estate, helped establish the suburban town of <strong>Montclair</strong> (now part of Denver), opened two extravagant beer gardens, and built a <strong>castle that has survived to the present</strong>. He also promoted Colorado as a health resort, attracting health seekers and helping to make medical care a major part of the state’s economy.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Lineage</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Walter Lothar Emil Eugen von Richthofen was born on January 30, 1859, in the former Prussian province of Silesia. The Richthofen clan had been promoted to the Prussian aristocracy by Frederick the Great for supporting his 1742 annexation of Silesia. The extensive Richthofen family held various estates, manor houses, palaces, and castles throughout Silesia. Walter was a kinsman of the famed explorer, geographer, and scientist Ferdinand von Richthofen, for whom Colorado’s Mount Richthofen is named, and also of Manfred von Richthofen, who would shoot down eighty Allied planes in <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado-world-war-i"><strong>World War I</strong></a> as the celebrated “Red Baron.” Two distant relatives, the beautiful and brilliant Richthofen sisters, were early feminists. Frieda von Richthofen deserted her husband and children to marry the English novelist D. H. Lawrence and settled down with him to a Bohemian life in Taos, New Mexico. Else von Richthofen, despite her marriage to a staid Heidelberg professor, pursued an independent career and a secret love affair with the renowned social scientist Max Weber.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Coming to America</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>As a teenager, Walter served in the Prussian Army during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. Shortly after the war, he sailed for New York and eventually arrived in Colorado in 1878. Impressed with this booming and hospitable state filled with many of his countrymen, he went back to Germany to bring back his English wife, Jane Oakley, and his two daughters. But his family was not as impressed with Colorado as the baron was, so they returned to Europe. The couple soon divorced, leaving the baron free to pursue Colorado women, who had already caught his eye.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Bouncing from Business to Business</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The jovial German with a military bearing waltzed through one enterprise after another. During the late 1870s, Richthofen’s Carlowitz Stock Farm near Denver specialized in purebred racehorses. In 1883 he uncorked a large beer garden in Jamestown, a small <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/boulder-county"><strong>Boulder County</strong></a> mining town. He bottled well water and peddled it as the “Carlsbad Mineral Water Company’s Ginger Champagne.” Later he speculated in <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/cripple-creek"><strong>Cripple Creek</strong></a> gold but never struck pay dirt. He invested in the Denver Circle Railroad, which never circled the city.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Some of the baron’s ventures saw greater success. In 1882 Richthofen, a founding member of the Denver Chamber of Commerce, joined <strong><em>Rocky Mountain News</em></strong> editor <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/william-n-byers"><strong>William Byers</strong></a>, <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/william-ah-loveland"><strong>William A.H. Loveland</strong></a>, Lieutenant Governor <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/horace-tabor"><strong>Horace Tabor</strong></a>, and other movers and shakers to create the <strong>National Mining and Industrial Exposition</strong>. They built a 150,000-square-foot hall at Broadway and what is now Exposition Avenue. The exposition showcased Colorado goods and services, especially mining and agriculture and other Colorado marvels, including a band of dancing <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/search/google/ute"><strong>Ute</strong></a> Indians. Next door, Richthofen constructed a large dining hall and concert beer garden, which he named Sans Souci (“without worry”) after Frederick the Great’s summer castle in Prussia. Along with the best imported wine, beer, and schnapps for gentlemen, Richthofen offered strawberries and cream for the ladies, as it was then considered improper for women to drink in social settings. Despite the delicacies, the Exposition closed in 1884, as did the so-called Baron’s Bower.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1885 the baron published <em>Cattle-Raising on the Plains of North America</em>, which proclaimed that Colorado’s “former <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article"><strong>Great American Desert</strong></a> is the largest and richest grass and pasture region in the world.” The baron’s own Carlowitz Ranch cattle venture did not fulfill the book’s promise that a “profit of 25 per cent per annum is the minimum the cattle business will yield.” Richthofen’s ranch, like so many others, suffered in the blizzards of 1885–86, often referred to as the “<strong>Great Die Up</strong>,” and the subsequent federal crackdown on ranchers’ use of public lands.