North Denver News

By Rebecca A. Hunt Over the past three months, I have been writing about the contributions of Northside women in helping immigrants. Now, I am going to look at the backlash that followed. The U.S. saw rapid immigration growth in the 1890s through the 1920s. Denver drew large numbers of new arrivals, but many were not like the white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants who came before. Many working-class and middle-class white people feared what... Read more...

By The Denver North Star staff Cine Mexicano Features ‘Dos Tipos de Cuidado’ and Special Guest Mariachi Sol de Mi Tierra Walking Tours Led by Historian Phil Goodstein Cine Mexicano Features ‘Dos Tipos de Cuidado’ and Special Guest Mariachi Sol de Mi Tierra Join the Northside Arts Collaborative and MCA Denver Sunday, June 9, 2 p.m., at the Holiday Theatre (2644 W. 32nd Ave.) for a screening of the 1953 romantic comedy... Read more...

By Rebecca A. Hunt Northside women organized the North Side Women’s Club (NSWC) in 1895. Its members were affluent women living in the Highlands as well as women who had moved from the area. From the beginning, the club included activist women who had a broad sense of what their role in the community should be.  The goal was to provide members with education on a broad range of subjects. The club’s mandate also included aiding those in... Read more...

By Rebecca Hunt The Northside is made up of many neighborhoods. In the past year or so you have heard about Highland, Jefferson Park and Sunnyside. This month we are moving on to the Berkeley neighborhood. I plan to do a series of pieces on Berkeley and then Regis in the coming few months. Berkeley lies between Federal Boulevard, West 38th, West 52nd and Sheridan Boulevard. According to the Historic Berkeley Regis Facebook page, when... Read more...

By Rebecca A. Hunt As our Northside has evolved we are losing many of the iconic institutions that marked us as a community of diverse people. What replaces the old businesses becomes the norm for the new residents, and memories of earlier uses fade. This is true of the block at the corner of West 23rd Avenue and Tejon Street. Now it is home to Ash’Kara with Señor Bear in the corner space that once housed Gerald Natale’s Tejon Drug... Read more...

By Rebecca A. Hunt, Ph.D. Occasionally, writers get something wrong. In my October 2023 column I mistakenly gave credit for assisting Mother Cabrini to the wrong man. Instead of Michael Notary, it should have been Frank Damascio. And the house that I said belonged to Michael Notary was the Frank Damascio house, which was the home used by Mother Cabrini. I want to thank Father Blaine Burkey, the archivist for the Capuchin Brothers in North... Read more...

By Rebecca A. Hunt In the 1870s, Denver had a shortage of hospitals. The county ran the Arapahoe County Hospital to treat the poor who had serious illnesses such as smallpox, diphtheria, cholera and of course the ever-present tuberculosis. The county hospital was at Speer Boulevard and 8th Avenue, at the present location of Denver Health. St. Vincent’s was a Catholic hospital that also treated the poor. It was first located in the... Read more...

By Rebeca A. Hunt Denver is a multimodal, transit-oriented city, with routes for cars, buses, bikes and walkers. All share the same streets. This is a legacy of the streetcar days of the 1870s to 1950. This month, we will look at the history of Denver’s streetcar system. Rebecca A. Hunt As Denver grew, adding new neighborhoods, there was concern that people would not move out of the core city unless they had a way to get from their... Read more...

By Rebecca A. Hunt It is finally May when we see spring flowers, warmer weather and when high school seniors can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Rebecca A. Hunt And no, it is not a train … it is graduation! Even after four years in the big building at West Speer Boulevard and Decatur Street, many students may not know the history of the venerable structure. This month’s column will rectify that problem. From its founding,... Read more...

By Rebecca A. Hunt Denver is rich in organizations that help people do research about our city. Many are especially good when it comes to documenting the North Denver. Rebecca Hunt My personal favorite is the Western History and Genealogy Department (WHG) of the Denver Public Library. It not only has great resources, but a staff devoted to assisting the public. A whole section of WHG is dedicated to documenting Denver... Read more...