Hilltop: History of a Denver Neighborhood

Overlooking the city at an elevation of 5,434 feet, Hilltop provides its visitors and residents with some of the most magnificent views in Denver of the peaks that comprise the front range. The neighborhood extends north to south from Eighth Avenue to Alameda Avenue, and west to east from Colorado Boulevard to Holly Street. Though it is bordered by some of the city's busiest streets, the neighborhood of Hilltop, tucked in the southeast corner of Denver, maintains an air of suburban serenity. This is a result of the fact that Hilltop is almost entirely a residential area. Houses fill nearly every plot of every block, but there was a time when the neighborhood was nothing more than a distant hill in Denver's surrounding horizon.

As with the rest of the Denver area, the Cheyenne and Arapaho came to inhabit the area around 1800. The area did not attract settlers or development until the city of Denver implemented the construction of the City Lateral Canal, an extension of the High Line Canal, in 1883. The canal ran roughly between what is now Fourth and Third Avenues. Water began to flow to Hilltop in 1885, making the arid landscape of the area habitable for settlers.

The development of neighboring townships of Montclair, Harman (now Cherry Creek North), and Leetsdale in the late 1880s likewise indicated the growing potential of the area. The Platte Land Co., Ltd., owned by railroad magnate Jay Gould, sold the land that comprised the northern part of Hilltop to Bradford DuBois, who derived his fortune from Leadville silver, and lawyer William H. Malone in 1892. The City of Denver annexed the Malone and Dubois Subdivision, along with the East Capitol Hill Subdivision (established 1886) in 1893. These two subdivisions were the foundation of the future Hilltop neighborhood. ¹ 

The water from the City Lateral Canal eventually made Hilltop a desirable place to live. Many of the early residents were skilled laborers, including brakemen, bricklayers, stonecutters, seamstresses, and shoemakers. White-collar workers, such as clerks and bookkeepers, also inhabited the area. Early residents typically lived in proximity to the canal in order to maintain chickens, goats, and gardens for subsistence. Additionally, because of the proximity to the upscale Montclair neighborhood, from the start, Hilltop attracted many affluent lawyers, physicians, and businessmen. ² 

Louis Dugal, living at 4775 East Sixth Avenue, became Hilltop’s first resident in 1888. Dugal, born in New York in 1842,  first came to Colorado in 1860 in the wake of the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush. The Civil War brought Dugal back east. He enlisted in the 146th New York Regiment in 1862, first as a corporal and then as a sergeant. During his service, he sustained severe injuries, and his left leg was amputated. The Confederate Army held Dugal as a prisoner of war at Andersonville Prison from May 1864 until March 1865. 

After his release from Andersonville and honorable discharge from the Union Army, Dugal returned to Colorado. Dugal worked for the U.S. Land Office. Dugal produced a detailed map of Denver in 1868, which the Board of Trade “approved and promoted.” According to historian Alice Millett Bakemeier, this was “[o]ne of Dugal’s best-known accomplishments.”  A digitized version of the map is available to view here.  Dugal wrote a pamphlet to accompany the map  (view the pamphlet here)  in which he described his aims for the map’s creation: “[I]t is all important that it should be shown to those interested that [Denver] is something more than a ‘paper town.’” Dugal’s map and pamphlet were important efforts of boosterism in Denver’s early years.

Dugal eventually became a prominent land attorney and lived in his house on Sixth Avenue and Dahlia Street until his death in 1919. He would be the first of many of his profession to call Hilltop home. ³ 

The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, a charitable and political organization devoted to various reformist causes, established the Colorado Cottage, a home for unwed mothers, in 1906. The home was located at 427 Fairfax Street, one of the few homes built in Hilltop before the twentieth century. The house was built in 1893, the same year of the Silver Panic. Because of the recession that followed the Panic, the house remained unoccupied until the WCTU purchased it over ten years after its construction. 

By 1906, Hilltop was still rather remote and isolated from Denver. Far from the gaze of “decent society,” 427 Fairfax was “ideal” for the purpose of housing women who many at the time deemed “wayward” and indecent, and their children illegitimate. 

