Julia deKoevend Park - a Legacy to Centennial's history
by Laurie Lips

October 2001

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, third-generation landowners near where Southglenn Mall now stands realized that vast housing projects had popped up. They decided that, to preserve the beauty they remembered, a park should be instituted in the area.

And so, the South Suburban Recreation and Park District began negotiating with landowners. In 1962, the board decided they wanted to acquire land west of �the big bend� on University Boulevard (South). They succeeded in acquiring the land, and promptly voted to name the development �Julia deKoevend Park.�

The name deKoevend is familiar to those who have worked and lived in the area for decades, but many might not know who �Julia� was.

Frederick deKoevend, born of a wealthy Hungarian family in 1846, arrived in America wearing the title of Count deKoevend.

Julia Hana Fischer, born in Austria, came to the States for the first time when she was 12. Later, she traveled around Europe, playing several musical instruments, including the piano, violin, cello, and viola. She was known for her fine playing and distinctive Swiss Yodel.

At the age of 30, she returned to America, where she met deKoevend, and, on March 25, 1883, married him, in Philadelphia. The couple left the state shortly thereafter to homestead in Colorado.

The land they found had boundaries reaching from present-day Arapahoe Road to Orchard, and from the back of where the Highline Ditch runs today, along the backside of present-day deKoevend Park, to Colorado Boulevard.

Their ranch house sat on the southwest corner of today�s Chapel Hill Cemetery, approximately where Peabody Elementary School stands today.

Over the years the couple had six children�Hugo, Ernest, Herman, Bill, Hermine and Frederick, who attended a one-room schoolhouse, Curtis School, on the corner of Orchard and University. The children recall long walks back and forth to school and that they later attended a school on Breen Avenue. Later, that street was renamed Quincy, and the school renamed Cherry Hills, after a local fire.

The couple named their property Elkhorn Ranch. The ranch soon became the social outpost between Denver and Littleton. Julia spoke only German, until years later, after her husband died, when she learned English.

Although many ranches dotted the prairie at that time, this one stood out. On the property, the deKoevends created a restaurant, which added extra income, and a dance and meeting hall, which allowed Julia to entertain and add culture to the area.

Julia was the one who worked most of the land, which included orchards, and crops, such as wheat, a formal garden at the north of the house, and a greenhouse for raising herbs. They also raised poultry and pigs.

Arthur, an educated man and artist, was used to servants; physical work didn�t agree with him. However, he did his own landscape gardening.

He also saw to it that the house was always filled with flowers, displayed with Julia�s name.

The deKoevend children remember Arthur as being a stern man, far from affectionate, who expected them to toe the mark while tending to their chores. He also expected shoes to be shined every night before each could go to bed.

An obituary, written in 1900, reveals a little about the deKoevends. Arthur died in April 1900; he committed suicide at the age of 54.

According to the written account, the deKoevends were formerly in �easy circumstances,� but had suffered a reversal of fortune. That reversal of fortune was evident by the fact that, after Julia�s death years later, the children could find no trace of the prized dishware showing the Hungarian family crest.

Shortly after Arthur�s death, Hugo, born in 1885, died, at the age of 15, from a ruptured appendix.

Over the next several years, Julia worked and fought hard to keep the land, which the deKoevends had been in the process of purchasing at the time of Arthur�s death.

Finally, in June 1917, Julia filed a quitclaim deed, which had been signed and notarized in May 1900, for �consideration of the sum of $1,200.�

On more than one occasion, the deKoevend property was sold for delinquent taxes and had to be redeemed through payments to the treasurer�s office.

To make ends meet, Julia traded and bargained for things the family needed. And, she managed to keep the popular ranch going.

In her restaurant, the Monkey Caf�, she served items such as Hungarian chicken, Parisian potato salad, roast duck, shrimp, and a variety of cheese, to those who traveled from Denver and Littleton, in their buggies, to partake of her international cuisine.

Then, in 1929, Julia died. The ranch was split into five, 48-acre strips. Hermine, the only girl, was given the land where the house and barns were. She lived there for many more years.

Frederick Max deKoevend, the baby of the family, was born on the Elkhorn Ranch. He later married Mabele Edna George. The couple had seven children, one of which is Charlotte Elizabeth (Betty) Elliott, who was born on March 28, 1919.

The land South Suburban obtained was purchased after Frederick�s death, from his wife and their children.

At the time that South Suburban negotiated for the deKoevend land, they were also trying to acquire 7.5 acres from Attorney Lennart Erickson, provided it could buy the land for $1,500 per acre as appraised by an independent expert. Erickson wanted to keep another 1.9 acres for a multiple-dwelling development, and the board voted to grant him a year to attempt to obtain proper zoning. After 12 months, indications were that the board might resort to condemnation of the land if it stayed idle. The condemnation involved a consideration of a sanitary landfill operation. The landfill report made for a delay in the negotiations with Mabele deKoevend.

