Object Decade: 1940 - 1949

Julie Villiers Lewis McMillan Penrose was an extraordinary woman from a storied family. Born in 1870, Julie was the daughter of prominent businessman and former Detroit Mayor Alexander Lewis and his wife Elizabeth Ingersoll. Lewis was the grandson of Frenchman Louis Villiers and grew up in Ontario, Canada before arriving in Detroit at the age of 15. Dubbed the “First Gentleman of Detroit,” Lewis was an ideal civic leader in his adopted city, serving as police commissioner and helping found the Detroit Museum of Art and the city’s public library.

Julie was one of eight Lewis children to survive to adulthood. Her family was wealthy, well-travelled and fluent in all things French. The “belle” of Detroit society, Julie was said to be exceptionally beautiful. After attending finishing school in Boston, seventeen-year-old Julie made her first grand tour of Europe. When she returned to America, she married James (Jim) Howard McMillan, the son of powerful U.S. Senator James McMillan. The couple had two children together; daughter Gladys was born in 1892, and son James II (Jimmy) was born in 1894.

Jim McMillan contracted tuberculosis while serving in the Spanish American War. The family moved to Colorado Springs for Jim’s health and purchased a beautiful home at 30 West Dale Street. Unbelievably, Julie Lewis McMillan suffered two devastating losses just weeks apart. On April 3, 1902, her son Jimmy died from a ruptured appendix and on May 9, 1902, her husband died of tuberculosis. She accompanied the coffins of her husband and son back to Detroit by private railroad car.

After a few years of mourning, she slowly began to reemerge into Colorado Springs society. She initially met Spencer Penrose at a Cheyenne Mountain Country Club clambake. The confirmed bachelor and notorious carouser Spencer and the refined Julie began spending time together. In a remarkable coincidence nearly impossible to believe, Julie and Spencer “ran into each other” aboard a ship bound for Europe.

When the ship docked, Spencer accompanied Julie to Nice, France. After awaiting his own father’s written permission to marry, Spencer threw Dr. Penrose’s letter of consent into Julie’s lap while she sunbathed on the French Riviera. The awkward move served as a proposal and the two were married on April 26, 1906 at St. George’s Church in London.

Following an extensive tour of Europe, the pair returned to Julie’s home on West Dale in Colorado Springs. In January 1916, they purchased El Pomar Estate in the Broadmoor from Mrs. Grace Goodyear Potter. Spencer also purchased several ranches south of Colorado Springs and consolidated them int the over 2,000 acre country retreat known as Turkey Creek Ranch.

Submitted by Leah Davis Witherow, CSPM Curator of History

Frightened by a racially motivated murder and fearful for their three children, Herbert and Mattie Brinson Bragg fled their native Alabama and settled in Luther, Oklahoma, where Fannie Mae Bragg was born on July 5, 1918. The family prospered as tenant farmers until Herbert died unexpectedly in 1926, leaving Mattie a widow with seven youngsters. Moving to Manitou Springs and living with relatives, Fannie Mae’s older sister sent home her entire income as a maid. Her sacrifice eventually helped the Bragg family escape Dust Bowl Oklahoma in 1933 and seek hope in Colorado Springs.

Due to the city’s visionary founder, General William Jackson Palmer, Fannie Mae attended integrated schools, and the charismatic teenager excelled academically while working afternoons as a maid for Russian Count Benjamin Lefkowsky. Graduating from Colorado Springs High School in 1938 but financially unable to attend college, she served as District Attorney Irl Foard’s maid and married Ed Duncan in 1939. Following the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, she became the soda fountain manager at Camp Carson’s Haven Club.

At age 26, Fannie Mae obtained a business license from City Manager Earl Moseley so that she and Ed could operate the USO café downtown. When a 2-story building at 25 West Colorado Avenue was listed for sale, she and Ed purchased it, and after establishing Duncan’s Café and Bar downstairs, Fannie Mae created a nightclub upstairs—the Cotton Club.

Segregationist policies prevented local hotels from accepting Black entertainers as performers or guests so the Cotton Club was the only venue featuring major talents like Louis Armstrong, Etta James, Duke Ellington and B.B. King. Fannie Mae became an important conduit in the music industry’s development. Empathetic toward the military, especially those in mixed marriages, she dignified their service by providing a safe place to socialize. True to her business slogan—Everybody Welcome—she served a racially mixed clientele. Chief of Police Irvin “Dad” Bruce demanded she quit “mixing colors” at her nightclub and “run it black.”  She countered, “I check for age I didn’t know I had to check for color.” Chief Bruce acquiesced and Fannie Mae became the catalyst for Colorado Springs’ peaceful integration during the volatile Civil Rights era.

