history of 301 Harrison Street
Native Land
Development
Denver was settled for its natural resources, but not its
native flora. Here pioneers found only semi-arid lands with
hardy plants such as chokecherry, wild onion, prickly pear,
and yucca. Even after a generation of development, travelers
to Denver such as Isabella Bird would describe the city as
"brown and treeless, upon the brown and treeless plain."
Within a year, Gray and Erickson would erect the block's
very first building: a $500 greenhouse measuring 19' x 150'.
The property at 301 Harrison would contribute to the
beautification of Denver, bringing floral wonders to a land
which desperately needed them.
Gray had only arrived at the turn of the century, but he was
certainly ready to make his mark. After purchasing the
property and erecting the greenhouse at the tender age of 23,
he married a woman from Kansas named Alice in 1905. As
the greenhouse's primary "nurseryman," Ralph kept close
watch over his charges, living just around at 275 Colorado
Boulevard. Indeed, in the 1910 census, both he and Alice
were listed as living at both Harrison Street and Colorado
Boulevard.
Founders
Along the Smokey Hill Trail just north of Cherry Creek was
an area of unusual richness. Inhabited mainly by buffalo
grass and the occasional clump of wildflowers, the Cherry
Creek floodplain offered rich soil for growth.
When Edwin Preston Harman, a lawyer and former
Confederate officer, laid claim to 320 acres in 1869, the area
was far southeast of town. But as Denver's population
expanded sevenfold in the 1870s, the land became more
desirable. So in 1882, Edwin subdivided the land in the name
of his wife, Lou (Glover) Harman, and opened the
neighborhood for development.
Concerned about the bums, liquor traffic, and dry lands, 150
area residents formed the independent Town of Harman in
1886. Bt the experiment was short-lived, as high tax rates
and a nationwide depression led to (re)annexation by the city
of Denver in 1894.
Early Owners
Like the owner of the subdivision itself, the first property
owner was a woman. Yet without a signature, husband's
name, or listed address to go by, it is difficult to uniquely
identify Hattie M Johnson. The fact that sported the second
most common surname and the 33rd most popular first name
at the time makes her identity especially hard to uncover.
We do know, however, that Hattie paid a reasonable price in
1898. For $1200 she received 375 square feet of land, which
was the equivalent of 15 standard city lots. At a time when
the going rate was $150-300 per unimproved parcel, Johnson
had uncovered a good deal.
A second, equally nondescript landowner named Albert
Smith purchased the land in 1899, and held it for four years.
But it was April 1903 when the use characteristics really
changed, for it was then that Ralph C Gray and M H
Erickson received title to the land. They brought clear plans
for its development.
© Historical Insights, 2006
Both Gray and Erickson were florists. And both had come to
the United States from foreign lands: Gray from Canada, and
Erickson from Sweden.
Gray's partner, Martin Herman Erickson, was a more
committed bachelor. He had arrived in the United States in
1890, and lived alone at 140 Cook Street for many years. A
short man with blue eyes and a medium build, Martin was
betrothed on February 7, 1912 at the age of 45, when he took
second-generation Swiss-German immigrant, Lillian J
Herpick, to be his bride. At an age when most women would
be considered spinsters, his 30-year-old bride quit her job as
stenographer and took to married life, giving birth to a son
and two daughters.
The neighborhood was sparsely populated for the first dozen
years, but seemed to attract professionals occupants even
then: the nearest neighbors to the greenhouse included a
writer, engineer, teacher, and nurse. And the business
thrived in its pristine location, as Gray and Erickson pulled a
permit to construct a $1000 addition to the original structure
just a year after starting business together.
New Ownership
Within a few years, Erickson would be replaced by a new
partner, Frank Fry. But an even bigger change came in 1913,
when the entire property was sold to a former employee of
Gray Floral named Charles Franc.
Like his predecessors, Franc was a foreign born florist who
made good in this land. He came to the US amidst the
worldwide Panic of 1893 from Bohemia, and remained a
bachelor until the age 31 in 1902. In 1913, Charles and wife
Anna (Holy) Franc took possession of the entire eastern half
of Harrison Street's 300 block.
Charles and his young sons Godfrey, Edward, and Rudolph
soon went to work expanding the shop. In 1917, they added
a $500 brick garage. Four years later, they upgraded their
irrigation system, installing a new tap from the Denver
Water Company. And by 1922, they were readying some
Commissioned by Harrison Place LLC
major additions, including a new family home at 357
Harrison.
Business was booming. In the early 1920s can a rapid fire
succession of new building permits. $2000 was spent in
repairs to the old greenhouse, $3000 for two new steel and
concrete greenhouses measuring 36' x 110', and $2200 for a
garage and two new smoke stacks. The family added two
more two greenhouses in 1926 for $5000, and another in
1929. Even in the midst of the Great Depression, they were
steadily growing, pulling permits for yet another 36' x 117'
greenhouse in June 1931.
Larger economic and scientific forces were at work. Scientists
discovered that carnations grown in Colorado offered
superior longevity to those produced elsewhere, which caused
an enormous expansion of the state's flower export trade. In
1927, Denver alone boasted 3 million square feet of
greenhouses, and area florists directed 80% of their efforts
towards states such as Texas and Oklahoma.
10 million carnations were shipped out of Denver in 1935.
Not only that, but the city was overtaking the gardenia
market throughout the West and developing rare roses such
as the Scott Key which were produced only in Denver.
Hardy strains of baby's breath, chrysanthemums, and lilies
also became staples of the Denver florist's stock and trade.
sold to Joseph G & Connie B Whitehouse. As proprietors of
Third Avenue Florist, the Whitehouses and later Gordon
Callbeck maintained the property's floral tradition into the
second half of the twentieth century. As the Cherry Creek
Dam and Cherry Creek Shopping Center turned the
neighborhood toward commercial markets, Third Avenue
Flower Shop and Greenhouse provided a larger showroom
and a greater focus upon retail.
The modern era can be dated to the early 1970s, when a
Dutch family took over this long-established greenhouse
business. The Veldkamps started out in 1959 as a small floral
shop in the Westland Shopping Center and business soon
grew to encompass several other shops. By the 1970s, the
Veldkamps were running retail outlets in every Target store
(and several Albertson's branches) in Colorado under the
name "Veldkamp's Dutch Flower Market." They needed
more nurseries, and the space at 3rd and Harrison was a
perfect fit.
Rebirth
Third Incarnation
In July 2005, Harrison Place LLC purchased the old
Veldkamp Florist space with plans to seed new life in this old
space. Where once there were once flowers encompassing
every imaginable variety, soon there will be luxury
condominiums. A new three story building will spring from
the ground, providing residents with mountain views and
central access throughout Denver.
The business so firmly planted by Franz & Sons was
transformed in October 1948, when the greenhouses were
Just as the essence of birth lies in fertility, the heart of this
new project lies in the rich soil of its florid past.
© Historical Insights, 2006
Commissioned by Harrison Place LLC