A scandal regarding the Colorado Cottage and WCTU president, Adrianna Hungerford (1859-1946), broke in January of 1930. Other members within the WCTU accused Hungerford and those managing the Colorado Cottage of failing to follow legal procedure when putting children up for adoption. Members alleged that the home engaged in “farming out” and “bootlegging babies,” blackmailing unmarried mothers, and keeping inaccurate records. The scandal led to the conversion of the Colorado Cottage into a home for the elderly in 1933. The ordeal created a devastating rift amongst the leading members of the WCTU, but the charges failed to remove Hungerford from power. Less than two years later, 427 Fairfax became a private residence when Roy Spore, an early resident of Hilltop, purchased the home. ⁵  

Though homes appeared in Hilltop in the later years of the nineteenth century, it would take several decades before the neighborhood saw sustained development. Regular development began in the mid-1920s. Parkway Realty Company sold around 500 lots in Hilltop in 1924. By 1928, there were 42 residences in the neighborhood, compared to only 24 in 1910. Due to the promotion and planning of developers, businessmen, and members of the city government, Hilltop experienced drastic growth by the mid-twentieth century. ⁶ 

One of the most important contributors to Hilltop's development was George E. Cranmer. Hilltop first attracted Cranmer because the area provided a pleasant view of the mountains, thanks to its elevation. George E. Cranmer and his wife, Jean Chappell, whose own life and accomplishments will be explained in more detail later, used to ride horses in the area to watch the sunset. The two enjoyed the area so much that they chose to build a house there. In 1916, Cranmer purchased several lots to create his residence at 200 Cherry Street. As part of the City Beautiful movement, the city purchased land in the area to build a park. Upon discovering this, Cranmer decided to build his house as close to the future park as possible.

Born in Denver in 1884, George E. Cranmer came from a cattle ranching family from Texas. Cranmer attended East High School and then received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1907. Cranmer managed his family’s cattle business for a short period before he began to work with stock broker James H. Causey. He later worked with A.E. Wilson, with whom he founded the financial firm Wilson and Cranmer. Cranmer liquidated the business in 1928, narrowly avoiding the 1929 Stock Market Crash and financial catastrophe. The firm was so successful that he was wealthy enough to retire at age 44.

Instead of retirement, however, Cranmer chose to get involved with politics and public service. Cranmer served as campaign manager for Benjamin Stapleton’s second mayoral run. Today, Benjamin Stapleton’s involvement with the Ku Klux Klan is well-known. Hearing of Cranmer’s association with Stapleton and of his contributions to his political success is bound to raise some eyebrows. From the evidence available, it appears that Cranmer himself was never directly involved with the Klan. The only reference Cranmer ever made to Stapleton’s association with the KKK was in a tribute he wrote for the former mayor after his death. Cranmer excused Stapleton’s controversial relationship with the Klan, stating that the “community” clearly “approved” of it since Denverites “re-elected him so many times.”

Because Cranmer helped Stapleton get elected, the mayor made Cranmer Manager of Improvements and Parks for the city of Denver, a position that allowed him to create some of the city's, and the state's, most important developmental projects and iconic recreational areas. Serving from 1935-1947, George Cranmer developed parks throughout Denver, including Cranmer Park in Hilltop. Cranmer oversaw the creation of Red Rocks Park, Winter Park, and the Moffat Tunnel water project, which provided the city of Denver with access to water from the western slope. These projects were made possible by the thousands of men Cranmer directed in the Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps. When asked what he felt his greatest accomplishment was from 1935-1947, Cranmer stated, “[b]ringing that water over,” in reference to the Moffat Tunnel water project. Denver’s future development would not have been possible without it. ⁸  

The city of Denver’s plans to develop what is now Cranmer Park dated all the way back to 1906, making it Hilltop's first park. That year, the city purchased the land under the direction of Mayor Robert W. Speer. The designation of the area as a park was part of Denver’s City Beautiful Movement, in which Mayor Robert Speer endeavored to make Denver a more sanitary and scenic city in the early twentieth century.

It was not until the 1930s that Cranmer developed and landscaped the area, then called Mountain View Park (the city did not name the park after Cranmer until 1959). Sacrifices had to be made to turn the park into what it is today. As Manager of Improvements and Parks, Cranmer had the authority to tell the Spore family, the occupants of 160 Bellaire Street, to vacate their home so that it could be demolished. Cranmer had the house, built in the 1890s for John E. Leet, and the landscaping that surrounded it leveled to the ground. Cranmer removed anything that obstructed the picturesque view of the mountains from the park, hence why even today the park is treeless. 

This move was not unusual for Cranmer. He was willing to make unpopular choices to accomplish his visions for the projects he undertook as Manager of Parks and Improvements, which sometimes led Denverites to be deeply critical of him. Lee Casey, a columnist for the Denver Post, described Cranmer's approach to public service: Cranmer tended to give the city's residents "not what they want, but what he thinks is good for them."