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Montclair Town</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Although Richthofen’s cattle business failed, his book sold well. The baron invested the profits in real estate, dabbling in South Denver and North Denver before looking east. He joined Mathias Cochrane’s Montclair Town and Improvement Company. Their 1885 prospectus, <em>Montclair Colorado: The Beautiful Suburban Town</em>, conjured up drawings of a tree-shaded oasis with a horsecar, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and a castle. Those features actually materialized, unlike the zoological gardens, grand hotel, and a hydropathic establishment reminiscent of St. Peter’s in Rome, all unrealized Richthofen fantasies.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Cochrane, who hailed from Montclair, New Jersey, named the community for his hometown as well as for its panoramic view of the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/front-range"><strong>Front Range</strong></a>. “Beautiful Montclair,” crowed an ad in the <em>Denver</em> <em>Sunday Times</em>. “Magnificent Mountain View only 30 minutes east of downtown. Pure Air. Best Public schools. Handsomest suburb in greater Denver.”</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Richthofen Castle</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>As a show home for the infant community, Richthofen built his own castle at East Twelfth Avenue and Olive Street. Completed in 1886 at a cost of about $32,000 ($920,000 in 2019), the huge baronial edifice included a stone gatehouse topped by a large water tower served by an artesian well. With his castle, the baron hoped to catch a bride—a blue-eyed, golden-haired English divorcée, Louise Woodall Ferguson Davies. She married him on November 22, 1887. Following the honeymoon, however, the new baroness balked at moving into the prairie fortress.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>“The castle was lovely,” the baroness recalled later, “but it was a lonely place and the grounds were not attractive.” To accommodate her green dreams, Richthofen dug the Montclair Ditch, which he called a “moat” as it circled the castle grounds. This lateral of the <strong>Highline Canal</strong> allowed the baron to beautify the grounds with trees, rose bushes, gravel paths among marble statuary and fountains, and songbirds. Finally relenting, the baroness took up residence in the castle on their first anniversary.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Town Development</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Transportation remained a challenge. Initially, the baron had horse-drawn wagons take potential Montclair customers four miles east from the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/tabor-grand-opera-house"><strong>Tabor Grand Opera House</strong></a> downtown to see property in his new suburban town. Escorted by the baron and his hounds, the parade soon became known as the “Baron’s Circus.” By the late 1880s, Montclair had coaxed three streetcar lines to the new suburb along East Eighth, Seventeenth, and Colfax Avenues.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>To assure customers that they were buying a prestigious address, lots were drawn substantially larger than Denver's standard 25-by-125-foot parcels, and owners were required to spend at least $10,000 on their houses. Richthofen urged buyers to purchase an entire block, which they could farm or subdivide. As new residents streamed in, Montclair incorporated as a town in 1888 and was eventually annexed to Denver in 1902.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The scramble for lots in the suburban paradise came to an abrupt halt with the <strong>1893 silver crash</strong>. In Montclair, as in other suburbs, construction froze. Montclair was left with roughly one large house per block. More modest infill housing would not arrive until Denver’s post–<strong>World War II</strong> boom.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>The Molkerei</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>After the silver crash of 1893, Richthofen repackaged Montclair as a health spa, the Colorado Carlsbad. Of Richthofen’s elaborate scheme for a grand health spa, only one building was actually built, the Molkerei (milk house), anglicized to Molkery. Modeled after German and Swiss health spas, the Molkerei offered fresh air and sunshine on its open-air sun porches. Patients drank milk fresh from the Jersey cows stabled below and breathed the supposedly healthy barnyard effluvium rising from the stables. Shortly thereafter, however, the Molkerei was converted to a mental hospital. In 1908 Denver acquired the building and remodeled it as the city’s first community center.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Later Years</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The baron lived only a short while in his castle, which he sold in 1891 to fellow German John von Mueller (later Miller). While not traveling in Europe and elsewhere, he and the baroness lived in downtown Denver in the Hotel L’Imperial. After the 1893 crash and Miller’s default on the purchase, the baron and baroness repossessed the castle, which she sold in 1903 to <strong>Edwin Beard Hendrie</strong>.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Five years before the sale, on May 8, 1898, the baron had died from appendicitis at the age of forty-nine. The body was shipped back to the family vault in Silesia. He is memorialized in Denver by the castle, the Molkerei, and the Richthofen Fountain, constructed in 1900 by the town of Montclair and his widow, the baroness, at Oneida Street and Richthofen Parkway. All of these monuments are included in the 1975 Montclair Historic District embracing the heart of the old town.