Henrietta Hay's Column

I'm all for progress and change and the brave new world and package cake mix and all the other things that make up modern living. But it does get discouraging when they have to keep moving historical markers around, like the poor old Cherrelyn horsecar in my hometown.

There are some exceptions. Mount Rushmore is still in South Dakota and Paul Revere's House is still in Boston. Closer to home, I was very happy to hear that Grand Junction is going to keep the City hall at 5th and Rood, where it has been since 1884. That is the building, which used to be the County Library, which used to be Grand Junction State Junior College, which used to be Lowell Elementary school. That's one flexible building, and is about as close to a historical monument as we have here.

As a Johnny-come-lately, I did not see the building when it was an elementary school, or later when it was the first home of what is now Mesa State College. But I spent many happy hours in it when Irene Wubben presided over the County Library in a corner room of the cavernous, otherwise empty, dusty building. Books were piled everywhere, the heat came from a wood stove, and she had a favorite resident mouse. A combination of Irene's personality and that dusty, messy room in the corner of the building created a library that must be unique in the history of books.

But in my hometown of Englewood, the most famous landmark is not a building that has gone through more metamorphoses than a moth, but still stands. It is a horsecar (without the horse), hunting for a permanent home.

Horsecar tracks from downtown Denver extended along Broadway as far as Hampden by 1894. But there were a lot of houses being built in the Cherrelyn area, a mile south of the end of the line and uphill all the way. Some early day community activists had a bright idea and invested in a very special horsecar. It could seat twelve passengers and a horse. Well, no, the horse had to stand up on the special platform built for it at the end of the car. Meanwhile they laid a mile of track and had what was originally called "The Bronco and Gravity Railroad."

The horse pulled the car up the hill, climbed aboard and rode back down. Unlike the San Francisco cable cars, this car didn't have to be turned around. The horseman or conductor or whatever he was, just had to unhitch the horse, lead it to the platform, climb on the other end of the car and let gravity take over. When the car got to the bottom of the hill, the horse was hitched up again and they were ready for the next trip. The fare was a nickel. The car ran until 1910 when electric streetcars replaced it. I'm not sure what happened to the horse.

Eventually the local citizenry realized the historical importance of the old car, which had deteriorated badly after exposure to weather, and restored it to its original glory. They found a home for it in the center court of Cinderella City, once "the largest shopping center under one roof in the world." But now Cinderella City is becoming as obsolete as the horsecar, and is scheduled for the wrecking ball. So at the poor old horsecar has one more run to make. It is headed for a glass shelter in front of the City Hall, and historians hope that as a symbol of the city's history, it will stay there until the next change.

That suburb to the north of Englewood keeps moving things around, too. Elitch's Gardens in downtown Denver next to Beer Field? Unthinkable! Elitch's-- where as kids we had picnics and rode the bumper cars and the roller coaster. Elitch's--where a few years later we danced half the night to Benny Goodman and Guy Lombardo and Tommy Dorsey, and wandered in the magic of those beautiful gardens. Elitch's which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1992 is now a part of downtown , an urban amusement center. It just ain't the same!

Ah, progress. Now all the horsecar needs is a horse to pull it around again.