The Works Progress Administration provided Cranmer with the labor he needed to improve the park. The laborers of the WPA landscaped the park and installed the park’s viewing platform and flagstone mosaic. The art division of the WPA created the mosaic, which depicts some of Colorado’s most iconic mountain peaks. The mosaic provides the names and altitudes of the mountains, so that visitors may reference it and identify the peaks as they enjoy the view of the range from the park. ⁹ 

The creation of Hilltop’s first school followed the first wave of major development that took place in the neighborhood in the mid-1920s. Grace Laird and Virginia Braswell established the “private” and “parent-owned” school at 30 Birch Street, just across from Cranmer Park, in 1928. Originally located on Colfax Avenue, a group of parents decided to move the school because of Hilltop’s isolation from the city center. Parents favored the new location because their children would be surrounded by views of mountains and prairies rather than by the cityscape of downtown. Jules Jaques Benois Benedict, the architect of George Cranmer’s 200 Cherry Street home, designed the school’s original building. ¹⁰ 

The establishment of Hilltop's first public school increased Hilltop's residential appeal and prospects for growth. Denver Public Schools opened Amos Steck Elementary at 450 Albion Street in 1930. Amos Steck, the school’s namesake, came to Colorado during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush in 1859. Steck was chosen for the honor because he was mayor of Denver in 1863 and 1864, the first president of Denver School District No. 1, a city attorney, and a county judge. Steck helped establish one of the city's first public schools, making him a “pioneer patron of Denver schools." ¹¹ 

The construction of the Cinderella Home at 5010 E Sixth Avenue was the result of one of Harry Huffman’s, a Denver theater mogul, promotional “bank nights.” To draw patrons to his theaters, particularly during the Great Depression, Huffman hosted drawings every week at his many theaters throughout Denver in which he typically gave away cash prizes. One such drawing, however, was for the large, avant-garde white villa, which came to be known as the Cinderella Home. Huffman and the Denver Real Estate Board constructed the house in the Hilltop neighborhood in 1935. Hilltop was still a rather new residential area in the early stages of its development at this time. The publicity stunt was meant to draw people to Huffman theaters and to attract new residents to the neighborhood. 

A young, poor couple from Brooklyn became the winners of the luxurious home on June 25, 1936. The couple came to Denver with nearly nothing, and in a twist of fate, they just so happened to “spen[d] their last cent for theater tickets,” which entered them into the massive drawing. Florence and Charles Moegelin came to Denver so that Charles could find work as a chemist. When the story first broke, they were going by the assumed name of Duryea, the name that a justice of the peace in Chicago married them under. Charles Moegelin explained that the couple had originally changed their names due to “a little family trouble” and the desire for a “fresh start.” To sign the title to the house, however, the couple needed to come forward with their real names.

To remedy the situation, a day after the drawing, Harry Huffman and other charitable merchants in Denver hosted a wedding for the couple in their new house, providing them with the food and clothes they needed for the event. The couple received a special marriage license granted through a court order. Huffman escorted Florence, a “modern Cinderella,” as the Rocky Mountain News described her, down the aisle. Her and Charles were remarried under their real names. The Rocky Mountain News regarded the whole affair as “[t]he stuff of which dreams are made.”

The fantastical nature of the story does suggest that it could have been orchestrated by Huffman, the Real Estate Board, and the Rocky Mountain News. The story produced a significant amount of press coverage that successfully promoted interest in Huffman theaters as well as Hilltop. Real or not, at a time when the nation was still in the throes of the Depression, the romantic rags-to-riches story nevertheless inspired a bit of hope in the hearts of some Denverites who, too, may have been waiting for a break from their own economic troubles and turmoil. ¹² 

Jean Chappell Cranmer was an important patron of the arts in Denver. She and her brother, Delos A. Chappell Jr., donated the Chappell House, the former residence of their father. The house served as the Denver Art Museum from 1922-1975. Jean established and led several organizations dedicated to generating public interest in all forms of art and to supporting artists. These organizations included the Friends of Chamber Music, the Allied Arts, and the Denver Civic Symphony Society.

Jean Chappell Cranmer along with Anne Evans, Ida Kruse McFarlane, and Burnham Hoyt founded the Allied Arts in 1920. The organization was primarily dedicated to providing scholarships and funding opportunities to young artists in Denver. In the words of Jean Cranmer, the Allied Arts supported “gifted young people who lacked the means of development of their gifts.” In addition to funding, the organization provided young artists with the “opportunity to appear before Denver audiences, public and private.” The Allied Arts provided artists with access to education and exposure. Additionally, its programs created a greater number of platforms that allowed the Denver public to experience and enjoy the arts. To commemorate Cranmer's philanthropic efforts, the University of Denver granted her an honorary doctoral degree in Humane Letters in 1965.