Although Ed Duncan died in 1955, Fannie Mae operated the Cotton Club until 1975, when it was razed through urban renewal. Known for her business acumen, entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and community service, Fannie Mae served the city she loved for 28 years, achieving the American dream and always making Everybody Welcome.

Holly Sugar was founded by Kenneth Schley in 1905 in Holly, Colorado, the small agricultural town on the Arkansas River near the Kansas border. In its first year, the company processed locally-grown sugar beets into 60,000 100-pound bags at its Holly facilities and soon expanded with another factory in Swink, just west on the Arkansas River. Sugar beet processing consolidated at the Swink factory and the Holly plant closed in 1915.

The company expanded in 1911 when it bought into sugar production in Orange County, California, enlarging a factory in Santa Ana and building a new factory at Huntington Beach. This was followed by acquisition or construction of eleven more factories by 1931 in Wyoming, Texas and Montana. Holly Sugar would become the largest independent processor of sugar beets in the country. With the growth of the company in 1911, the headquarters first move to Denver.

In 1916, Colorado Springs resident A. E. Carlton, who made his fortune at Cripple Creek, purchased the company and in 1923 moved its headquarters to the southeast corner of Tejon Street and Pikes Peak Avenue in Colorado Springs. The company purchased the Golden Cycle Office Building at this site to relocate its headquarters, expanding the building several times over the next decades.

With the development of the Chase Stone Center at Cascade and Pikes Peak Avenues in 1967, the company moved into the Holly Sugar Building, Colorado Springs’ first high-rise tower of 14 stories. The Holly Sugar Building became a downtown landmark and tied the identity of Colorado Springs with Holly Sugar. The company merged with Imperial Sugar in 1989, and by 1997 its last employees were relocated to their new headquarters in Sugarland, Texas.

The Holly Sugar Building was briefly renamed for the Vanion Corporation in 2001, is now known as the First Bank Building, but to many residents it will always be the Holly Sugar Building. While Holly Sugar headquarters remained in Colorado Springs until 1989, sugar beet production in the Arkansas River Valley had been declining for decades. The Swink factory closed in 1959, and by the 1970s Arkansas Valley sugar beet farmers found more profit selling their water rights to urban centers rather than growing beets. The last sugar beets in Orange County, CA, were harvested in 1973, and the Santa Ana factory closed in 1982.

Generously Submitted by Dr. John Harner, Professor of Geography & Environmental Studies, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

The Pikes Peak Range Riders organization was founded in 1949 by Kenneth D. Brookhart and Everett R. Conover. They gathered a group of interested townsmen together to make a five-day horseback trail ride as a way to promote the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo. Since that beginning the Range Riders have grown to a large philanthropic organization which in 1998 became the Range Riders Foundation as a way to focus their community activities.

Most of their charitable work is with young people, and those with special needs in our community. These activities are designed to focus on western, agricultural, and equine themes. Learning about “the cowboy way,” includes activities to enhance: 1. learning through exposure, mentoring, and leadership; 2. your word is your bond; 3. Learn the freedom to fail and to succeed by trying something new and if you fail, try again.

The Range Riders leave on their five-day mountain-ride-about from the Colorado Springs Western Street Breakfast, which is planned for June 16, 2021 after being cancelled in 2020. This breakfast has become an annual fundraising event that supports our local military and their families. The organizers are looking for more than 10,000 hungry visitors this year. And what does it take to serve 10,000 people breakfast? 1,1000 pounds of pancake batter, 1,500 pounds of eggs, 80 gallons of syrup, 500 gallons of coffee, 7,500 pints of milk, 2,500 pints of juice, and 1,100 bales of straw for seating! This takes place in the center of downtown, blocking off streets and making a big breakfast room outside in the middle of the street!

Cooperation, coordination, and western hospitality make the Range Riders, the Street Breakfast, and the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo into an outstanding three part package of the “western tradition” in Colorado Springs.

Generously submitted by John Orsborn, CSPM Volunteer Educator

Robert Chapman was working alone at the Gazette Telegraph when a breaking news story came in over the wire. The Imperial Japanese Army had launched an attack. Robert Chapman was the first person in Colorado Springs to find out about the December 7, 1941, raid on Pearl Harbor. Colorado Springs, like the rest of the nation and the world, plunged into warfare.

