So many great memories and so much history.

For over 100 years.

Elitch Gardens in Denver has touched the lives of perhaps more folks than any other Colorado institution since 1890, when the gardens opened.

Millions have danced and played and romanced here.

No summer would have been complete without a visit to Elitch Gardens.

But E litch was more than just an amusement park.

It was Denver's first botanic garden, the site of Denver's early zoo, home of America's oldest summer theater, Denver's first children's museum.

A pioneer in Colorado's floral industry.

The site of Denver's first motion picture theater, and, of course, home of the Trocadero, one of America's great ballrooms.

Elitch Gardens was responsible for many of Denver's best memories.

As someone once said, Elitch Gardens is Denver.

A penny arcade, lemonade in the shade and the dreams that you've made all come true.

There's pink cotton candy.

Fun.

as fun can be beautiful Elitch gardens.

No one is sure what attracted young John Elitch, a strapping Alabamian with a bent for acting to Mary Houck, a quiet student in a Catholic convent.

But these two San Francisco residents met and married in California in 1872.

John and his father operated an oyster house in the San Francisco Theater District.

It was here that he became fascinated by show business and cultivated many friends in the theater.

Mary Houck was originally from Philadelphia and moved to California as a child with her family.

Mary's tastes were much more refined than John's when they met.

She was studying foreign languages and art and had never seen a vaudeville performance.

After two failures as a theatrical promoter, John Elitch returned to Denver in 1882 with his wife Mary, and reentered the Colorado restaurant business.

Denver during the 1880s was the Queen city of the Plains, the new capital of the 38th state.

It had a fire department fou r daily newspapers and a gra opera house, said to be the finest between the coasts.

By mid-decade, John had become a moderately successful Denver restaurateur and caterer.

He also was somewhat of an athlete.

He believed in the benefits of vigorous exercise, and was one of the founders of the Denver Athletic Club.

In 1887, John and Mary sold their second restaurant, Elitches Palace Dining Rooms, on Arapahoe Street.

They had decided to create a beautiful summer garden where the public could enjoy a theater and the outdoors.

Just north of Sloan Lake and five miles from downtown, at the corner of Prospect and Canby Street was the Chilkat Farm, 16 acres with good water, surrounded by shade bearing cottonwoods and a thriving apple orchard.

In 1888, it became the Elitch Farm.

For the next three years, John Mary family and friends worked to transform the farm into Denver's first public garden.

Not a rock was moved, a pathway created, nor a flower bed planted without Mary's guidance.

John concentrated on the construction of the outdoor theater, the athletic fields, and the early concession buildings.

Soon, John and Mary, show business friends from around the country were donating animals to the enterprise & the Elitches found themselves the proprietors of a small but growing zoo.

On May 1st, 1890, the gardens were ready to open.

The apple trees were in full bloom and all of Denver was invited.

When the day of opening arrived, I was filled with grief and disappointment, for the rain was falling.

Mr.

Elitch was nearly as sorrowful as I. For we had made great preparations for the opening, and it seemed doomed to dismal failure.

The rain did stop.

Denver Mayor Wolf Londoner made a speech, and all of Denver poured through the gate, with Denver newspaperman Eugene Field in the lead.

Other famous guests were Mr.

and Mrs.

Tom thumb and the circus showman P.T.

Barnum.

The newspapers reported the next day that the flowers were beautiful.

The children well behaved, and the vaudeville presentation enjoyed by all.

The first summer was such a success that John invested in a traveling theatrical company, the Goodyear Elitch Shilling Minstrel Company, and departed that fall to tour the West Coast.

In March of 1891, just two months before the opening of their second season.

John fell ill while playing in San Francisco and died.

Mary Elitch was devastated by John's death.

For she had not only lost her beloved husband, but her business partner as well.

The death of my husband left me with our great venture, still something of an experiment in spite of its one successful season.

But having been imbued with his vision and knowing his ambitions for the enterprise, I determined to carry on and so undertook the entire management myself.

Mary offered Elitch stock at $1 a share.

Her advertisement in the Rocky Mountain News covered 11 columns.

It spoke of the benefits of investment and said that Denver had no public park of its own or anybody, but a burro could enjoy himself.