The organizations that Jean established brought several prominent artists and musicians into her orbit. She frequently hosted many of them at her and George’s home at 200 Cherry Street. Among these individuals were sculptor  Gladys Caldwell Fisher , Louise and Arnold Rönnebeck, pianist and composer Henry Cowell, and ceramicist Paul St. Gaudens. Jean contributed heavily to Denver’s nascent art scene in the first half of the twentieth century, and she assisted many artists in the difficult years of the Great Depression. Her efforts were essential to establishing some of Denver’s most important artistic and cultural institutions. ¹³ 

For decades, Hilltop was home to two extraordinary Denver-based artists, Louise Emerson Ronnebeck and Arnold Rönnebeck. 

Born in Philadelphia in 1901, Louise Emerson Ronnebeck came from an artistically and intellectually inclined family. In the 1920s, Louise studied art at Barnard College at Columbia University, the Art Students’ League of New York, and the Academy of Arts in Fontainebleau, France.

While visiting Mable Dodge Lujan’s ranch in Taos in the summer of 1925, Louise met Arnold Rönnebeck. By March of 1926, the pair married. They toured the southwest on an extended honeymoon, and shortly thereafter, the couple settled in Denver. In 1927, their son Arnold was born. The pair had a daughter, Ursula, in 1929.

Louise was a modernist who primarily composed frescoes. During the Great Depression, she created public works of art for the Works Progress Administration. From 1945 until 1950, Louise was a professor of drawing and painting at the University of Denver. Louise painted murals throughout Denver, though much of her work has been lost to demolition. Her surviving works in Denver include her mural The Family, located on the outside of the Robert W. Speer Memorial Hospital building at 660 Bannock Street, and The Adoration of the Magi, an oil painting located inside The Church of The Holy Redeemer at 2552 N Williams Street. In 1954, Ronnebeck left Denver for Bermuda, where she worked and taught. Louise returned to Denver in 1973 and lived in the city until her death in 1980. 

As a woman artist of her time, Louise Emerson Ronnebeck had to contend with gendered prejudices. Female artists historically faced bias, trivialization, and under-representation in the art world regardless of their preferred medium. However, mural painting and frescoes in particular are labor intensive artistic mediums, so Ronnebeck's contemporaries found her role as a professional artist even more jarring. They struggled to comprehend how Louise maintained her femininity while she performed her artistic work. Utilizing trowels full of plaster and wearing overalls, onlookers on one occasion mistook Ronnebeck for a male "bricklayer." The Rocky Mountain News published multiple interviews with Louise Ronnebeck, questioning her about everything from her curious choice of wardrobe to how she prevented her "artistic ability" from "interfer[ing] with a woman's duty as a mother." Despite prejudiced perceptions, Ronnebeck enjoyed much success. In fact, she produced most of her work during the years that she was married and rearing young children.

Arnold Rönnebeck was born in Nassau, Germany in 1885. Arnold studied at the Royal Art School in Berlin and as a pupil of other artists throughout Europe. Rönnebeck served as an officer of the Kaiser’s Personal Guard during World War I. He came to the United States in 1923. The sculptor lived in Washington D.C. before moving to New York City.

In 1926, the Denver Art Museum offered him a position as its director. Arnold held the position until 1929. Rönnebeck was primarily a sculptor, though he also created lithographs,  watercolor paintings , and oil paintings. His work belonged to the avant-garde movement. Arnold worked and lived in Denver until his death in 1947. Exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe have displayed his artwork. Several of Rönnebeck’s works can be found throughout Denver, including at the Denver Art Museum, the Kirkland Fine Arts Center, and DPL’s Central Library. ¹⁴ 

In the late morning of December 3, 1951, disaster struck in Hilltop. While flying towards its intended destination at Lowry Air Force Base, a B-29 crashed and exploded near South Eudora Street and East Bayaud Avenue. The plane’s engines had failed. Upon crashing, several bystanders came to the aid of injured crewmen thrown from or still inside the plane. Six were saved before the fuel tanks exploded, and the plane and several houses caught fire. The explosion killed eight crew members. The crash injured one civilian, Mrs. Murphy Tinsley, a maid working at 95 S Eudora at the time of the crash. Tinsley sustained cuts, burns, and a broken arm.  

