Letter: Historic cabin's link to avenue site that became motel in 1930s

Letter: Historic cabin's link to avenue site that became motel in 1930s

In a photo believed to be from the 1920s, the Garvin Cabin - which has been in Bancroft Park since 1961 - is shown at its original location on the north side of West Colorado Avenue's 2600 block. The two-story commercial building beside it is still standing.

Courtesy of Dave Hughes

Editor's note: Dave Hughes led the Old Colorado City economic revitalization effort of the 1970s and '80s, which included preservation work on the cabin he references below. His letter is in response to Mel McFarland's Cobweb Corners column on the Westside Pioneer website, titled “A mystery motel from the 1930s," at this link.

       There is more to the story about where the motel was built on West Colorado Avenue in 1938.
       The 1859 Garvin Cabin, now in Bancroft Park, had previously been on the motel property's easternmost lot. Today a jewelry store occupies that space.
       The cabin lasted there until Thayer Tutt saved it (for $400) and put it on the Broadmoor golf course earlier in the 1930s. In 1959, he let it be displayed at the

In the 1880s, the Garvin Cabin was Sam Wah's Laundry. Note: The building beside it (see top photo) wasn't built until 1901.

Courtesy of Dave Hughes

State Capitol during Colorado's Rush to the Rockies Centennial, and in 1961 he gave it to the city, which put it in Bancroft Park.
       If you look at the top photo, probably taken in the 1920s, you will see the cabin on its original site, and next to it is a two-story brick building (still standing), just west of where the Colorado City Creamery is today.
       I also have a photo from in the 1880s (bottom photo), showing the cabin with a boardwalk and not a cement curb, much less a sidewalk. That was when it was Sam Wah's Chinese Laundry.
       When I was about 7 years old, I caddied for my Uncle Ed on the Broadmoor golf course. After I carried his bag for nine holes, my Aunt Arleen sat with me on the golf club veranda, where she plied me with sarsaparilla and told me the old Ute Indian story that Cheyenne Mountain was actually the Great Dragon who brought the floods, but couldn't fly and petrified with its nose down toward Pueblo and its tail behind the Broadmoor.
       The cabin then sat in a copse of trees between the 17th and 18th green, where it simply stored rakes and hoses for the golf course. It wasn't used or labeled for tourists. I clearly remember it.

       Dave Hughes

(Posted 1/27/17; Opinion: Letters)

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