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/noel-thomas-j" hreflang="und">Noel, Thomas J.</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/baron-walter-von-richthofen" hreflang="en">Baron Walter von Richthofen</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/baron-richthofen" hreflang="en">Baron Richthofen</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/walter-von-richthofen" hreflang="en">Walter von Richthofen</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/richthofen-castle" hreflang="en">Richthofen Castle</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/montclair" hreflang="en">Montclair</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>Louisa Ward Arps, <em>Denver in Slices</em> (Denver: Sage Books, 1959).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Joachim Langhein (great-grandson of Baron Walter von Richthofen), email correspondence with Tom Noel, June 18, 2004.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Thomas J. Noel, <em>Richthofen’s Montclair: A Pioneer Denver Suburb</em> (Boulder: Pruett, 1978).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Thomas J. Noel and William J. Hansen, <em>The Montclair Neighborhood</em> (Denver: Historic Denver, 1999).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Walter von Richthofen, <em>Cattle-Raising on the Plains of North America</em> (New York: D. Appleton, 1885).</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p>Thomas J. Noel, <em>Buildings of Colorado</em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Amy B. Zimmer, <em>Denver’s Historic Homes</em> (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2013).</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-4th-grade--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-4th-grade.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-4th-grade.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-4th-grade field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-field-4th-grade"><p>Baron von Richthofen (1859–98) was a developer. He came to Colorado in 1878. Richthofen invested in Denver real estate. He helped establish the suburban town of Montclair (now part of Denver). Richthofen also opened two beer gardens and built a castle. He promoted Colorado as a health resort. This helped make medical care a major part of the state’s economy.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Lineage</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Walter Lothar Emil Eugen von Richthofen was born on January 30, 1859, in the former Prussian province of Silesia. The family held various estates. They included manor houses, palaces, and castles throughout Silesia. Walter was a kinsman of the famed explorer and scientist Ferdinand von Richthofen. He was also related to Manfred von Richthofen. Manfred would shoot down eighty Allied planes in World War I and be known as the “Red Baron.” Two distant relatives, the beautiful and brilliant Richthofen sisters, were early feminists. Frieda von Richthofen left her husband and children to marry the English novelist D. H. Lawrence. Else von Richthofen pursued an independent career and had secret love affair with the social scientist Max Weber.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Coming to America</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>As a teenager, Walter served in the Prussian Army during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. After the war, he sailed for New York. He arrived in Colorado in 1878 and liked the state. Richthofen brought his wife and two daughters to Colorado. His family was not as impressed with Colorado as the baron was. They returned to Europe. The couple soon divorced. This left the baron free to pursue Colorado women.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Bouncing from Business to Business</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Richthofen had many business ventures. During the late 1870s, Richthofen owned the Carlowitz Stock Farm. It specialized in purebred racehorses. In 1883, Richthofen uncorked a large beer garden in Jamestown. He also bottled well water. Richthofen sold it as the “Carlsbad Mineral Water Company’s Ginger Champagne.” Later he speculated in Cripple Creek gold. Richthofen never struck pay dirt.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Some of the baron’s ventures were more successful. In 1882 Richthofen joined Rocky Mountain News editor William Byers and others to create the National Mining and Industrial Exposition. They built a 150,000-square-foot hall. The exposition showcased Colorado goods and services. They focused on mining, agriculture, and other Colorado marvels, including a band of dancing Ute Indians. Next door, Richthofen constructed a large dining hall and concert beer garden. The Exposition closed in 1884.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1885 the baron published Cattle-Raising on the Plains of North America. However, the baron’s own Carlowitz Ranch cattle venture failed. Richthofen’s ranch suffered in the blizzards of 1885–86, also known as the “Great Die Up.”