The plane crash damaged five homes, which the Rocky Mountain News deemed some of the “newest” and “costliest” in Denver. The properties at 80 S Eudora, 95 S Eudora, 60 S Eudora, and 65 S Eudora sustained severe damage or were completely destroyed. Being the first dwelling struck by the plane, the home at 70 S Dahlia received the most minor damage. However, the tail of the plane “plowed a most tremendous hole at the peak of the roof.”

Sol Gertz was the owner at 80 S Eudora. He expressed anger and shock at the situation, “No one should ever have been allowed to build a house here.” He went on, “[T]he planes come so low, the windows rattle in their frames. It’s a wonder this hasn’t happened sooner.” 

In response to the initial plane crash, Hilltop residents held an emergency meeting at Graland Country Day School. City officials and a colonel from the Air Force attended the meeting to address the questions and concerns of citizens in Hilltop. Hilltop residents were unable to stop low-flying aircraft from flying to and from Lowry. Pressures from the Korean War required Lowry to continue operating an active airfield until many years later. However, Hilltop residents adjourned the meeting having built the foundations of the Mountain View Civic Association, now known as the Cranmer Park/Hilltop Civic Association. This became Hilltop’s neighborhood association, which established a platform for residents to voice their concerns and hopes for the community.  

Unfortunately, this would not be the last time that such a crash would occur in the area. Just weeks later, a B-25 crashed near East Bayaud Avenue and South Monaco Parkway shortly after taking off. Luckily, nobody was killed by the crash and the crewmen aboard the plane only sustained minor injuries. The plane landed in an open field and did not damage any homes. The proximity in both place and time to the December 3rd crash undoubtedly furnished the anxieties of Hilltop residents about living so near to the airfield.

Low flying airplanes were not moved to Buckley until 1960. During the Korean War, the Navy utilized Buckley Airfield, which prevented Lowry, an Air Force base, from flying its aircraft there sooner. The Mountain View Civic Association was an influential force in bringing forth the move. ¹⁶ 

Hilltop became home to many Jewish professionals and business owners early on in its development. According to historian Phil Goodstein, many Jewish people “saw Hilltop as a place of opportunity.” Jewish people “did not suffer overt anti-Semitism” in Hilltop, as they did in other neighborhoods. As close as Crestmoor, the neighborhood adjacent to Hilltop, real estate developers adopted anti-Semitic practices. Indeed, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation detailed such brazen discrimination in Crestmoor in remarks from its    1938 Denver Redlining Map : “A house recently sold to a Jew in Crestmoor brought summary action in barring the builder from future work in the area.” Actions like this discouraged the sale of homes to Jewish people in particular neighborhoods, subjecting them to residential discrimination and restricting their access to housing. However, while developers in neighborhoods like Crestmoor engaged in anti-Semitism, Jewish families were simultaneously settling in Hilltop in the late 1930s and 1940s. 

The construction of Temple Emanuel at 51 Grape Street established Hilltop as one of Denver’s most important neighborhoods to the city’s Jewish community. Out of all of Hilltop’s religious institutions, historian Alice Millett Bakemeir explained that the construction of Temple Emanuel “affected the Hilltop neighborhood” most “dramatically.” Previously located at Sixteenth Avenue and Pearl Street, Temple Emanuel relocated its congregation to 51 Grape Street with the decision to construct the new temple in 1954. The new temple attracted more Jewish families to the neighborhood and also encouraged other congregations, like Beth Jackson and BMH Synagogues, to establish themselves nearby. 

Shortly after the completion of Temple Emanuel, the Allied Jewish Council made plans to build a Jewish community center. In 1962, construction of the original building reached completion. In addition to “unit[ing] Denver’s Jewish population” the Staenberg-Loup Jewish Community Center, as it is now known, “sparked growth into the southeast section of Hilltop.” Temple Emanuel and the Jewish Community Center became centers of gravity for Denver’s Jewish population, and also stimulated further development that contributed to the vitality of Hilltop. ¹⁸ 

Perhaps one of Denver’s most iconic buildings, Assumption Greek Orthodox Church and its unmistakable golden dome sit along the border of Hilltop at Alameda Avenue and Dahlia Street. The congregation originally formed with the arrival of Greek immigrants in the late 1800s and the early 1900s. These laborers and their families created Denver’s first Hellenic Orthodox Church in 1906. The church decided to move from its second location at Sixth Avenue and Pennsylvania Street to 4610 E Alameda in 1959. The construction of the church was completed in 1972. The church is now the site of Denver’s annual Greek Festival, where thousands gather each year in June to experience Greek culture through food, dance, music, and artisanal goods.