The gardens flourished under Mary's loving care, a remarkable feat during the years of the Silver Panic, when even Denver's famous Tabor Opera House and the popular Broadway theater went bankrupt.

The Silver crash.

The depression of 1893 had a tremendous impact on Denver and on Colorado.

The price of silver dropped from $1.10 an ounce to something like $0.50 an ounce.

Something like three fourths of the silver mines closed.

Tremendous economic disaster in Colorado.

One third of the population out of work.

Many people from mining towns flocked to Denver.

And you might think that would put out of business.

But I think a lot of people at the time on their hands and a desperate need for some kind of relief, some kind of escape, would head out to Elitchs or for a nickel or a dime or whatever the charge was.

Then you can escape to the zoo and to the Vituscope, and all the amusements and attractions of Elitches.

Mary kept improving the gardens.

She added new features, like the miniature train that circled the theater.

She offered her theater audiences a mix of vaudeville and light opera that kept her competitive with a new Manhattan Beach amusement park that had opened on the north shore of Sloan Lake in August of 1896.

Mary exhibited Denver's first motion picture, Moving Images Fresh from the Spanish-American War, projected by Mr.

Edison's new Vitus Cope in the Elitch Theater.

She also offered the popular gravitational defiance of local balloonist Ivy Baldwin.

Baldwin performed daily from the balloon and occasionally leaped to earth via parachute.

Balloon ascensions were most popular with the public, and airborne weddings were not uncommon.

By the turn of the century, Mary had replaced vaudeville with stock dramatic theater, instituted symphonic concerts, and established a classical dance school for children.

The lady of the gardens, as she had been dubbed by the Denver Post, was becoming world famous as the only lady amusement park owner and zookeeper.

In 1900, she married her box office manager, Thomas Long.

Mary loved animals, and by 1900, Denver's early zoo had grown to become a major part of the gardens.

Lions, elephants, buffalo, ostrich and of course, bears were now permanent Elitch Garden residents.

One famous attraction was the Bear Pit, right there in the center of the of the park, and there was a high cement fence around it.

You walk up to it and looked down in the bear pit and see the bears down there.

And there was one bear.

It was real tall and skinny, and I was told afterwards that he didn't have a tooth.

And he said, but he'd stand there, stretched his neck, and waved to the people up that were looking down in the pit at him and beg for peanuts or whatever, you know.

But I do remember seeing the bears.

There were two of them.

One was small one and this tall, skinny bear that was the original one.

I'm sure many of Mary's animals enjoyed special privileges and were permitted to wander the park unattended.

Once Mary was off on vacation, and while she was gone, the animals discovered a way to get into the home place.

And when she got back from her little trip, it was full of a variety of animals.

I know there were bear cubs there, and some of the fowl had gotten in and a deer and a couple of other creatures, so her house was in shambles.

But Mary just laughed and said this was my fault.

I always encouraged them to come in and they just were looking for me.

Mary's love of animals was exceeded only by her love for children.

She established Children's Day at Elitches.

Every Tuesday of the summer was a day of outdoor adventure and learning enjoyed by thousands of Denver youngsters.

She would often greet the children at the gate herself in her world famous ostrich drawn cart, then lead groups on nature walks, teaching them about the plants and animals in her zoological gardens.

Other days, she'd invite Ute tribal members to instruct the youngsters in Indian crafts.

Folk dancing and special children's plays were also offered.

Throughout the summer, young children were brought to and just let out by the hundreds, and she would usually select a certain group of children who would go to her home and have tea.

And it was very refined.

And Mary was very, very careful that each little person who came did everything in the proper, refined way.

And this seemed to be something that was very important to her, that everyone had good manners and that no one ever would spill or do anything, or it would be a terrible, terrible thing.

Mary was widowed again in 1906, when Thomas Long was killed in an automobile accident, and once again.

Mary found herself operating the gardens alone.

As World War One approached, making a profit became more difficult, and it was soon apparent that the aging Mrs.

Elitch Long and her gardens were in serious financial trouble.

A consortium of Denver businessmen, led by flower millionaire J.K.

Mullen, purchased the gardens in 1916 and appointed John M Mulvihill of the Denver Gas and Electric Company.