</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Montclair Town</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Although Richthofen’s cattle business was not successful, his book sold well. The baron invested the profits in real estate. He joined Mathias Cochrane’s Montclair Town and Improvement Company. They envisioned a tree-shaded oasis with a horsecar and a castle.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Cochrane hailed from Montclair, New Jersey. The community was named for his hometown.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Richthofen Castle</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Richthofen built a castle at East Twelfth Avenue and Olive Street. It was completed in 1886. The home cost about $32,000 ($920,000 in 2019). With his castle, the baron hoped to catch a bride. The English divorcée Louise Woodall Ferguson Davies married him on November 22, 1887. However, the new baroness did not want to live in the castle.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>“The castle was lovely,” the baroness said, “but it was a lonely place and the grounds were not attractive.” To accommodate her green dreams, Richthofen dug the Montclair Ditch. He called it a “moat” as it circled the castle grounds. This allowed the baron to beautify the grounds with trees, rose bushes, and marble fountains. The baroness moved into the castle on their first anniversary.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Town Development</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Transportation remained a challenge. The baron had horse-drawn wagons take potential Montclair customers to see property. The parade became known as the “Baron’s Circus.” By the late 1880s, Montclair had coaxed three streetcar lines to the new suburb.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Lots in Montclair were drawn much larger than Denver's standard 25-by-125-foot parcels. Owners were required to spend at least $10,000 on their houses. Richthofen urged buyers to purchase an entire block. Buyers could farm or subdivide the land. As new residents streamed in, Montclair incorporated as a town in 1888. It became part of Denver in 1902.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The scramble for lots came to a halt with the 1893 silver crash. Construction froze. Montclair had roughly one large house per block.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>The Molkerei</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>After the silver crash, Richthofen repackaged Montclair as a health spa. Only one building was built. It was modeled after German and Swiss health spas. The Molkerei offered fresh air and sunshine on its open-air sun porches. Patients drank milk fresh from the cows stabled below. Ultimately, the Molkerei was converted to a mental hospital. In 1908 Denver bought the building. It was remodeled and became city’s first community center.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Later Years</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The baron sold his castle in 1891 to fellow German John von Mueller (later Miller). He and the baroness lived in downtown Denver in the Hotel L’Imperial.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>On May 8, 1898, the baron died from appendicitis. He was forty-nine. His body was shipped back to the family vault in Silesia. He is memorialized in Denver by the castle and the Molkerei.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-8th-grade--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-8th-grade.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-8th-grade.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-8th-grade field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-field-8th-grade"><p>Baron von Richthofen (1859–98) was a developer. He came to Colorado in 1878. Richthofen invested in Denver real estate. He helped establish the suburban town of Montclair (now part of Denver). Richthofen also opened two beer gardens and built a castle. He promoted Colorado as a health resort, which helped make medical care a major part of the state’s economy.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Lineage</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Walter Lothar Emil Eugen von Richthofen was born on January 30, 1859, in the former Prussian province of Silesia. The Richthofen clan had been promoted to the Prussian aristocracy by Frederick the Great. The family held various estates which included manor houses, palaces, and castles throughout Silesia. Walter was a kinsman of the famed explorer, geographer, and scientist Ferdinand von Richthofen. He was also related to Manfred von Richthofen, who would shoot down eighty Allied planes in World War I as the celebrated “Red Baron.” Two distant relatives, the beautiful and brilliant Richthofen sisters, were early feminists. Frieda von Richthofen left her husband and children to marry the English novelist D. H. Lawrence. Else von Richthofen pursued an independent career and a secret love affair with the renowned social scientist Max Weber.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Coming to America</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>As a teenager, Walter served in the Prussian Army during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. After the war, he sailed for New York. He arrived in Colorado in 1878 and was impressed with the state. Richthofen brought his wife and two daughters to Colorado. His family was not as impressed with Colorado as the baron was. They returned to Europe. The couple soon divorced. This left the baron free to pursue Colorado women.