Lakewood
By Robert Autobee and Kristen Autobee
5/5
()
About this ebook
Robert Autobee
Robert and Kristen Autobee explain how Lakewood grew through this collection of images from private collections, organizations, and the Lakewood Heritage Center. Lakewood native and author Robert Autobee has worked as a historian for both state and federal agencies. Coauthor Kristen Autobee is a former museum curator and a local historian. The Autobees are currently research associates with Morgan, Angel & Associates and are active in the Lakewood Historical Society and local preservation efforts.
Related to Lakewood
Related ebooks
The Music of Del Shannon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNunley's Amusement Park Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Music of the 4 Seasons: Musicians of Note Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHot Summer Jams: Pop Songs That Bring Out The Sun, 1975 Through 2005 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSheet Music for Cornet: Book 4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEurope's Stars of '80s Dance Pop Vol. 2: 33 International Hitmakers Discuss Their Careers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Music of Carly Simon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings100 Greatest Cover Versions: The Ultimate Playlist Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThanks a Lot Mr Kibblewhite: My Story by Roger Daltrey | Conversation Starters Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Status Quo: Still Doin’ It The Official Updated Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMandolin Songbook - 15 Songs by Robert Johnson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wound Dresser - A Series of Letters Written from the Hospitals in Washington During the War of the Rebellion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll Songs From 70's: Full List Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWalking in Memphis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsElton John: Fifty Years On: The Complete Guide to the Musical Genius of Elton John and Bernie Taupin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTogether Through Life: A Personal Journey with the Music of Bob Dylan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDaft Punk: A Trip Inside the Pyramid Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThings I've Learned from the Audience: Thoughts From an Old Road Dog Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Legends of Rock & Roll: Roy Orbison Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTreme Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTrue North: The Canadian Songbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHarry Chapin: The Music Behind the Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTears for Fears on track Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsZen of Pop Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Shakesouts Of Rock & Roll Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat is a Wommett?: The Autobiography of Mick Abrahams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5101 Amazing Facts About Ed Sheeran Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Legends of Rock & Roll: Simon & Garfunkel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
United States History For You
A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Library Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fifties Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes: Revised and Complete Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): An American History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Lakewood
1 rating1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5it was great. I would've liked a little more about the history of JCRS, my favorite bit of Lakewood history but, oh well. the pictures were great, and it's full of Lakewood's amazing history. there's no place like home!
Book preview
Lakewood - Robert Autobee
authors.
INTRODUCTION
Lakewood, Colorado, was a name on a map—but not a city—for more than 80 years. From the 1889 plat of farmland named Lakewood to Jefferson City’s incorporation in 1969 to Belmar, an early-21st-century commercial development, the city’s name and identity have often been afterthoughts.
Starting in a general location west of Sheridan Boulevard and along West Colfax Avenue, the name Lakewood
traveled west by the early 20th century. Along the way, the first post office at Thirteenth Avenue and Brentwood Street, a general store at the intersection of today’s West Colfax Avenue and Carr Street, and Jefferson County’s first telephone exchange all carried the name Lakewood. By the 1930s, the county’s leading newspaper, the East Jefferson Sentinel, proclaimed the intersection West Colfax Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard downtown
Lakewood. The occasional feed store and diner dotting the surrounding pastures and cottonwood groves symbolized urban Lakewood during the 1930s. Similar to other small towns, residents made a special trip to view the installation of the busy corner’s new traffic light in the early 1940s. By 1947, some 36 business between modern day Jay and Kipling Streets used Lakewood in their name. Of these, 29 were on West Colfax Avenue.
The 1950s were good to Lakewood. The economy was booming, and many of its residents seriously considered incorporating as a city. Around West Colfax Avenue and Carr Street, 60 independent shop owners referred to their collective of freestanding buildings and small strip malls as the Heart of Lakewood.
By 1960, newspaper ads for the new Westland Shopping Center displayed an ignorance of government and geography by referring to itself as downtown Jefferson County.
By the decade’s end, a majority of residents campaigned to incorporate and finally settle the question of Where is Lakewood?
In 1969, a crime wave and a boom in the construction of suburban tract homes were the reasons why people in the neighboring communities of Lakewood and Wheat Ridge seriously considered incorporating as Colorado’s largest city (in square miles). At the last minute, Wheat Ridge decided it had a more unified identity than its neighbor to the south did, and the two communities parted amicably.
Lakewood voters went to the polls three times in 1969. As proof of a civic identity crisis, modern Lakewood incorporated as Jefferson City in June. The former Jefferson Sentinel newspaper quickly changed its masthead to the Jefferson City Sentinel, and its Letters to the Editor section was packed with comments against the choice of Jefferson City. The paper also contained reports of the city’s division into wards and new voting precincts and who was running to be the first mayor and city council. Voters returned to the polls in August and elected James Richey as their first mayor. Colorado’s constitution required cities to hold elections in November of odd-numbered years. Three months later, Jefferson City’s voters re-elected Richey and the city council and decided the first ballot issue—what will we call ourselves? The answer?—Lakewood, of course. And the newspaper that announced the results the following week?—the Lakewood Sentinel.
Who was a typical resident of this new city? Statistics from 1970 indicate he or she was middle-to-upper-middle class; owned a home valued between $10,000 and $12,000, and of European American heritage. African Americans were virtually nonexistent in Lakewood. The State of Colorado Planning Office found that only one-tenth of one percent of the county’s population was African American. The Denver Federal Center, the city’s biggest employer, counted 500 African American employees. And, according to the Lakewood Sentinel in February 1970, only 15 lived in Jefferson County. Over the following decades, the community’s homogeneity began to fade and new ethnicities made Lakewood their home. In 2013, European Americans still comprised almost 70 percent of the population, with Hispanics totaling 22 percent, followed by Asians at 3 percent and African Americans at 1.5 percent (US Census Bureau,