Manager Mulvihill was a good choice to rescue the faltering amusement park.

He was a smart businessman with experience managing Denver's Broadway theater, and, like many others, had a great admiration and respect for Mary Elitch.

John Mulvihill made two promises to Mary at the time of the sale that the name Elitch Gardens would never be changed, and that she could live in the gardens for as long as she wished.

In the 1920s, Mulvihill purchased the gardens himself, and shortly thereafter brought in his new son in law, Arnold Gertler, to help him manage the enterprise.

Mary lived out her life in the gardens in a handsome bungalow that Mulvihill had built to replace her aging cottage.

She was surrounded by the things that she loved until just a few years before her death in 1936.

Some say it was the soul of the garden, the very reason the gardens were created by John and Mary Elitch.

It was known as America's oldest summer stock theater for 100 years.

Audiences enjoyed thousands of productions on its stage, everything from Shakespeare to vaudeville.

Many of the world's most famous names in theater, film, and show business appeared there.

What I loved was going into the theater to see all those pictures outside, to see Grace Kelly, and to see Rex Harrison and all these people that had played there, John Barrymore and all the Barrymore's, I think, at one time, and another had played there.

Oh, what a wonderful entrance that was.

The theater was still under construction at the time of John Elitchs death in 1891, but his wife Mary completed it the following season and began to replace vaudeville with light opera and dramatic presentations.

After several seasons, Mary appointed a theater director and organized the first dramatic stock company.

Actors who would reside at the gardens, presenting as many as ten different plays during summer.

The company's first season premiered with Helene and A Bachelor's Romance, starring playwright Eugene O'Neill's father James, as the leading man.

It wasn't long before the Ellipse Theater summer stock company became well known to the theatrical world.

Many famous artists of the day were interested in playing for the lady of the Gardens in Denver.

So popular was the theater becoming that Mary had the building remodeled, with expanded seating and new box seats added to accommodate more patrons.

In 1899, Mary staged Denver's first presentation of Sierra de Bergerac.

It was a mammoth production, requiring a cast of over 100, and many Denver residents found themselves appearing on stage with the famous leading lady, Henrietta Crosman.

In the early 1900s, a young lad appeared at the stage door and offered to scrub the theater floor for a ticket to the current week's production.

The young lad was later to reappear at his except on the stage.

This time he was Douglas Fairbanks.

It was about this time that the beautifully painted stage curtain depicting Anne Hathaway's cottage from Shakespeare first appeared.

It remained in use until the theater closed in 1991.

In 1906, thanks to the San Francisco earthquake, Denver was treated to the immortal French actress Madame Sarah Bernhardt.

One look at that expressive face, upturned beneath the drooping black hat from which the heavy veil had been lifted, told me it was no other than Madame Bernhardt.

As this realization came to me.

She turned, and our eyes met.

There was no need for an introduction.

Without a word, we folded into each other's arms.

We side together.

We knew a common language and we shared our delight in the knowledge.

Though our languages were not the same.

Sarah appeared in two programs in one day.

And many in Mary's company performed as supers.

Just to say I played Elitches with Sarah Bernhardt.

Sarah Bernhardt was also a kind of a rebel in the way she behaved, pulled some kind of cute pranks, one of which was to go down into the bear Pit, and both of them went together, and they would stand right by the bears and then wave at everyone.

And people thought this was incredible to see these two women, one very famous Sarah Bernhardt down there looking at bears while they were thinking they were going to be eaten or something.

But Mary did this frequently, and Sarah Bernhardt went right along with it.

Many other famous actors became Elitch leading men and women.

Louis Stone was featured in 1913.

He arrived for the season after driving his automobile from California.

John Mulvihill took over as the theater manager after the gardens were sold in 1916.

I remember Fredric March and Florence Eldridge as the actors, because they were married while they were playing at Elitches, and so Florence Eldridge was fired because Mr.

Mulvihill had told him that he would not have any married couples acting together.

The theater prospered under Malvihills direction & many famous and not so famous appeared.

John Mulvihill, son in law Arnold Gertler, and his wife Marie took over management of the theater after Mulvihills death in 1930.

From the early days of summer stock.

