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Harper Family on the Shore for Was Living in Warmth

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Harper Family on the Shore for Was Living in Warmth TThhee LLoouuiissvvii llllee HHiissttoorriiaann A Publication of the Louisville Historical Museum, Issue #105 Louisville History Foundation, and Louisville Historical Commission Winter 2015 The Harpers and Harper Lake: How One Family Left Its Mark on Louisville, Colorado By Bridget Bacon, Museum Coordinator arper Lake, located at what is today called the what is now Harper Lake, before the town of Louisville H Leon A. Wurl Wildlife Sanctuary, has long been a was established in 1878 and even before Colorado place for recreation in Louisville. People now in their became a state in 1876. seventies, eighties, and nineties who were born between around 1915 and 1940 well remember trekking as young John H. Harper, who was born in Scotland in 1825 and people from their homes in downtown Louisville all the died in Colorado in 1874, served as mayor of Denver for way up to Harper Lake for ice skating and hockey games a term in 1871-1872, and his purchase of land in our area in the winter and swimming in the summer. They for farming and potentially coal mining by the early remember that the lake, which was smaller and 1870s is one of several examples of Colorado’s “movers shallower then, would stay frozen all winter. and shakers” of the late 1800s casting their eyes to eastern Boulder The only equipment County for the that a boy needed investment back then for a game opportunities that of hockey was a pair they saw. of ice skates, since the hockey sticks John H. Harper came were typically to the United States fashioned from tree at the age of eight branches and the with his family. He puck was often married Margaret nothing more than a Johnston in flattened can. Boys Pennsylvania in would bring old 1852 and they soon rubber tires up to the came west. By 1865, lake and burn them the Harper family on the shore for was living in warmth. Today, Denver, which had activities like ice been established not skating, swimming, and The big cottonwood tree at Harper Lake in 2015. long before, in 1858. At burning tires aren’t the time that Harper was permitted at the lake, but people now enjoy walking and mayor, Denver’s population was likely still under biking around it, seeing the stunning views of the Front 10,000, but the town was growing fast and would reach Range from the lake, and fishing and boating. 35,000 by 1880. At the Louisville Historical Museum, people often ask John H. Harper established a hardware store in Denver. me about the history of Harper Lake. Most Louisville In its early years, his store was known as “Harper, Steel residents aren’t aware that it was originally created in the & Co.,” but the later “Harper & Housman” was the best 1890s as a water reservoir. John H. Harper had known of his partnerships. According to early purchased hundreds of acres of farmland in the area of advertisements, Harper supplied early residents of 1 Denver with hardware, mining and farming tools, stoves, the life of neighboring towns. The exact location of their tinware, and copperware. house and ranch buildings is not known. Jean Neal Harper, in particular, left her mark on Colorado communities. Born in 1855, she was reported to have had some college education at a college in Maine. She married Oran Otis, who had worked in her father’s hardware store in Denver, in 1875. Upon moving to the Harper farm near Louisville, she became a Excerpt from an 1868 Denver Rocky Mountain member of Boulder’s Fortnightly Club, a women’s club News advertisement for Harper & Housman’s whose members brought culture and education to hardware store. Boulder. As a result of her experience with the Fortnightly Club and her close friendship with Jennie John H. Harper’s tenure as mayor of Denver was for a Baker, who was the wife of the University of Colorado one-year term. According to newspaper coverage, his President James Baker, Jean Harper Otis then became term was marked by an energetic crackdown on Denver one of the founders of a group in Louisville with a gambling houses and cautious city spending. He was similar purpose called the Saturday Study Club. also credited with his leadership in raising thousands of According to a 1948 letter written by Myrtle Bittner to dollars from Denver citizens to benefit people in describe the founding of Louisville’s Saturday Study Chicago who were made homeless in the Great Chicago Club in the 1890s, Mrs. Otis “organized the Club … and Fire in October 1871. Not surprisingly, given his attended to details generally. Those were Horse and prominence in Denver as a businessman and government Buggy days.” leader, he built what was described as a very fine mansion with a tower. Records and