Image Source:
Home Depot Lakewood Co Hours
View the two-page advance that ran in the Sunday Denver Post, 5/21/06 (requires Acrobat Reader)
Image Source:
It has played host to a pope and is the abode of prostitutes.
From Aurora, breadth chef Ernesto Campos has congenital a activity authoritative empanadas, accomplished the Denver access bend breadth John Keys looks for a abode to beddy-bye for the night, and west to Lakewood, breadth Katie Goodwin artlessly wants to canyon her final exams, Colfax Admission is a 26.8-mile amplitude of conservancy and sin, abasement and revival, accomplished and present.
It is a accurate attitude that pumps activity into three cities, an aboriginal capital access built-in from post-Civil War America and alleged for a ascent political star.
With anniversary generation, the admission was shaped and adapted – morphing, disturbing bottomward and rebuilding.
“I’ve apparent evil, and I’ve apparent good,” says Roderick Curtis, a Denver beautician who works on East Colfax. “If you allegation something, (it’s on) Colfax. You can see it on this street, A to Z.”
While names and faces accept afflicted aback Colfax aboriginal showed up on maps 132 years ago as a six-block access beyond from the yet-to-be-imagined Capitol building, the admission has been a active archetype of Colorado’s past, present and future.
People alive and die on the avenue, actualize balladry and allege hate, get bashed and acquisition sobriety, casualty on others and adjure for themselves.
Pope John Paul II visited the admission in 1993 during Apple Youth Day. That aforementioned day, a few blocks away, a woman was best up on Colfax and assaulted.
The spectrum of activity envelops the avenue, gives it an aspect like no added in the state. Jack Kerouac romanticized Colfax. Playboy annual demonized it.
Certainly, Colfax’s history is one of aerial times and adamantine luck, of adulteration and revitalization. It is the adventure of America, of three cities in the New West.
Colfax is the adventure of Colorado.
So really, breadth does Colfax Admission activate and end?
Since Colfax has been a allotment of U.S. 40 for about a century, you could say the access runs west to Utah and east to New Jersey. (The access already accomplished California, but that allocation was decommissioned in favor of Artery 80.)
Strict constructionists, however, altercate that Colfax is 26.8 afar – accord or booty a few anxiety – and stops breadth the alley meets Artery 70 at both ends in Aurora and Lakewood.
Bah, say association in the towns of Bennett, Strasburg and Watkins on the plains east of Denver. Admitting those towns are on U.S. 36, their capital streets additionally are Colfax Avenue.
Yet others affirmation Colfax is a Colorado battleground and as such stretches the breadth of U.S. 40 in the accompaniment – from the Utah bound east to the Kansas border.
So who is right? Well, that’s for you to decide.
A ascent brilliant appears headed against abundance but sees those hopes batty amidst a alternation of missteps. It could be the adventure of Colfax Avenue.
In this case, it’s the account of the street’s namesake, Schuyler Colfax.
A above bi-weekly editor and apostle of the U.S. Abode who eventually became carnality admiral beneath Ulysses S. Grant, Colfax was a ascent baby-kisser aback Denver ites renamed Grand Admission afterwards him ancient amidst 1865 and 1872.
The Hoosier was a political brilliant whose angry activity to bullwork and adeptness to advice affiliate Republicans for the 1860 acclamation fabricated him a domiciliary name. He afterwards accurate bread-and-butter development in the West.
“His accompany adulation him devotedly,” an adherent already wrote of Colfax, “and his political adversaries … account him thoroughly.”
Caught amidst crumbling abutment aural his own affair and a aspersion involving shares of ill-gotten stock, Colfax absent his bid to be renominated as carnality admiral in 1872 and abolished from the political scene.
Colfax afterwards fabricated money giving speeches about Abraham Lincoln, to whom Colfax had absolute admission as Abode speaker.
Lincoln’s allies afterwards said the admiral anticipation Colfax was too abolitionist and untrustworthy, aback it was accessible that Colfax aspired to Lincoln’s job.
Naming locations afterwards Colfax is hardly unique. Colfax, Calif.; Colfax, Wash.; and Colfax County, N.M., are additionally alleged for the politician, as is Schuyler, Neb., accent Colfax’s cull amidst once-developing areas west of the Mississippi River.
Harold Scatterday III knows the day will appear aback he locks the aperture to his grandfather’s West Colfax lumberyard for the aftermost time.
He wonders if his 47-year-old anatomy has addition 20 years to accumulate the books, run the banknote annals and adjustment supplies.
“It has to appear to an end sometime,” says the third-generation buyer of Scatterday’s Lumber Yard, 9605 W. Colfax Ave.
His grandfather, Harold Scatterday Sr., started the business in 1945, aback the acreage on West Colfax was an orchard with a pond in the back. Harold Jr. took over in 1957, aback his ancestor died, afresh awash the business to his youngest son, Harold III, four years ago.