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Bouncing from Business to Business</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Richthofen had many business ventures. During the late 1870s, Richthofen’s Carlowitz Stock Farm near Denver specialized in purebred racehorses. In 1883, he uncorked a large beer garden in Jamestown, a small Boulder County mining town. He bottled well water and peddled it as the “Carlsbad Mineral Water Company’s Ginger Champagne.” Later he speculated in Cripple Creek gold. Richthofen never struck pay dirt.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Some of the baron’s ventures were more successful. In 1882 Richthofen joined Rocky Mountain News editor William Byers, William A.H. Loveland, Lieutenant Governor Horace Tabor, and others to create the National Mining and Industrial Exposition. They built a 150,000-square-foot hall at Broadway and what is now Exposition Avenue. The exposition showcased Colorado goods and services. They focused on mining, agriculture, and other Colorado marvels, including a band of dancing Ute Indians. Next door, Richthofen constructed a large dining hall and concert beer garden. The Exposition closed in 1884.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1885 the baron published Cattle-Raising on the Plains of North America. It proclaimed that Colorado’s “former Great American Desert is the largest and richest grass and pasture region in the world.” The baron’s own Carlowitz Ranch cattle venture did not fulfill the book’s promise that a “profit of 25 per cent per annum is the minimum the cattle business will yield.” Richthofen’s ranch suffered in the blizzards of 1885–86, which is often referred to as the “Great Die Up.”</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Montclair Town</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Although Richthofen’s cattle business failed, his book sold well. The baron invested the profits in real estate. He dabbled in South Denver and North Denver before looking east. He joined Mathias Cochrane’s Montclair Town and Improvement Company. Their 1885 prospectus, Montclair Colorado: The Beautiful Suburban Town, included drawings of a tree-shaded oasis with a horsecar and a castle. Those features materialized.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Cochrane, who hailed from Montclair, New Jersey, named the community for his hometown.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Richthofen Castle</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Richthofen built his own castle at East Twelfth Avenue and Olive Street. It was completed in 1886 at a cost of about $32,000 ($920,000 in 2019). The huge baronial edifice included a stone gatehouse topped by a large water tower. With his castle, the baron hoped to catch a bride—the English divorcée, Louise Woodall Ferguson Davies. She married him on November 22, 1887. However, the new baroness balked at moving into the castle.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>“The castle was lovely,” the baroness recalled later, “but it was a lonely place and the grounds were not attractive.” To accommodate her green dreams, Richthofen dug the Montclair Ditch, which he called a “moat” as it circled the castle grounds. This allowed the baron to beautify the grounds with trees, rose bushes, and marble fountains. The baroness took up residence in the castle on their first anniversary.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Town Development</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Transportation remained a challenge. The baron had horse-drawn wagons take potential Montclair customers to see property in his new suburban town. The parade became known as the “Baron’s Circus.” By the late 1880s, Montclair had coaxed three streetcar lines to the new suburb.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Lots were drawn much larger than Denver's standard 25-by-125-foot parcels. Owners were required to spend at least $10,000 on their houses. Richthofen urged buyers to purchase an entire block. They could farm or subdivide the land. As new residents streamed in, Montclair incorporated as a town in 1888. It was annexed to Denver in 1902.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The scramble for lots in the suburban paradise came to an abrupt halt with the 1893 silver crash. Construction froze. Montclair was left with roughly one large house per block. More modest infill housing would not arrive until Denver’s post–World War II boom.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>The Molkerei</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>After the silver crash, Richthofen repackaged Montclair as a health spa. Only one building was built. Modeled after German and Swiss health spas, the Molkerei offered fresh air and sunshine on its open-air sun porches. Patients drank milk fresh from the Jersey cows stabled below. Ultimately, the Molkerei was converted to a mental hospital. In 1908 Denver acquired the building and remodeled it as the city’s first community center.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Later Years</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The baron sold his castle in 1891 to fellow German John von Mueller (later Miller). He and the baroness lived in downtown Denver in the Hotel L’Imperial. After the 1893 crash and Miller’s default on the purchase, the baron and baroness repossessed the castle and resold it.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>On May 8, 1898, the baron had died from appendicitis at the age of forty-nine. His body was shipped back to the family vault in Silesia. He is memorialized in Denver by the castle and the Molkerei.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-10th-grade--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-10th-grade.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-10th-grade.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-10th-grade field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-field-10th-grade"><p>Baron von Richthofen (1859–98) was a developer who came to Colorado in 1878. He was one of many Germans who constituted the state’s largest foreign-born contingent between 1880 and 1910. Richthofen invested in Denver real estate, helped establish the suburban town of Montclair (now part of Denver), opened two extravagant beer gardens, and built a castle. He also promoted Colorado as a health resort, attracting health seekers and helping to make medical care a major part of the state’s economy.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Lineag<strong>e</strong></h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Walter Lothar Emil Eugen von Richthofen was born on January 30, 1859, in the former Prussian province of Silesia. The Richthofen clan had been promoted to the Prussian aristocracy by Frederick the Great for supporting his 1742 annexation of Silesia. The extensive Richthofen family held various estates, manor houses, palaces, and castles throughout Silesia. Walter was a kinsman of the famed explorer, geographer, and scientist Ferdinand von Richthofen, for whom Colorado’s Mount Richthofen is named, and also of Manfred von Richthofen, who would shoot down eighty Allied planes in World War I as the celebrated “Red Baron.” Two distant relatives, the beautiful and brilliant Richthofen sisters, were early feminists. Frieda von Richthofen deserted her husband and children to marry the English novelist D. H. Lawrence and settled down with him to a Bohemian life in Taos, New Mexico. Else von Richthofen, despite her marriage to a staid Heidelberg professor, pursued an independent career and a secret love affair with the renowned social scientist Max Weber.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Coming to America</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>As a teenager, Walter served in the Prussian Army during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. Shortly after the war, he sailed for New York and arrived in Colorado in 1878. Impressed with this booming and hospitable state filled with many of his countrymen, he went back to Germany to bring back his English wife, Jane Oakley, and his two daughters. But his family was not as impressed with Colorado as the baron was, so they returned to Europe. The couple soon divorced. This left the baron free to pursue Colorado women.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Bouncing from Business to Business</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The jovial German with a military bearing waltzed through one enterprise after another. During the late 1870s, Richthofen’s Carlowitz Stock Farm near Denver specialized in purebred racehorses. In 1883 he uncorked a large beer garden in Jamestown, a small Boulder County mining town. He bottled well water and peddled it as the “Carlsbad Mineral Water Company’s Ginger Champagne.” Later he speculated in Cripple Creek gold. He never struck pay dirt. He invested in the Denver Circle Railroad, which never circled the city.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Some of the baron’s ventures saw greater success. In 1882 Richthofen, a founding member of the Denver Chamber of Commerce, joined Rocky Mountain News editor William Byers, William A.H. Loveland, Lieutenant Governor Horace Tabor, and other movers and shakers to create the National Mining and Industrial Exposition. They built a 150,000-square-foot hall at Broadway and what is now Exposition Avenue. The exposition showcased Colorado goods and services, especially mining and agriculture and other Colorado marvels, including a band of dancing Ute Indians. Next door, Richthofen constructed a large dining hall and concert beer garden, which he named Sans Souci (“without worry”) after Frederick the Great’s summer castle in Prussia. Along with the best imported wine, beer, and schnapps for gentlemen, Richthofen offered strawberries and cream for the ladies, as it was then considered improper for women to drink in social settings. Despite the delicacies, the Exposition closed in 1884, as did the so-called Baron’s Bower.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1885 the baron published Cattle-Raising on the Plains of North America, which proclaimed that Colorado’s “former Great American Desert is the largest and richest grass and pasture region in the world.” The baron’s own Carlowitz Ranch cattle venture did not fulfill the book’s promise that a “profit of 25 per cent per annum is the minimum the cattle business will yield.” Richthofen’s ranch, like so many others, suffered in the blizzards of 1885–86, often referred to as the “Great Die Up,” and the subsequent federal crackdown on ranchers’ use of public lands.