newspaper articles Jean Harper Otis then took charge of a state-wide indicate that it was built at 14th and Curtis in Denver and program, implemented in January 1900, to send boxes of was later purchased by Colorado industrialist David H. books called travelling libraries to small communities in Moffat. Colorado that didn’t have public libraries. (Louisville may have been one of these towns, as it didn’t have even a small library until 1924.) This was done as a project of the Colorado Federation of Women’s Clubs, which Denver Mayor John H. Harper. included Boulder’s Fortnightly Club and Louisville’s Photo credit: Denver Public Saturday Study Club. A year after the program started, it Library. was reported in the Denver Rocky Mountain News that as a result of the program led by Mrs. Otis and carried on by others, women’s clubs throughout the state had provided financial support for 58 boxes (each with 50 Harper purchased over 1,000 acres in the vicinity of books) that had gone to 35 places in Colorado, reaching what would become Louisville by the early 1870s. an estimated 10,000 readers. Two railroad companies (Unfortunately, the exact date or dates of his purchase even provided free transportation to get the boxes to could not be located.) It is believed that the main activity their destinations. The impact of these travelling libraries for the land was cattle ranching. However, Harper soon on literacy and culture in the young state of Colorado became a partner with William Davidson, Charles C. would be hard to measure, but was likely significant. Welch, Charles B. Kountze, and others in opening up This effort was even recognized nationally, according to areas for coal mining in the area. It seems appropriate the Colorado Historical Society’s 1993 publication that today, a new pedestrian underpass under McCaslin Women’s Clubs of Denver. Boulevard connects Harper Lake with the Davidson Jean Harper Otis and Oran Otis then moved in the early Mesa, named for William Davidson, Boulder County 1900s to Redlands, California, perhaps to escape farming and mining entrepreneur and Harper’s Colorado’s cold winters or to seek a role in the investment partner. developing navel orange industry. However, Jean Harper died in 1874 at the age of only 49. Whether he continued to be one of the owners of hundreds of acres ever actually lived on his ranch property is not known. of Harper land in the Louisville area for the next several His wife, Margaret, and their grown children, who were decades. In fact, the 1909 Drumm’s Wall Map of Jean, John J., and George, survived him. They are Louisville shows “Harper & Otis” as the owners of large known for having lived on the farm that they inherited parcels of farm land to the north and west of original and they were actively involved in its operation and in downtown Louisville. 2 Space. Louisville’s Alfalfa’s store and parts of the Steel Jean’s youngest brother, George Harper, graduated from Ranch development sit atop additional areas of the Yale University and became a civil engineer. In October Harper & Otis land. Over the years, the original Harper 1885, at the age of 23, he “devoted himself exclusively land was divided and sold to members of the Beauprez, to stock farming at Louisville” until 1892, according to Clyncke, Hocheder, and other farming families, and part his obituary. One can imagine that George’s civil of the land became the location of Louisville’s Paclamar engineering expertise contributed to the design of the Dairy in the 1960s. The USGS map dated 2001 showing water reservoir and ditches that the Harpers would soon coal mine locations in eastern Boulder County reveals put in. He next became the Sanitary Engineer for the that coal mining extended completely under Harper City of Denver, then worked in other states in various Lake. This was due to mining activities of the nearby positions. Matchless Mine, which operated on Harper & Otis land from 1903 to 1927. The middle sibling, John J. Harper, had the longest connection with the Harper ranch northwest of The names of Harper and downtown Louisville and was the member of the Harper Otis appear as landowners family who actually created Harper Lake as a water in several places on the reservoir. He was a lawyer who had attended Columbia Law School. According to the plat that he filed with the 1909 Drumm’s Wall Map Boulder County Recorder in 1897, Harper Reservoir was of Louisville. planned to cover ten surface acres. A feeder ditch would We don’t know whether the two Harper Streets in connect Harper Reservoir with the Louisville Lateral Louisville were named for this Harper family. It is Ditch that extended north to connect to the Louisville possible, since the earlier street, which is in Louisville’s Reservoir and southwest to the Marshall area.
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