Arnold and Marie Gertler would leave for New York in January and return in late March, having finished their chores of casting the company for the coming season and selecting ten plays they felt Eilish audiences would like in their New York office.

They maintained a huge casting book, and in the book was the name of every actor and actress that interviewed with a short comment after their names.

There was one young aspiring actor who, after his name had this little notation.

Don't interview again.

Ears too big.

Of course, it was Clark Gable.

Wednesday matinees were big.

Denver social affairs and women would vie over season tickets each year.

A young little known actor named Eddie Robinson was fired by Elitch owner Arnold Gertler for not keeping up his wardrobe.

Denver socialite and newspaper heiress Helen Bonfils had a long and important association with the Elitch Theater.

She was a theater beneficiary and appeared in minor roles in many stock performances.

Jack Gertler, of course, had some of them played some of the minor parts in some of the theater productions, and I believe one of them was The Man Who Came to Dinner, in which Helen Bonfils played the nurse.

And there is a line, well, several lines.

I think the prime, the man who came to dinner always called for his nurse as Miss Bedpan.

And Jack said that it was a great treat in Denver to hear the lady who was on the Denver Post and who was such a prominent person in Denver to be referred to as Miss Bedpan.

Arnold Gertler, sons Budd and Jack Gertler, started working for their parents as theater ushers.

The theater remained open during World War Two, and many GI stationed in Denver saw their first live drama at Elitches.

You could dress up and feel kind of a little elegant, you know, and then you'd in between acts, you'd go get a soft drink or something and then come back and.

The young people were always the ushers and the usherette, and they were always gracious to you.

And I always enjoyed going around the part of the theater and looking at all the stars that had been there over the years, and reminiscing about some of the ones that we had seen.

After the war, Arnolds sons Bud and Jack took over the garden's operations.

They rotated their management duties between the theater and the Trocadero Ballroom to reach the rehearsal yard behind the director's office.

One had to take a flagstone path Arnold called the path and the flagstones stepping stones to stardom.

Arnold was most prophetic because in 1951, a 21 year old ingenue arrived at Elitches for the ten weeks of summer theater, and she appeared in every play.

She lived in a room over on 39th and Tennyson Street, and rode A bicycle back and forth to work At the close of the season.

This lovely young lady left for Hollywood.

Two years later, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and a year later she won the Prince of Monaco.

Truly, Grace Kelly took those stepping stones to stardom.

In 1964, Miss Helen Bonfils became theater manager and the stock system was replaced by the star System.

Walter Pidgeon and Cesar Romero appeared during her first season.

Other big name stars appeared at Elitches like James Whitmore, Darren McGavin, Shelley Winters, and Debbie Reynolds.

You know, there was a real spiritual feeling there.

It was like you knew you were going to be buoyed up when you were on stage.

You knew that you couldn't do too many things wrong somehow, because all those spirits of all those actors, through the years through, well, now hundreds, 100 years, were there to help you.

And grown up, I'd say.

How on earth did you.

How.

No Let me see, let me see it.

Oh, still at your age.

A bit of rather rough play in some of the big boys.

at porter ness.

Give it to me.

Such a kind, such a gentleman.

How many of these big boys were there?

Oh, about 100.

About a hundred.

Tell me the whole story.

No, no, you tell me your story.

If it is a story, if you dare to tell it.

Although the touring plays with famous stars worked for a while, it was becoming more and more difficult to fill an entire summer with good traveling productions.

I think that the theater started to have its demise basically brought on by television, not the movies, but television, and as television became popular through the late 50s.

Going into the 60s, it was found that the actors from Broadway shows and legitimate theater could find easy work or easier work in in television and or the movies.

And with that, it became harder and harder to find people willing to do plays.

The last full theater season was 1988, and the last play was The Robber Bridegroom, presented in 1991.

That Elitch Stage, I swear, I really think, and I sure wouldn't see that say this about other places I've performed, but I think I could be blindfolded and I would know if my foot was on that stage.

It's an almost palpable feeling.

What is that?

It's like I'm home.

It's it's a great feeling.

It's a wonderful stage.

After 100 years, the world famous Elitch Theater went dark.