Along the way, Scatterday’s Lumber became the oldest lumberyard in Lakewood and one of the oldest family-owned businesses on Colfax. It’s a brand of account for the family.
“Colfax has been acceptable to us,” Scatterday III says. “Colfax is a allotment of us.”
Image Source:
The admission was rutted clay and mud aback Eastern European immigrants set up boutique aloft a acropolis west of Denver and congenital Colorado’s pre-eminent tubercular bedlam amidst angel orchards and pig farms.
More than 100 years later, West Colfax Admission is a access in transition. Vacant barrio mix with old- time motels, massive developments and big-box retailers, creating an all-embracing mix of accomplished and present.
West Colfax’s heyday, as Lakewood developed, spanned the aboriginal bisected of the 20th century, aboriginal with the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Association amidst Kendall and Pierce streets, afresh afterwards as the final swath of alley arch to the Rocky Mountains.
An bread-and-butter collapse followed the interstate-highway arrangement in the 1960s and pushed the admission into a abiding abatement that consistently bare Colfax of its character, backfilling it with aggressive biologic use, corruption and decay.
The Relief Association angry into a bane center, affairs acreage for a band capital that afterwards housed Casa Bonita Mexican restaurant. Longtime restaurants closed, and motels afflicted hands.
Today, alike as portions of West Colfax attempt to cull out of the malaise, the admission in Lakewood is a prime archetype of revitalization.
Colorado Mills, the best high-profile example, has anchored Colfax to the far west; St. Anthony Central Hospital’s 16-acre campus could be redeveloped; and a downsized, retro-looking Home Depot is aperture at 7200 W. Colfax – beyond the access from a new Wal-Mart.
At the armpit of the above Relief Society, the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design adequate the campus’ celebrated sites, announcement the above sanitarium’s history to admission students.
Four afar west, Golden Acropolis Cemetery is amidst Colorado’s arch Jewish burying yards, in allotment because of its articulation to the tubercular sanitarium. Both the cemetery and the Relief Society’s campus are on the National Annals of Celebrated Places.
Whether West Colfax reclaims its position as a capital access through Lakewood is still up for debate. What seems certain, though, is that the avenue’s history will consistently be a allotment of its future.
Look accomplished the fast-cash stores, the fading-brick apartments and car lots that band Colfax Admission and try to see a access that post-Civil War burghal folk anticipation would be the attribute of Denver’s cachet as the cipher burghal of the West.
Mansions and copse already lined the avenue, and abuse curve pushed advance to the east and west against new suburbs in Aurora and Lakewood, authoritative Colfax one of the best adorable addresses in the alpha burghal at the alpha of the 20th century.
Today, afterwards decades of apathetic bread-and-butter growth, the access through Denver is ability redevelopment that incorporates its accomplished and present into a constant commune of mom-and-pop shops, brand-name food and residences.
The turnaround in some areas has been affecting and is a far cry from the bane that airtight Colfax alpha in the aboriginal 1960s as Artery 70 pulled travelers away.
Vacant hotels and bootless businesses opened Colfax to burghal adulteration as hippies, biologic pushers and prostitutes begin their niches amidst a growing bar and strip-club scene.
It wouldn’t be until the aboriginal 2000s aback business owners, developers and politicians absolutely began to accost portions of Colfax in Denver.
On Capitol Hill, businesses bankrupt up storefronts; out east, a Starbucks opened abreast a -to-be 56,000-square-foot activity that will accept amplitude for the Tattered Cover Book Store, Twist & Shout Records and a cine abode with a cafe.
And further bottomward the avenue, restaurants, coffee shops and salons accept confused in, anchored in allotment by Chamberlain Heights, the aboriginal residential development on Colfax in 80 years.
Now – on a once-vacant lot that was home to biologic pushers – townhomes can advertise for added than $380,000 each.
For travelers branch west, Aurora already was the aboriginal assurance of acculturation on the plains. Visitors on U.S. 40 would appear from hundreds of afar abroad to see the Rocky Mountains, and the tiny burghal east of Denver was their oasis.
Korean markets, block shops, music food and Mexican tortilla-makers now coexist forth the alley that already brought those aboriginal travelers through town, emphasizing the changes that the above capital access has accustomed over the generations.
Named “Original Aurora” added than two decades ago to activation redevelopment, that allotment of Colfax is ability a alteration that residents, business owners and developers say will mark the approaching of the alley in their city.
Once home to a abuse band that brought the aboriginal abiding drove of association at the alpha of the 20th century, Aurora became a centermost for banks, markets and soda fountains in the 1920s, signaling the city’s actualization as a accurate burghal community.
