Friday Flashback: Elitch Gardens, 1890-1994 Twenty years ago, in October of 1994, Elitch Gardens closed its doors for the last time at its historic location in northwest Denver. It had been Denvers first zoo, and was also the worlds first amusement park to be operated by a woman. It had hosted theater, marching bands, even Denvers first glimpse of moving pictures. Over time it became a first-class amusement park and theater destination, surrounded by water features and well-crafted artistic gardens. John and Mary Elitch began the venture early into their marriage. A year later, John died of pneumonia, leaving Mary to carry on alone. She met each obstacle in turn with determination, eventually expanding the park to 28 acres. Meanwhile, in Paris, a Polish chemist named Marie Curie discovered the element radium in 1898. You might wonder how this fact is even remotely related to Elitchs, but it happened like this: The amusement park stood the test of time and of competition from two other major parks-- Manhattan Beach at Sloans Lake, which had opened in 1881, and Lakeside, which opened in 1908. Mary Elitch sold the park to John Mulvihill in 1916, with the conditions that the name never be changed and that she would be allowed to live out her life in her home in the park. Mulvihill built the renowned Trocadero Ballroom, and added many of the parks famous rides. After his death in 1930, his son-in-law Arnold Gurtler took the reins, later passing them to his sons, and finally to Arnolds grandson, Sandy Gurtler. The family was continuously adding more and more attractions, but eventually had no more room to expand and began searching for a larger site. Near the Platte River, in 1914, the National Radium Institute built a plant for the extraction of radium from radioactive ore. In the early 1900s, radium was the hot new thing, so to speak, and found its way into all kinds of applications, from paint to medicine to watch dials, even food and cosmetics. Denver called itself The Radium Capital of the World because of its proximity to high-grade ore. But, oops! Turns out the stuff was actually more deadly than it was useful, and by the mid-1920s it had fallen out of favor. The National Radium Institute closed what by then were several plants, and the Platte property became home to a succession of other factories. Eventually the radioactive nature of the place was rediscovered and it became a Superfund site in 1983. A decade later, after almost 100,000 tons of radioactive soil was removed from the property, Elitchs owners bought it for $6 million, Denvers taxpayers voted to pay for roads and other infrastructure, and the new Elitch Gardens opened in 1995. Sources: Radium and Roller Coasters: A Brief Dirty History of Elitch Gardens, by Jef Otte, Westword, June 6, 2012; Elitch Gardens, lostamusementparks.napha. org; Room to Glow, by Patricia Calhoun, Westword, June 26, 2003.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 13:55:08 +0000