Front Range Research Associates, Inc. - News

Knearl Opera House/Desky Hotel Named to CPI Endangered Places List

1/31/2025

The 2025 Colorado Preservation, Inc., Endangered Places list includes the Knearl Opera House/Desky Hotel in Brush, Colorado. Front Range prepared a State Register nomination for the building in 2019. Built by William H. "Billy" Knearl as an opera house in 1902, the building housed the post office and a mercantile before conversion to a hotel in the 1920s by local Jewish merchant Nathan Desky. The vertical metal sign dates to 1928 and is a rare extant example of a Federal Electric Company sectional lamp letter sign, consisting of 16"-high porcelain-enameled steel panels. A link to the Endangered Place video appears below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmrdBzA7zRY

CPI Saving Places, 2025

1/31/2025

The theme of this year's CPI Saving Places conference was "celebrating intangible heritage." Front Range principal Tom Simmons joined UCD graduate student Molly Merkert and History Colorado National and State Register historians Damion Pechota and Eric Newcombe for a panel discussion on how intangible cultural heritage might fit within the existing or future National and State Register criteria.

Tennyson Alley House Designated Newest Denver Local Landmark

12/12/2024

This week the Denver City Council unanimously approved a small alley house on Tennyson Street in Northwest Denver as a Denver individual landmark. Historic Berkeley Regis, the neighborhood's nonprofit historic preservation group, worked with owner daphne salone in an effort to recognize the significance of the dwelling. The 1909 Currie/Dryer Cottage is associated with the early residential and commercial development of Tennyson Street and the surrounding Berkeley neighborhood following the local arrival of streetcars in 1888 and the area’s 1902 annexation to Denver. The dwelling represents the alley house architectural type, generally defined in the Berkeley neighborhood as unpretentious, small, frame, one-story dwellings standing behind or adjacent to the owner’s larger house and set farther back from the street. The houses typically had a gabled roof and a rectangular plan.

The cottage provided a home for the Curries, the original owners, while they erected the larger brick bungalow closer to the public street. They then rented out the cottage, whose tenants included immigrants, small families, skilled and unskilled laborers, widows, and older people. The building now constitutes a rare resource type. Alley houses were once numerous in the Berkeley neighborhood, but only 16 percent of those present in 1930 are still standing in the eighteen blocks surrounding the Tennyson Street dwelling. The Tennyson Street corridor experienced massive change and loss of historic residential fabric since 2000. Westword covered the designation effort in three articles in 2023-24:

https://www.westword.com/news/denver-holdout-house-now-protected-as-historic-landmark-22761887

Kirtley House Listed in National Register

3/22/2024

Today, the National Park Service announced that the John and Nettie Kirtley House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on March 18, 2024. Located in the Berkeley area of Denver, Colorado, the dwelling is significant in the area of African American history, as the Kirtleys were one of the first Black couples to construct a house in this overwhelmingly White area of Denver in the earlier twentieth century. Historic Berkeley Regis, the neighborhood historic preservation group, sponsored the nomination, which Front Range completed as a pro bono project for the current owners.

Kirtley House Approved by Colorado State Review Board

1/19/2024

Today, the Colorado State Historic Preservation Review Board unanimously voted to send the Kirtley House National Register nomination to the National Park Service. African Americans John and Nettie Kirtley constructed the dwelling in Denver's Berkeley neighborhood in 1907, becoming one of the earliest Black couples to build a house in this primarily White area of Denver. John, born into slavery in Kentucky, was a plasterer and Nettie operated a boarding house here. They lost the house in 1913 as a result of a lawsuit involving John's plastering business. They and their son Benjamin then moved to California, where John again pursued the plastering trade and prospered. Front Range undertook this project pro bono for the owners and for Historic Berkeley Regis, the neighborhood historic preservation group.

New NHLs: Wink's, Quebec 01, and Rio Vista

12/28/2023

On December 11, 2023 Interior Secretary Deb Haaland designated sixteen new National Historic Landmarks (NHLs) and approved updated documentation for six previously designated NHLs. Among the new NHLs were three nominations prepared by Front Range: Wink's Panorama, an African American summer resort in Gilpin County, Colorado; the Rio Vista Bracero Reception Center, a worker processing facility in Socorro, Texas, associated with the 1952-64 Mexican Farm Labor Program; and the Quebec 01 Missile Launch Facility, a Cold War defense facility north of Cheyenne, Wyoming, that controlled Minuteman IB, II, and Peacekeeper missiles from 1964 to 2005. The nominations had been approved by the NPS Landmarks Committee in 2021 and 2022 but the lack of a National Park System Advisory Board delayed approval.

In the accompanying press release, Secretary observed “The new National Historic and Natural Landmarks designated today further the Interior Department’s vision for inclusive and collaborative conservation. Supporting voluntary and locally led stewardship is key to nationwide efforts to conserve and connect the lands upon which we all depend.”   Chuck Sams, Director of the National Park Service, noted “It’s important that the places we deem nationally significant represent the historical and natural diversity of the American experience. These 18 new landmarks further illustrate and expand our country’s collective heritage and splendor.”  

Below are images of Quebec 01, Wink's, and Rio Vista.

Review Board Votes to Forward the St. Paul AME/First AME Church and Chaffee County Courthouse Nominations

1/20/2023

Colorado Historic Preservation Review Board voted unanimously to forward two National Register nominations prepared by Front Range:

NPS Approves McFadden East Headquarters

1/20/2023

Today the National Park Service approved the listing of the McFadden Brothers Ranch East Headquarters north of Buena Vista, in the National Register. The ranch is associated Agriculture in northern Chaffee County, Colorado. Located at an elevation of nearly 8,500’ in the upper Arkansas River Valley, the property’s fields were part of an 1876 homestead settled by George and Julia Morrison. From 1876 to 1897 the Morrisons raised hay and livestock and cultivated field crops, irrigating the land with water from Morrison Creek. The Morrison property was among the earliest agricultural operations in the northern part of the county and, by 1891, one of the largest in terms of acreage, making it a significant influencer of agricultural practices in the area. In 1919 the property became part of William J. and Frank McFadden’s farm and ranch operation. The brothers grew up on a ranch on higher land less than a mile to the west that their father, William P. McFadden, homesteaded in 1881. In purchasing the second ranch, the McFadden Brothers doubled the size of their property, providing important additional water rights for irrigation and level fields for raising hay, thus permitting the brothers to expand their operations. The expansion of the ranch and construction of the east headquarters is representative of local ranch evolution to meet the needs and ambitions of a second generation of owners. It also reflects the continuing importance of agriculture to the county economy in the early twentieth century.

McFadden Brothers Ranch East Headquarters Approved by Review Board

5/20/2022

The National Register district nomination for the 86-acre McFadden Brothers East Headquarters was unanmiously approved by the Colorado Historic Preservation Review Board today. The 1920s ranch headquarters is located in northern Chaffee County 9.5 miles north of Buena Vista and includes irrigated fields, a house, bank barn, root cellar, privy, and corral building.

Quebec 01 NHL Approved by Landmarks Committee

5/20/2022

On May 11, 2022 the Landmarks Committee of the National Park System Advisory Board unanimously approved the National Historic Landmark nomination for the Quebec 01 Launch Control Facility north of Cheyenne, Wyoming. The site controlled nuclear armed Minuteman IB, III, and Peacekeeper missiles from 1965 to 2005 and played an important role in the US Cold War arsenal. The nomination now goes to the National Parks System Advisory Board for consideration.