John and Mary considered musical performances essential to an enjoyable experience at their gardens.

One of the first structures they built was an octagonal gazebo for outdoor band concerts in 1897.

Mary hired the Italian violinist and conductor Senor Rafael Carvalho to form an orchestra for the gardens.

Classical concerts were given every Friday afternoon in the theater.

Denver youth had been taught classical dance at Elitches for years, and by the turn of the century public dancing was very popular.

Some of the early local bands appearing in the Elitch Dance Pavilion were the Johnny Hopkins Orchestra and Vic Schilling and His Orchestra.

Mulvihills son in law, Arnold Gertler, had recently joined from a decorator position at the Denver Dry Goods Company.

Mulvihill gave him the task of redecorating the old dance hall using the latest ideas from out east, including a horsehair spring floor.

Gertler completely remodeled the old dance hall, creating the Tracadero.

a place that many bandleaders said was the most beautiful ballroom in all of America.

Many local bands were appearing at the Troc during the summer, but Arnold wanted to book some big name national bands.

He joined a Chicago talent agent in obtaining the booking rights for all traveling bands between Chicago and the West Coast.

This provided Arnold with many big bands and incidentally, was the beginning of the Music Corporation of America.

I had my first date with my husband there in 1938.

That was a year we were married.

It was a blind date, but once we got on the dance floor, he wouldn't go off because he was afraid.

Some of the men he worked with who were there would ask me for a dance, and he didn't want me to dance with anybody else.

We went with my brother and his wife, and I don't remember the orchestra, but I remember the first number we danced to, which was Josephine.

The big band era swept the country and the Troc became more and more popular.

Dances were held every night of the summer, and nationally known bands like the Dorsey's, Guy Lombardo, Stan Kenton and Les Brown were playing the famous ballroom One season in the early 30s.

A new band was booked into the Trocadero, and Elitch dancers were used to dancing to tunes as indicated by the band leader.

There was a large electrical sign that hung over the band shell, and on the sign was Waltz, Foxtrot, and One Step.

This new band came into the Troc this season in the early 30s, played a type of music totally formed in them.

They couldn't dance to it.

Arnold Gertler was horrified, standing on the side of the ballroom and seeing that the dancers couldn't handle it.

So he called Jule Stein, who was the booking agent in Chicago, and I told him that it just wasn't working this new band and to get another band out right away.

Well, Jules came out by the next train and agreed with Arnold that the band had to go and a new band was in route.

So the first band left and went off to a ballroom in the West Coast, where from then on it was just history.

Their success was so phenomenal.

The music the band was playing was called swing and the bandleaders name Benny Goodman from world famous Elitch Gardens and Denver, Colorado.

Some performances were being broadcast live, to radio audiences across the nation over the Mutual Broadcasting System.

And there was the one engineer and myself, the announcer.

We'd go out and we would first of all, visit with the the bandleader.

He would take a break just before broadcast time.

The broadcast, by the way, were 30 minutes in duration, and we'd go over the music list for that night.

He would turn the music list in previous day to the station, and if there was any unusual circumstances, we would review that.

Otherwise we would be silent up until our time.

The engineer had his booth across the ballroom on the other side, where they had a series of red and green lights, and they would have the red light on about a minute prior to broadcast time, and then he'd flash on the green light, and that meant we were off and running.

And now, from the beautiful flower trim Trocadero Ballroom at world famous Elitch Gardens in the Mile high city of Denver, Colorado, at the foot of the towering, snowcapped Rockies.

We bring you the music of and his orchestra.

A couple of exceptions to that.

Eddie Howard had a special introduction he liked to be given, where he announcer would come on cold and say, It's Eddie Howard.

And then they he would come right in with his theme song.

And Jan Garber again, he liked to have a little different type introduction.

I guess I mentioned those two people because they were out there over quite a length of time during the summer.

Even during the depression, with thousands out of work, the ballroom continued to attract dancers.

When I was single and working, and this was during the depression, I had a girlfriend who was also single and and working.

We each had a car.

At Elitches.

At that time there was a very proper stag line.

The girls would stand in a group on the east side of the dance hall, and the man would gather in another group on the same side of the dance hall, the back of us, and they'd look us over and we'd look them over, I guess.