�There will be no dump there,� she told area residents at a public protest meeting. �I will not sell the land unless it is used for a park. It was a private park for our family years ago and it can be a beautiful public park today.�

She refused to sell the land to South Suburban until she received legal assurance that if the recreation district was dissolved, she could again regain ownership.

Maintaining history

Betty is the keeper of history for the deKoevend family. In her house knotty pine walls, a moss rock fireplace, an old player piano stacked with music rolls, and an old organ are a backdrop for history. Here, you will find shelves and shelves of notebooks and china cabinets that tell the history and genealogy of the deKoevend family.

Newspaper articles show that 200 or more relatives gathered for family reunions at the park area that is now deKoevend Park. �My mother taught us to keep records,� she says. �She instilled it in me, and I have instilled it in my children. Betty says her mother also taught her other values.

�My mother was chosen as the �Foremost Mother of 1942� by the �Littleton Independent,�� she says. �She made it a point in her philosophy of motherhood to make home the most attractive place for her children. She was a great believer in scouting as a character builder. She helped sponsor the Cub Scouts, and encouraged all three of her girls to join the Girl Scouts. She was an active member of the PTA and the Grange, as well as the Red Cross. All of her children played an instrument at Littleton High School.�

Like her mother, Betty is a collector. Her mother collected over 300 dolls, including antique dolls and dolls from around the world. Betty, who once worked in a hat shop in north Denver, has an exceptional hat and hatpin collection, with over 1,000 hatpins.

The Italian owner made Betty her wedding veil as well as a going-away hat. Later, when she closed the shop, Betty bought the hats and the rest of the supplies. Her two sons, Steve and Kim, have an appreciation for collecting as well.

Betty recalls visiting the ranch when she was younger.

�They had a dance hall where us kids played dress up and gave plays,� she said. �Before dances ended at the hall, we as kids went in the attic over the hall and peeked through the knot holes to watch the people dance. Sometimes we dropped gum on them. Edna, my cousin, had a little box that she saved chewing gum in. When she didn�t have fresh, she used what was stored in the box.�

She adds, �most of� her generation �learned to swim where the flood gates are�where little Dry Creek crossed the Highline Canal.� Later she often spent weekends with her sons at the �two-room house� built in the park area.

She says that before the property was sold, horses grazed on the land, which was leased to people who raised greyhounds.

These days, Betty says her hobbies include staying in touch with the family (she has the phone bills to prove it!) and keeping up the family records. She also loves baseball.

She learned to be a ball fan when she lived in Boston, loves Joe DiMaggio, and thinks the Rockies are �great.�

She has also had the excitement of being a crew �chase� member for nephew Gery deKoevend�s balloon business. She has accompanied him on trips to New Mexico and Arizona.

Betty, twice divorced, says she guesses, �marriage just wasn�t� for her.

�But I have two wonderful boys,� she beams.

Betty, 82, prides herself at being able to keep her own house, which holds �so many memories.�

Betty says she was trained to be self-reliant and independent. During WWII, she drove a tanker truck for Continental Oil, delivering fuel to farmers. She remembers that during the depression, the neighbors used to get together to help one another.

�We would all pool our money, and give it to one of the neighbors with a truck to go to the Western Slope for fruit,� she says. �When he came back, we would can for days. Our whole yard was a garden back then. We counted on our neighbors and knew them all real well. There is something about not having money. Poverty is a great teacher.�

While her children were growing up, Betty ran a day nursery. At one time, she worked in a floral shop, and, for 10 years, she �snailed� fish hooks. She also worked for Samsonite for many years.

In order to be able to fix an old 1938 Buick still sitting in her garage, she took an auto mechanic course at Arapahoe Community College.

And, she�s even shingled her own house.

Rallying around deKoevend Park

Betty describes the time that a group of zealots decided University Boulevard needed �straightening.� She says the change would have cut the park in two, and only parts of the park would have been saved.

Luckily, another group of equally zealous environmentalists said, �No way.� They argued the road, considered dangerous by some, was no more dangerous than a straight road, and took an answer right out of a page from �Les Miserables.� They said if �one could get around Paris by using the sewers, people could surely get across University Boulevard.

Another controversy was debated, when South Suburban planned to locate maintenance shops in deKoevend Park. Julia deKoevend Park, a large �natural� park, is located in a heavily populated suburban area east of Littleton, and because of its heavy use, the issue was revisited again, and the shop idea was abandoned.

Instead, over a period, tennis courts, bridges, softball diamonds, and an ice rink were added in the area to serve the community.

Instead of adding to the urban sprawl, these third generation landowners opted for a vision of children playing in the creek once used to irrigate hayfields, and bikers and hikers cutting narrow dirt paths in the bottom land next to the park.