With rapid war mobilization occurring across the country local communities, including Colorado Springs, sought ways in which to contribute to national needs. The newly constructed Ent Air Base needed to furnish rooms and so newspapers published advertisements requesting furniture donations. The Broadmoor Hotel dedicated 10 acres of land to a Victory Garden campaign. One of the most extensive campaigns the city organized was to collect scrap metal. Newspapers published curbside collection schedules and residents were encouraged to scrap any non-essential material, so things such as toys were scrapped and replaced with wooden pieces. The American Legion chopped up a German World War I cannon they owned and sent it to Pueblo. There was even discussion of scrapping the city’s iconic sculpture of its’ founder, William Jackson Palmer.

One of the ways in which the European theatre most closely touched Colorado Springs was through the hosting of prisoners of war (POWs) at Camp Carson. At the end of the war in 1945 over 10,000 German prisoners were housed at the military installation. The first POWs to arrive in Colorado Springs, on May 2, 1943, were a group of 368 Italians. Prisoners’ time was spent on mainly agricultural work. They were, however, paid for their labor and given ample time off. The prisoner of war camp at Camp Carson became its own little city. Inmates set up stores to purchase goods, competed in sporting events, put on theatrical performances for one another, and even published their own German language newspaper Die PW Wocke (The Prisoner of War.) As many as 5,000 of the Germans held at Camp Carson returned to the United States after the war, and three even returned to Colorado Springs.

World War II overtook the lives of those in Colorado Springs. From new military installations to food and clothing rations, no resident could have lived untouched from the effects of the war. Colorado Springs did its part to support the effort on the front and to handle the effects of the war at home.

Generously Submitted by Patrick Lee, CSPM Museum Technician

In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in professional baseball and became the first African American to play on a Major League team. For many other black players, segregated Negro League teams offered them the only opportunity to play baseball for a living. Although Colorado Springs lacked a Negro Leagues team, many local young men played on the city’s semi-pro, all black baseball team. Originally called the Clouds of Joy, the team soon changed their name to the Brown Bombers in honor of Heavyweight Boxing Champion Joe Louis.

Organized shortly after World War II, the team played in the extremely competitive City Baseball League. This group of talented young athletes won back-to-back championships in 1949 and 1950. Additionally, the team occasionally traveled to Grand Junction, Canon City, Burlington, Limon and other towns around the state to play.

Playing in a community and nation grappling with the issues of exclusion and segregation, the experiences of the Brown Bombers were not always positive. Both in town and on the road members of the team experienced both subtle and overt forms of racism. The Brown Bombers typically limited their travel to one-day road trips as they were often denied hotel accommodations. Players dealt with discrimination by “focusing on the game” and “meeting problems as they came.” Outfielder Sylvester “Smitty” Smith remembered,

“On weekends you would be away and you’d never know if you could eat in the restaurants or need a sack lunch, or if the bus was going to break down. But other than that it was just fun for me.”

During the 1950s, the role of baseball in Colorado Springs changed. The importance of the City League diminished after the city’s new minor league team – the Colorado Springs Sky Sox came to town. One of the most popular members of the Sky Sox team was Sam Hairston, its first African American player. In 1955, Hairston led his team with 102 runs batted in and was voted Most Valuable Player. A “Sam Hairston Night” was held in Memorial Park Stadium to honor his athletic talent and service to youth in the community. Local business owners gave Hairston and his family a brand new Pontiac and a set of luggage among other gifts.

Leah Davis Witherow, CSPM Curator of History

I took my first flight at Alexander Aircraft. It was 1927, I was four. My babysitters Erma and Hazel Warden had pilot boyfriends. Of course, I could not stay on the ground when they took a ride. Like any good babysitter, they put me in the back seat of that Alexander Eaglerock Biplane. From that day on, I knew I would fly.

My name is Franklin J. Macon, Documented Original Tuskegee Airman. I grew up right here in Colorado Springs on Pine Street. Today, I-25 goes through town where my house sat. The train tracks were in our backyard. I went to Bristol Elementary, North Junior, and Colorado Springs High School. You know it as Palmer High School. I am in their Hall of Fame which is funny. I really did not like school. I was terrible at it! I even repeated second grade. You see, I am dyslexic. Back in those days, no body knew what that was. Some people just thought I was dumb, but I showed them.