But we always went by ourselves and came home by ourselves.

But we had fun.

We both like to dance, and most of our social life was connected with the church group.

And most of those men didn't dance, and we may have dated them when we went to dance.

& we both loved to dance.

We'd go to Elitches continuing the tradition of good, clean fun.

Those dancing at the Troc were expected to follow the rules.

At the Trocadero.

You had to have a tie, the fellows had to have a tie, and a lot of these guys would come out and then we would rent them.

Ties out of the candy cotton stands, you know.

So it was surprising to us how many men never knew how to tie a tie.

And so they would back up to the counter and we'd crawl up on top of the counter and put our arms around around them and tie the tie and the mirror so that we could see what we were doing.

But we rented ties to these guys for a long time, and that was lots of fun.

You know, many of the guys ended up with these horrible ties they bought them for, I think, a dollar and a half or something, you know?

And so we sold ties as well as rented them.

But it was a lot of fun.

The Troc had a strict dress code.

They were equally strict about the dancing that went on at the Troc.

And that male chaperons watching for people doing such things as dancing cheek to cheek.

Of course, this was before swing came in, and then it was sort of mandatory that you danced cheek to cheek.

But one young Denver Belle society belle related in her memoirs, published in the later on, that she was tapped for dancing cheek to cheek and asked to leave the floor with her escort and the society.

belle was Mamie Doud, later to be Mamie Eisenhower and the escort.

It was not exactly a bull.

It turned out to be her uncle.

Big dance bands weren't the only orchestras to appear at the Troc.

The Denver Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Saul Caston, used to present pop concerts every week in the dance hall.

During World War Two, Elitches became the place for Denver servicemen to bring their dates or to meet the opposite sex.

Adjoining the dance floor at the Troc was the Grill Room, where dancers could get refreshments and talk.

One thing I remember is around the outside of the dance floor were the tables and the chairs, and you could sit.

And there was always bands that had certain types of music that some of us didn't know how to dance to, and they had people who were professional dancers that would come.

And it was so fun sitting on the sidelines watching these people who could really, really dance, you know?

But I did.

We jitterbug.

We did.

We did a lot of things that were fun.

To this day, we can still jitterbug, you know?

In fact, to this day, we have people say to us, how do you dance that close?

And I said, well, how don't you dance that close?

In the early 1950s, Hollywood recreated the glorious big band years of World War two at the Troc.

All the major ballroom scenes for the movie The Glenn Miller Story, starring Jimmy Stewart and June Allyson, were filmed there.

In later years, other popular groups appeared like Harry James, Frankie Masters and, of course, Lawrence Welk.

The difference between playing the ballroom and any other facility that we played, and at that time we played a lot of different places around the state.

Several states is that the floor was so spacious and so special for people to come out and have all this space in order to dance, that it was a lot of fun to see how much they enjoyed doing that, as opposed to what things are today.

When you go and play a fancy hotel and they have this small 16 by 16 or 30 by 30 dance floor, which will dance 50, 60 people, and you've got 300 in the party that want to dance.

They're uptight, they're not happy about that.

And so the difference was incredible, because when you have a place like the Troc, people had all kinds of room and space and they had fun doing it.

We enjoyed the Troc.

But musical tastes were changing.

In the 60s and early 70s, there was a new generation more interested in rock concerts than cheek to cheek dancing.

The Troc was a marvelous place It was a shame that it had to be torn down, but it was just one of those things that came with the times because people were not dancing to local bands big.

The old traveling bands were no longer traveling.

We got a lot of abuse when we tore it down.

People would call and say, why are you doing this?

And they were, but they weren't there when we needed them to support it.

But last season for the Trocadero Ballroom was 1975.

It was my last goodbye.

To you.

It was an evening in late August.

The old ballroom was packed with couples dancing to the sound of Norman Lee and the Eddie Howard Orchestra.

When the final number had been performed, it said there was not a dry eye in the house.

It is not on time.

The final one, the summer home of America's biggest fan.

And we hope you've enjoyed KOA Radio 85 programs Since John and Mary first opened their gardens in 1890, an estimated 50 million visitors from all over the world have passed through the gates.