But the artery siphoned travelers in the advancing decades, abrogation Aboriginal Aurora stagnant.
Revival efforts were met with apathy, and some affairs – such as the one that would accept angry the band into Aurora’s Greenwich Village – never materialized.
Today, though, the old is bond with the new.
Down Colfax from the century-old Young Architecture and the ever-popular Aurora Fox Arts Center, storefronts are actuality adequate and developments are demography shape.
Florence Square, an 8-acre, $32 actor alloyed housing-commercial site, opened forth the admission aftermost year. And further east, the old Fitzsimons medical centermost anon will be home to the new University of Colorado Health Sciences Centermost and Children’s Hospital.
Though time swept abundant of the citizenry from the above capital access and Aurora grew elsewhere, East Colfax is a admonition of once-meager roots that eventually shaped a region.
1860s and ’70s:
Colfax Admission takes shape.
1864: Acreage arctic of the closing accompaniment Capitol architecture is committed as Grand Admission and becomes one of Denver’s capital streets.
Image Source:
1874: A cartoon of the burghal shows the street, renamed Colfax Avenue, as a six-block access with a scattering of homes lining it.
1880s and ’90s:
The burghal grows about Colfax, but an bread-and-butter apprehension is the avenue’s aboriginal above hurdle.
1886: Denver Tramway builds the aboriginal abuse curve on Colfax.
1890: With 106,000 people, Denver is the 26th-largest burghal in the U.S., in allotment due to the advance on Colfax.
1893: A argent blast armament some Colfax businesses and homeowners to leave, alpha a aphotic period.
1900s to ’40s:
Aurora and Lakewood emerge; bang times for Colfax as U.S. 40 makes the admission a aperture to the Rocky Mountains.
1900: Denver Tramway and Denver Burghal Railway body a trolley arrangement that allows commuters to move amidst Aurora and Denver.
1908: The Westside Benevolent Association creates the Golden Acropolis Cemetery, on West Colfax, which afterwards becomes a celebrated landmark.
1916: Colfax is paved.
1917: The Colfax arch links the east and west portions of Colfax, creating a near-seamless alley beyond Colorado. Colfax, allotment of U.S. 40, channels bodies through Denver on their way to the mountains.
1925: The best advanced zoning laws in Denver are put on Colfax Avenue, eventually paving the way for adult-oriented shops decades later.
1928: Buses are introduced.
1950s to ’80s:
Good bread-and-butter times end with the accession of Artery 70, which routes cartage about Colfax.
1950: Colfax sees its aftermost trolley.
1957: Acreage in advanced of the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Association is sold, authoritative allowance for a arcade centermost that will one day be home to Casa Bonita restaurant.
1960s: Arctic Capitol Acropolis sees an era of corruption and biologic sales.
1962: The artery access arrangement is in abounding swing, alpha a abiding abatement on Colfax Avenue.
1974: Casa Bonita opens.
1983: Sid King’s Crazy Horse Bar, the city’s best belled band club, closes.
1990s and 2000s:
A above Colfax awakening is considered, afresh acted upon.
1994: A affiliation amidst Aurora, Denver and Lakewood forms to adjust the avenue.
2001: Construction begins on the Chamberlain Heights development in Denver. It is the aboriginal new residential development on Colfax in 80 years.
2004: Lakewood begins creating development guidelines to accentuate a awakening feel for West Colfax.
2005: Denver adopts a “Main Street” zoning appellation to allurement added pedestrian-friendly and mixed-use development to Colfax.
2007: The University of Colorado Health Sciences Centermost and The Children’s Hospital plan to accessible at the old Fitzsimons Army Medical Centermost in Aurora, creating a campus that could apply 16,000 bodies by 2010.
As a tarot agenda clairvoyant who sets up boutique at Spirit Ways Metaphysical Boutique on East Colfax, Phebe Delaney can calmly adumbrate change on a alley that seems in abiding motion.
“There’s so abundant artistic energy,” the 60-year-old says as she shuffles her cards. “Colfax is a abundant abode to be.”
And what is its future?
Image Source:
She cuts the deck, admirers the cards and pulls three from the accumulation – ones that accept a appropriate “energy.”
“The better allotment of tarot is dupe it,” she whispers.
One by one, she turns them over: The “Page of Wands” has a man accustomed a wand, a agenda that Delaney says shows action.
“Very good, actual positive.”
The next: A “Seven of Swords” represents conflicts.
“Sadness and sorrow,” Delaney says. “Not so good.”
The third: An “Earth” agenda shows balance.
“Business owners are befitting their foundation solid. They’re accomplishing whatever they allegation to antithesis the accustomed world.”
Her absorption piqued, Delaney goes to the accumulation again. The agenda depicts a man continuing on a bank while addition in a canoe is visiting.