My birth mother (Eva Banks) was only 14 when I was born, so I was raised by two great aunts. Maude Estella Gray Macon (Mama) and Ella Gray (Aunt LaLa). My grandfather Charles Banks was a Buffalo Soldier. The great grandmother of Mama, Aunt LaLa and Clara (Eva’s mother) was half-sister to Frederick Douglass, the Great Orator. My only father figure, Frank Loper married Mama when I was a young boy. Frank Loper was born a slave on Jefferson Davis’ Plantation. He came to Colorado Springs with the Hayes-Davis family a free man. Our families remain friends to this day.

I worked in Jack Hanthorn’s shop after school to make money for flying lessons. “Flying” off the chicken house was not working. Leo Schuth and Dorothy Jones taught me to fly in the Civil Air Patrol. By the time I had graduated high school, I had soloed at Pine Valley airstrip which today is the Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Airfield at the USAFA.

Thanks to Dorothy and Leo, I learned about Tuskegee. I wanted to fly, so I headed off to Tuskegee…TWICE. You will have to read why in my book.

I have met the likes of Dr. George Washington Carver and spent time in his lab. As a kid, I almost blew up the near Westside neighborhood with my carbide rocket. I was awarded the Tuskegee Airmen Congressional Gold Medal. For over 25 years, I have eaten breakfast and lunch at the Western Omelette on Walnut Street. I helped fabricate The Pyramid statue, “Follow the Setting Sun” outside the Pioneer Museum. At 95, I published I Wanted to be a Pilot: The Making of a Tuskegee Airman to share my childhood in Colorado Springs. In 2019, I donated my 1944 Stinson Vultee V-77 “Gullwing” aircraft to the National Museum of World War II Aviation. Currently, I am one of the two living Documented Original Tuskegee Airmen (DOTA) and one of the Past Presidents of the Hubert L. “Hooks” Jones Chapter, Tuskegee Airmen, Inc.

Just think… If I can do that, a dyslexic boy from the Near Westside of Colorado Springs, just think what you can do!

Generously Submitted by Mr. Franklin Macon & Elizabeth Harper

In the winter of 1892-1893, Ernest Whitney, a teacher at Yale College, here because of his health, brought several boys into his home to “improve them and keep them off the streets.” When his poor health interfered, the circle of the King’s Daughters Organization stepped in with Mrs. Elizabeth Goddard leading. She became the first president of the Boy’s Club Association when it was formed in 1896. She recruited H. Buchanan Riley, Oxford College graduate and teacher at the Colorado Springs High School to begin meeting the boys one night a week. Yet soon they were meeting six nights a week.

There are two overriding themes with the early Boys Club: to keep the boys occupied and off the streets and to direct their energy into developmental learning. Early on they were taught Sloyd, a handcraft skillset using a special “Sloyd” knife to develop wood and paper working skills, thus developing mind and hand coordination from simple to complex. The early boys were also taught some military tactics.

In the early years, land was donated by General Palmer, and funds were raised to open the first Boy’s Club buiding on South Tejon Street in 1907. Later, El Pomar Foundation generously donated funds to expand the operations of the club. In 1984, the original downtown bulding was closed and replaced by the Eleanor Armit Tutt Branch on South Chelton Road. Believe it or not, the Colorado Springs club was the first in the state to admit girls in 1987! Thereafter, the name was changed to the Boys and Girls Club.

The history of the Boys Club Association is filled with many dedicated women who served as presidents of the organization, did fundraising, developed the library and in general were the main force that kept the organization going – their dedication cannot be overstated.

Generously Submitted by John Orsborn, CSPM Volunteer Educator

World War II brought a rapid increase in industrial production of war machinery and the inscription and training of troops. A tightly-knit campaign from a determined group of city businessmen promoted Colorado Springs to politicians and military brass for a new military installation. Land incentives and the efforts of the boosters were successful—the U.S. Army announced on January 6, 1942, that they would establish an Army training camp just south of the city.

The magnitude of the Army’s decision was grandiose and audacious: a $30 million contract to house 30,000 soldiers, to be built within 6 months. This investment was about the same as the total assessed property value for the existing city and would nearly double the local population. The camp would be named in honor of frontiersman Brigadier General Christopher “Kit” Carson.