At first, the gardens contained more flowers than rides, and on many opening days the guests were greeted with the sweet smell of apple blossoms from the orchard that stood just inside the gate.

The formal gardens were tended with care and often reflected the motif of the period.

In the early days, most would come to the gardens by trolley and later by streetcar.

For many, Elitches was the perfect place to spend a summer day.

You could take a quarter and spend the whole afternoon at Elitches because it only costs, I think it cost $0.15 to get in the gate.

And then you were on your own.

And if you saved one nickel to ride the merry go round, which that's all it cost, and a nickel for an ice cream cone, then you could wander around through the park, watch the bumper cars and the the various rides, and you could spend the whole afternoon there.

There were so many beautiful flowers.

And the one thing I remember about Elitches was a clock that was right in the center of the park.

And it was.

It kept time, perfect time with the clock, the hands and the face and everything was covered with growing flowers.

The garden soon became popular for picnics, an outdoor social affairs for many Denver businesses.

Elias was the site of their annual company picnic.

Those who didn't pack a lunch could find a variety of refreshments and treats at concession stands along the midway.

The Orchard Cafe offered a more substantial fare and was a favorite with those attending the theater or dancing at the Trocadero Ballroom.

Some of the first rides were for the children.

There were animal rides, a playground, and a carousel.

The 1905 carousel, built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, was said to be an extravagant.

When it was replaced 20 years later, it cost three times as much because the park owners insisted on hand-carved animals.

There were outdoor performances and spectacles of every description daredevils in balloons and automobiles, animal acts and athletic events, especially baseball games.

The old timers of sports in Denver will remember the league, and they had semi-pro every Sunday.

They had a double header and Elitch itself had a team and the others.

The probably the most popular and powerful team usually was the M&O Cigars.

And the Denver Athletic Club had a team and the diamond, a market and C Chevrolet more drugstores.

And it was written up quite heavily in the in the papers at that time, because that was about the only baseball in town until the bears came along, and the ballpark was right south of the theater.

It was a good sized park.

And then later, when they placed expanded, the ballpark was moved over to where it's in the corner of 36th and Wolf.

And that was a grass field.

And it was a short field.

It was really too small for for men to play.

And then they made the foolish mistake of putting trees in the outfield.

So the outfielders had a spot where the trees were before he went after a ball.

Historic reenactments were once popular.

Great sea battles and catastrophes like the sinking of the Titanic were presented in the Old Monitor and Merrimac building.

In 1914, a great fire destroyed this attraction and almost took the park, but after a night of heroic firefighting, the rest of the gardens was saved.

The original 16 acres were expanded to 32 to accommodate more attractions, gardens and greenhouses.

The new addition extended the park west to Wolfe Street.

With the advent of the automobile, a new gate was opened midway along 38th Avenue so folks could drive their cars into the gardens.

The garden's famous slogan is well known.

It was once carried by automobile spare tire covers.

All over town.

A succession of miniature trains ran through the gardens.

The original train was built for Mary Elitch.

In the 1890s.

Frank Root built and operated most of the later trains.

I didn't work there regularly, but once in a while I worked for Frank root, taking tickets on the trains on on busy days, and Frank and I discussed it and he said, well, I lived just right close here, and I can hear the whistle all the time.

And I says, anytime you need help, just blow for long blasts on that whistle.

When you get around to where it's the closest to our house.

And I was reading on the front porch one day and heard the whistle.

There was for long blasts on it.

So I put down my book, ran over and went over the fence and helped Frank out.

Early.

Elitch ride attendants were uniformed and employed more for visitor safety than park security.

The old mill was popular with courting couples.

They liked the privacy as they drifted in little boats through the dark tunnels, past life sized dioramas.

The old mill burned in 1944, killing six people.

It was Elitches greatest traged An early Elitch ride called The Toboggan was a mild version of the roller coaster.

In 1936, the old half mile coaster was remodeled.

The result was The Wildcat, a thriller that operated until the gardens closed in 1994.

The last roller coaster was its biggest, erected in the mid 60s and expanded a year later.

Mr.

twister quickly became known as one of the top ten wooden roller coasters in America.

Bud and Jack Gertler grew up helping their dad in the gardens.