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Montclair Town</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Although Richthofen’s cattle business failed, his book sold well. The baron invested the profits in real estate, dabbling in South Denver and North Denver before looking east. He joined Mathias Cochrane’s Montclair Town and Improvement Company. Their 1885 prospectus, Montclair Colorado: The Beautiful Suburban Town, conjured up drawings of a tree-shaded oasis with a horsecar, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and a castle. Those features actually materialized, unlike the zoological gardens, grand hotel, and a hydropathic establishment reminiscent of St. Peter’s in Rome, all unrealized Richthofen fantasies.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Cochrane, who hailed from Montclair, New Jersey, named the community for his hometown as well as for its panoramic view of the Front Range. “Beautiful Montclair,” crowed an ad in the Denver Sunday Times. “Magnificent Mountain View only 30 minutes east of downtown. Pure Air. Best Public schools. Handsomest suburb in greater Denver.”</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Richthofen Castle</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>As a show home for the infant community, Richthofen built his own castle at East Twelfth Avenue and Olive Street. Completed in 1886 at a cost of about $32,000 ($920,000 in 2019), the huge baronial edifice included a stone gatehouse topped by a large water tower served by an artesian well. With his castle, the baron hoped to catch a bride—a blue-eyed, golden-haired English divorcée, Louise Woodall Ferguson Davies. She married him on November 22, 1887. Following the honeymoon, however, the new baroness balked at moving into the prairie fortress.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>“The castle was lovely,” the baroness recalled later, “but it was a lonely place and the grounds were not attractive.” To accommodate her green dreams, Richthofen dug the Montclair Ditch, which he called a “moat” as it circled the castle grounds. This lateral of the Highline Canal allowed the baron to beautify the grounds with trees, rose bushes, gravel paths among marble statuary and fountains, and songbirds. Finally relenting, the baroness took up residence in the castle on their first anniversary.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Town Development</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Transportation remained a challenge. Initially, the baron had horse-drawn wagons take potential Montclair customers four miles east from the Tabor Grand Opera House downtown to see property in his new suburban town. Escorted by the baron and his hounds, the parade soon became known as the “Baron’s Circus.” By the late 1880s, Montclair had coaxed three streetcar lines to the new suburb along East Eighth, Seventeenth, and Colfax Avenues.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>To assure customers that they were buying a prestigious address, lots were drawn substantially larger than Denver's standard 25-by-125-foot parcels, and owners were required to spend at least $10,000 on their houses. Richthofen urged buyers to purchase an entire block, which they could farm or subdivide. As new residents streamed in, Montclair incorporated as a town in 1888 and was eventually annexed to Denver in 1902.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The scramble for lots in the suburban paradise came to an abrupt halt with the 1893 silver crash. In Montclair, as in other suburbs, construction froze. Montclair was left with roughly one large house per block. More modest infill housing would not arrive until Denver’s post–World War II boom.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>The Molkerei</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>After the silver crash of 1893, Richthofen repackaged Montclair as a health spa, the Colorado Carlsbad. Of Richthofen’s elaborate scheme for a grand health spa, only one building was actually built, the Molkerei (milk house), anglicized to Molkery. Modeled after German and Swiss health spas, the Molkerei offered fresh air and sunshine on its open-air sun porches. Patients drank milk fresh from the Jersey cows stabled below and breathed the supposedly healthy barnyard effluvium rising from the stables. Shortly thereafter, however, the Molkerei was converted to a mental hospital. In 1908 Denver acquired the building and remodeled it as the city’s first community center.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Later Years</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The baron lived only a short while in his castle, which he sold in 1891 to fellow German John von Mueller (later Miller). While not traveling in Europe and elsewhere, he and the baroness lived in downtown Denver in the Hotel L’Imperial. After the 1893 crash and Miller’s default on the purchase, the baron and baroness repossessed the castle, which she sold in 1903 to Edwin Beard Hendrie.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Five years before the sale, on May 8, 1898, the baron had died from appendicitis at the age of forty-nine. The body was shipped back to the family vault in Silesia. He is memorialized in Denver by the castle, the Molkerei, and the Richthofen Fountain, constructed in 1900 by the town of Montclair and his widow, the baroness, at Oneida Street and Richthofen Parkway. All of these monuments are included in the 1975 Montclair Historic District embracing the heart of the old town.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Wed, 08 Jul 2020 22:07:23 +0000 yongli 3385 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org