Such a monumental undertaking in the region was unprecedented. At the time, the project was called the greatest boom period in history for the city. The first sections were turned over to the 89th Infantry Division on June 2, 1942. Maximum troop numbers reached 43,000 in 1943, and all told, 104,165 men trained at Camp Carson during World War II. The fate of Camp Carson looked bleak after the war. Drawdown expanded, and the facility nearly closed as the number of troops dwindled to 600 in 1946.

However, at the end of the Korean War, the Army consolidated facilities. In 1954 the post designation was upgraded from Camp to Fort and again hosted a Division. By 1956 it was the single largest contributor to the Colorado Springs economy, employing 2,000 civilians, purchasing local supplies and utilities, and hiring contractors for construction improvements. Colorado Springs and Fort Carson, “The Mountain Post,” have evolved in a mutually-dependent relationship ever since.

Fort Carson saw dramatic growth in the 21st century with troop levels reaching Vietnam-era highs, prompting expansion construction in the biggest boom ever undertaken on the post. This also led to much off-base housing in nearby Security-Widefield. The fort alone is responsible for about 10% of the economic activity in the Pikes Peak region and is a popular post for soldiers who can easily assimilate while off duty and blend into a community supportive of the military. The many services offered veterans provide a welcoming community and subsidies that serve to attract over 50,000 military retirees to the region.

Generously Submitted by Dr. John Harner, Professor of Geography & Environmental Studies, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

In 1904 the members of the Woman’s Home Missionary Society (WHMS) of the Colorado Springs First Methodist Episcopal Church and a large group of women and men in the Colorado Springs community were concerned about the urgent need for a Protestant hospital and a nurses training school in the city. The Colorado Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church officially joined in the effort to establish the hospital. The former Belleview Sanitorium was purchased and Colorado Conference Deaconess Hospital and Training School of the Methodist Episcopal Church AKA “Deaconess Hospital” or “Protestant Hospital” was established in the large three-story wooden building that was located on top of the hill at South Institute Street and East Colorado Avenue. The hospital was administered and staffed by nurses and trainee nurses. Physicians in the city were invited to join the Medical Staff. By 1905 citizens and doctors were seeking a safer and more convenient location.

Beth-El Hospital and Training School was built at 1400 E. Boulder Street. The new building was renamed Beth-El, a Hebrew word meaning “House of God”. The three-story all brick building was built on level ground and featured a prized elevator. In 1911 financing had been difficult but the dedicated citizens and benefactors of the region eventually had raised the funds.

The Observation Hospital AKA “Contagion”, located at 427 N. Foote Ave was owned by the City/County and staffed by Beth-El students. The building opened with the first Colorado Springs patients of the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic.

In 1922 The National Board of Hospital and Homes of the Methodist Episcopal Church assumed ownership of the hospital and made plans to build the National Methodist Episcopal Sanatorium for Tuberculosis that opened in 1926. The hospital name was elevated to Beth-El General Hospital and School of Nursing.

In 1943 the city of Colorado Springs City Council voted to buy the hospital to maintain the community’s dedication to providing comprehensive health care. The name was changed to Memorial Hospital and Beth-El School of Nursing of Colorado Springs in honor of the men and women killed in World War II. A referendum held in 1949 reaffirmed city ownership of the hospital. Our first Colorado Springs black student, Alice McAdams Morgan was admitted to Beth-El in 1949. The first two men graduated in 1966. A second city referendum in 1971 validated the citizens desire to continue city ownership of the nursing school its self.

Memorial Hospital and Beth-El College of Nursing and Health Science. As National nursing education qualifications evolved, Beth-El became a College of Nursing in 1985.

The city voters gave permission for Beth-El College of Nursing and Health Sciences to merge with University of Colorado Colorado Springs and relocate to the UCCS campus in 1997. A citizen vote in 2012 leased Memorial Hospital to the University of Colorado Health System for 40 years and it was renamed UCHealth Memorial Hospital. The Colorado Springs Health Foundation was formed to grant money received from hospital revenue to public health initiatives across El Paso and Teller Counties.

In 2015 Beth-El College of Nursing was renamed the Arthur E. and Helen Johnson Beth-El College of Nursing and Health Sciences of University of Colorado Colorado Springs.

The citizens of Pikes Peak Region and the state of Colorado continue to be both benefactors and beneficiaries of the hospital and nursing school they founded in 1904.

Generously Submitted by Joanne F. Ruth, MSN, Beth-El Alumni Historian