They were especially keen on the Wild West, and as kids liked to dress up as cowpolks and entertain the park patrons.

One of the funniest stories I think Jack told me was about his brother and he hitching up their little stagecoach with their ponies, and I guess they had some other kids riding with them.

It happened to be on matinee day at the theater, and of course the horses got carried away going home, and they almost ran down the ladies coming out of the theater, including then that their grandfather was standing there who was ready to do whatever had to be done to those boys, but they still got the horses rubbed down at the stables before they dashed home and got their whip.

Bud and Jack were later responsible for the development of Kiddy Land, a special area where all the rides were for small fry.

This was a new innovation in amusement park design, and Hopalong Cassidy, the hero of all American children, was invited to the opening.

Elitch Gardens, with its 160,000ft of greenhouses had been in the floral business almost since its beginning.

The greenhouses grew a variety of cut flowers for its shops in Denver and for wholesale nationwide.

A co-op between North Denver florists and Elitches became the Park Elitch Floral Company.

Arnold Gertler was a vice president, and Walter Lehrer, founder of Lares Flowers, was its first manager.

Elitches specialty was carnations.

They grew well year round, especially in the greenhouses, and the Gertler promoted what became the Colorado Carnation wherever they went.

Over the years, Elitch Gardens has employed thousands of Colorado youth.

In fact, for many years, Elitch has been the largest seasonal employer of youth in the state.

That's one of the things that I think was really remarkable about Elitch is, is how much it added to the community there, because it gave all those kids places to work, a place to work out in the sunshine, you know, and they made lasting friendships.

There were a lot of romances, and there were a lot of people around here today who are married to the kids that they worked with when they were all kids together at Elitchs.

And so it was, and there were big families in northwest Denver, so that there was always another kid coming along from the same family.

You could start at at age 14 as a sweeper.

And for many Denver kids, this was their very first job.

We supplied about half of them over the years when our children 8 Out of our ten children worked at Elitchs.

One thing impressed me a great deal, and that was the the employment of its amusement park.

What did not discriminate in race or color or background or side of town.

If you followed their rules, you could be employed there.

And the thing that really stands out in my mind is that the Gertler gave children like ours a great base for later in life.

It's there were some rules and cleanliness was one dress rules, dress rules, being on time, respecting the customer, things that are really important.

Things that in your family, you you want your children to learn these things.

So they turn out to be good citizens.

And the Gertler, they were good at that.

You know, I still have dreams about when I worked at Elitchs, you know, often find myself on the Mr.

Twister doing speed stops with the hydraulics or something, or Wildcat or a lot of great memories.

You know, the friends it's made and it's amazing.

I go back and talk to Sandy and tell them it was one of the best jobs I've ever had in my life.

We, you know, things were used to living at home.

He didn't.

The money didn't matter.

It was the friends, the times.

And they really did teach you a lot, prepared you a lot for what you know, would take you down the road with other jobs that you had.

But for most, Elitch Gardens was for 104 years, a place for fun.

Elitchs was was a mixing pot, kind of like a Bronco game might be today that you had all different groups from all different parts of the city there.

Although Northwest Denver thought of this as their amusement park, so did other Denver ites.

So you had different ethnic groups.

You have different ages, different economic incomes, all heading out to Elitches, and you still have a great collection of people there when you visit just to watch people.

Elitch gardens has been a highlight place for our whole community for all these many years.

I believe all the things that Mary wanted, this beginning of refinement and a place for enjoyment and pleasure have continued and expanded to go along with the changing mores of people around us.

Elitchs is different.

Than the fun keeps coming Yeah, it keeps on coming your way Come out, and play to spend the day Come to Elitchs just for fun.

A few apple trees like this one are all that remain of the old orchard at Elitch gardens.

They were here in 1890 when John and Mary Elitch first opened the gardens, and they were here in 1994, when the gardens closed for the last time.

They are the only living witnesses to the many events that occurred here.

And of the millions of folks who have enjoyed all these years for Rocky Mountain Legacy, I'm Ed Scott.

A Penny arcade, lemonade in the shade and the dreams that you've made all come true.

There's pink cotton candy fun as fun can be beautiful.

Elitch Gardens.