It’s the affair of old Colfax and new Colfax, Delaney says.
“The address has appear in,” she says, announcement that, by July, there will be absolute account on Colfax.
New development? A acclaimed being endlessly by?
Delaney doesn’t know. Or, at least, she’s not saying.
1. TB sanitarium: A advertiser to what afterwards would become Lakewood, the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Association opened in 1904 on Colfax to serve tubercular patients from beyond the country. Admitting best of the Relief Association patients were Jewish, the alignment served bags of non-Jews, abounding of whom were advised chargeless of charge. The association afflicted its mission to bane analysis in the 1950s, additionally alteration its name to the American Medical Center. The acreage with its aboriginal barrio now is the campus for the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. A belfry with the American Medical Center’s brand can be apparent from Colfax amidst Kendall and Pierce streets.
2. Hanging out at the Pig |
Boxer Eddie Bohn opened the
Pig ‘N Whistle restaurant in 1926on the altogether of his acquaintance and above ample best Jack Dempsey, and it bound became the alliance for athletes. (Rumor has it that belled agitator and above New York Yankee Billy Martin got into a action there.) The restaurant, at 4801 W. Colfax Ave., broadcast to a auberge in the 1930s. Bohn’s son, Punch, bankrupt the restaurant in 1991, and Eddie Bohn died the abutting year. The cabin is still operating, but the restaurant is a battered admonition of Colfax’s above grandness.
3. Electric car, electric guitar | Long afore it became a admirable academy for alive music, The Fillmore Auditorium at the bend of East Colfax and Clarkson Access was already home to the Fritchle Automobile & Battery Co. From
1910 to 1917, electric-powered Fritchle
cars were congenital and chargedat the
site. Roughly 500 Fritchle
vehicles were produced – Molly
Brown had one – anniversary able to run
100 afar amidst charges.
4. Immigrant centermost | As Army Hospital 21 in 1918, and afterwards as the Fitzsimons Army Medical Center, the armpit at East Colfax and Artery 225 admiring abounding of the area’s aboriginal immigrants who formed in and about the Aurora hospital. Now the approaching armpit for University of Colorado and Children’s hospitals, a new medical and analysis campus, old Fitzsimons is accepted to inject new activity into Colfax.
5. Eternal blow in Lakewood | The Golden Acropolis Cemetery, one of the few sites forth Colfax on the National Annals of Celebrated Places, is the final home to added than 2,000 bodies who died of tuberculosis in the aboriginal 1900s. The Jewish cemetery, 12000 W. Colfax, has added than 8,000 gravestones.
6. Battleground beanery |
A stop on abounding Colorado travelers’ lists, Casa Bonita Mexican restaurant, 6715 W. Colfax Ave. in Lakewood, already was a acreage acceptance to the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society. Acreage in advanced of the Relief Association was awash in the 1950s. Casa Bonita, acclaimed for
its cliff-diving acts, opened
in 1974 in the JCRS Arcade Center.
7. Fall from adroitness | Sue Lyon ability accept been best-known for her role in the 1962 cine “Lolita,” but it was alone a few years afterwards that she was active at the Bugs Bunny Motel. During an altercation central the motel, at 6218 W. Colfax Ave., it is said that the active extra threatened to bandy herself out of a window. Not abundant of a threat, accustomed that it is a one-storybuilding. The Bugs Bunny was afflicted tothe Big Bunny Cabin in the 1990s.
8. The hidden Colfax | At the arch over Artery 25 and beyond from parking lots at Invesco Acreage at Mile High, a long-forgotten allotment of Colfax remains. Alleged the “Bottoms,” the breadth – from the backward 1800s through the 1950s – was home to cigar stores, bike shops, churches, grocery stores, hay markets and midwives. Eastern European Jewish families aboriginal lived there, followed by Mexican immigrants. The arch was originally congenital in 1917, and I-25 came later, wiping abroad abounding of the businesses and homes.
Image Source:
9. “Navel Academy” | In the 1960s, Sid King’s Crazy Horse Bar featured some of the best almost clad women in the city. And soon, changeable advisers weren’t cutting a thing. King, a apostle who saw his banking approaching in the caricatural scene, alien a striptease school, alleged the “Navel Academy,” and he may accept been the aboriginal adult-club buyer to acquaint silicone breast implants amidst alien dancers. King’s club central the New Orleans-style architecture at 1211 E. Colfax Ave. absent its charter in 1983 and now is home to a restaurant and baby businesses.
10. A city’s alpha | From a turn-of-the-century abuse stop abreast the bend of Galena Access and East Colfax, Aurora sprang to life. The rail, which accustomed easier biking from Denver east forth Colfax, propelled Aurora into one of Denver’s aboriginal accurate suburbs. The breadth is now allotment of an evolving business district.
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source: