Red Rocks Park, Morrison, CO.

Appearing small in this long shot, maybe it’s hard to believe that John Brisben Walker named this feature on his ranch Garden of the Titans.

Walker was a strong believer in Colorado’s natural parks.

He sold Red Rocks to Denver in 1927. Red Rocks Trading Post was completed in the 1930s. This was followed by Red Rocks Ampitheatre in 1941, after 12 years of planning & construction.

John Brisben Walker named the two main sandstone monolithic rock features of Red Rocks. This is Ship Rock.

This is the mighty Creation Rock, a dizzying sight when viewed up close.

Creation Rock towers over the audience, sitting in architect Burnham Hoyt’s sleek-lined bench seats.

These bench lines are an important and fascinating feature of Burnham Hoyt’s plan for Red Rocks Ampitheatre, designed in the International-style.

Poured concrete forms sit underneath beautiful red brickwork. . .

Sleek International-style lines. . .

Incredible natural beauty. . .

Renown Denver architect Burnham Hoyt’s design masterfully
integrated the ampitheatre into the rock outcroppings of Red Rocks.

(I think the tunnel leading to the upper parking lot was a fairly recent
addition. I thought I remembered seeing this under construction, maybe
some reader can fill me in)

View from the stage at Red Rocks looking up at the peak of Mt Morrison.

This roof wouldn’t have been in place for the famous Beatles performance of 1964, but it was there for the huge MTV hit, U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday video from 1983.

I believe my wife, modernist real-estate buyers-agent, Shannon Stanbro was at this U2 performance (getting rained on, no doubt)

And back again. . . to Creation Rock

Long shot of Creation Rock at Red Rocks Ampitheatre, Morrison, CO

Natural wonder, Red Rocks Park, west of Denver in the foothills of Morrison, CO.

The breathtaking rock outcroppings are part of the Fountain Formation, which also includes the Flatirons in Boulder, and the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.

Red Rocks Ampitheatre was completed on the spot in 1941, after famed International-style Denver architect Burnham Hoyt completed the design in 1936.

I currently live on Hoyt street, named in his honor.

This spot was originally part of the John Brisben Walker ranch, which Walker purchased after moving back to Colorado, after selling his Cosmopolitan Magazine to William Randolph Hearst.

Burnham Hoyt’s design is a masterpiece of consideration of site and setting, perfectly integrated into the natural rock formations.

Walker was the one who first envisioned this area as a natural musical ampitheatre and started having concerts here at the turn of the century. It’s too bad he didn’t live long enough to see Hoyt’s design.

The roof here was added, otherwise the ampitheatre has remained remarkably intact, despite numerous attempts to ruin it by upgrading the benchs/seats.

A scan of a postcard showing the original design without the roof.

Of course, when Hoyt designed the ampitheatre, he couldn’t have predicted the amount of electronic equipment required for contemporary rock bands.

The visual line of the benchs, straddling the distance between “Creation Rock” and “Ship Rock”, flanked by the planters and trees, is one of the strongest elements of Hoyt’s design.

Suggestions for walkway locations were provided by CCC and WPA workers, and then beautifully integrated into the landscape by Hoyt.

Walker’s original name for the site was Garden of the Titans.

Creation Rock at Red Rocks, Colorado

Beautiful landmark Art Deco Glen Huntington Bandshell in Central Park, Boulder, Co from 1938

Often casually overlooked, this is a stunning compound arch design, which Huntington modeled after the Hollywood Bowl

Huntington worked in a variety of styles, building many houses in Boulder and Denver, including two great Denver Prarie-Style homes, along with the Art Deco Boulder Courthouse

Many musical acts have played here, including Tommy Bolin, Colorado’s equivalant of Jimi Hendrix

A day out at Bandimere Speedway dragstrip in Morrison, Colorado, a stones throw from Red Rocks Ampitheater. This year is Bandimere’s 50th anniversary!

I came by to check out a car show, the Hot Rod Happening.

These first pics in this post are rat rods, and likely very expensive ones at that!

The rustication and untreated metal look is, of course, quite intentional!

I came out fairly early, so this picture is of a time trial, that is why there is no one in the stands yet. Most everyone was in the pit checking out hot rods!

And it is always a treat to watch flathead inlines!

Bandimere Speedway, Morrison, Colorado

On this day they were doing Quick 16s, Fast 16s, Flathead Inlines, and a Hot Rod Happening

Bandimere Speedway is one of the highest altitude dragstrips in the country

Lucky for us here in the Denver area, we have a mountain dragstrip right near by!

Bandimere Speedway is located on the other side of Dakota Ridge from Red Rocks Ampitheater, just outside the town of Morrison.

The track is 50 years old this year. They keep threatening to relocate it, but I am glad it has managed to stay exactly where it is (10 minutes from my house!)

I popped over to Bandimere to catch the 50th anniversary Hot Rod Happening this last Sunday.

I was hoping to start posting pictures on Sunday night, but I took a lot more photos than I thought, and it took me this long to wade through them all.

For this first page I am concentrating on the 50s & 60s cars, then I will move on to the 30s & 40s and some really wild rat rods!

Outstanding 1970 design by Boulder architect Charles Haertling

Haertling did very few buildings in Denver, yet did 20 or 30 in Boulder

Many Boulder-ites attribute his Boulder buildings to Frank Lloyd Wright, but there are no Wright buildings in the state. None. Trust me. Anyone that tells you otherwise is mistaken.

I was in the nieghborhood last weekend and was alarmed to see that the new owner was constructing a fence on the property, obstructing the views seen in the photos above.

But. . . the severity of the fence fits perfectly with the “brutalist” style of the original design, so kudos to the new owner, job well done!

Lakeside Amusement Park celebrates it’s 100 year anniversary this year! It is one of the oldest still-standing amusement parks in the country. It just opened for the season this last Memorial Day weekend.

Lakeside was built in 1908 as White City in the Beaux-Arts style of the World’s Exposition Fair of 1893. It resides in it’s own city of Lakeside, CO, just outside of Denver.

The Tower of Jewels is decorated with 16,000 light bulbs. It is sometimes referred to as The Casino Tower, as Lakeside once housed a casino.

You can still see traces of the Casino Theatre signage on the front east side of the main building.

The Casino Theatre once had a prison theme, where patrons would be served drinks in tin cups, and a mock prison band would play music behind bars!

This wonderful historic park is still family owned and run by the Krasner family. Benjamin Krasner bought the park in the 1930s and gave it a wild Art Deco makeover, with the aid of renowned architect Richard Crowther.

One of Richard Crowther’s beautiful Art Deco Moderne ticket booths.

Lakeside Amusement Park is very inexpensive to visit. A nominal $2.50 entry fee gets you into the park! And to me, that is quite a bargain to enjoy all this history!

The Streamline Moderne style of the Auto Skooter bumper cars.

One of the joys of Lakeside is that they take pride in their history and retain as much of the parks historic past as possible.

The Skoota bumper boats

Richard Crowther’s designs are famous for their imaginative use of neon lighting. I’ll post night time shots of Lakeside as soon as the weather cooperates!

Richard Crowther also designed the cylindrical Cooper Cinerama Theatre on Colorado Avenue, which is now repurposed as an electronics store, I believe.

Lakeside’s Merry Go Round is one of the parks most interesting features.

It is made up of four rows of salvaged animals from many different carousels, making it one of the most unique Merry-Go-Rounds you will ever see. . .

goats, pigs, bears, pink rabbits. . .

green rabbits, dogs, mules, black pigs. . .

and finally a Knight’s Templar horse

The mysterious Tower of Jewels at Lakeside Amusement Park,
in the city of Lakeside, CO, built 1908.

At the time of it’s construction, this Beaux-Arts style tower was
the tallest structure in Colorado at 150 feet!

You may notice the mysterious word REDIT above the east entrance as you exit the park. No one knows the meaning of REDIT.

I am going to go off the deep end here for a bit and speculate wildly that this is somehow related to. . . Masons and that when Denver brewer Adolph Zang and friends created the original White City Lakeside park in 1908, that they humorously incorporated some Masonic mumbo-jumbo into the design!

The tower and the outside of the park were covered in esoteric symbols such as Five and Eight Pointed Stars, Fleur de Lys, and even a pair of Maltese Crosses.

These maltese crosses were undoubtably taken down after the first world war, due to the resemblance to the German Iron Cross.

I have highlighted the barely discernable locations here in this photo, along with one of the other odd symbols.

Above, two Fleur de Lys.

The all-caps REDIT sign that you pass under while exiting the park, strongly reminds me of the famous Union Station gate bearing the all-caps Hebrew word MIZPAH that travelers used to pass under as you exited the station toward Denver heading up 14th Street.

Now I wonder. . . were both of these features were placed there to be decoded by up-and-coming Masons for reasons unknown to the rest of us? Cue eerie music.

This picture shows a large Masonic Knight’s Templar gathering in front of the original Lakeside funhouse, which if you look closely, was called the Thirty Third Degree, the highest degree of Masonry!

This original funhouse was later replaced by the Autoskooter Bumper Cars, and then the much more famous Lakeside Funhouse was built nearby.

Sadly, I do not have any photos of the classic Funhouse, as it was taken down in the 1980s due to safety concerns, and replaced with the Green Dragon Roller Coaster.

Okay, okay, now that is enough of this tin-foil hat silliness, on with the show. . .

Lakeside is most famous for the Cyclone Roller Coaster. If you are visiting Denver, you can pay the $2.50 entry fee, then buy the $2.00 worth of tickets to ride the Cyclone for a grand total of $4.50!

So, even if you only have a half-hour, you can pop in for an inexpensive quick thrill ride on this wild wooden coaster!

Richard Crowther designed many of the beautiful Art Deco signs and booths thoughout Lakeside, but for the interior of the Eataway Cafe (below), Lakeside owner Ben Krasner was savvy enough to salvage this Art Deco interior from a renovation of the inside of Denver’s Union Station, where this beautiful decor was being removed.

You can no longer go into the interior of Lakeside’s College Inn but it too was a wonderful example of Art Deco.

Lakeside has a great metal coaster as well, titled the Wild Chipmunk!

This ticket booth for the Wild Chipmunk is one of my favorite designs in the entire park!

And finally, the Riviera Ballroom, all that is left of the historic El Patio Ballroom, where big bands and rock and roll acts once played.

I believe the interior of the Riviera was also designed by Richard Crowther, and may possibly be still intact behind this door!

Behind you can see the old grandstands looking out over Lake Rhoda.

I would post this to Reddit.com, but I am uncertain how!

Lakeside Train Station, from Lakeside Amusement Park,
located in the city of Lakeside, CO (right next to Denver).

Why did Lakeside put an Italianate clock tower in their train station,
when Union Station in Denver has no such tower?

Well, Union Station did have a similar clock tower that was removed during the redesign of the station in 1914, so I would guess that this building dates from
between 1908 and 1914.

This minature locomotive is actually a true steam powered engine just like a full size locomotive and has been running here continously since the opening of the park in 1908!

This steam engine is one of two in operation here, nicknamed Puffing Billy and Whistling Tom.

Lakeside also has a minature diesel locomotive, it’s own version of the famous Zephyr, which ran from Chicago to LA, via Denver.

While there is still much of Lakeside that dates back 100 years, the 30s, 40s and 50s eras saw Lakeside updated in various Art Deco and modernist styles.

Many of the Art Deco booths and similar features were designed by Richard Crowther, who brought neon lighting techniques that he had used helping light up San Francisco’s Golden Gate International Exposition Fair.

Later, Richard Crowther would go on to become a world famous Green architect, noted for his use of Passive Solar Heating. His ideas are still taught in architectural schools today.

Many of Crowther’s remarkable building designs have been torn down or otherwise lost, including his grand Cinerama Cooper Theatre on Colorado Blvd.

There are still a few Crowther office buildings and a handfull of his house designs left, including the amazing Crowther House in Cherry Creek.

Lakeside has an elaborately decorated version of the classic bob-sled ride, the Matterhorn.

The 30s-era Lakeside Speedway still stands on it’s original spot,
even though cars haven’t raced here since the 1980s.

Visitors with historical interests are fortunate that Lakeside Amusement Park does not hurry to tear down unused features.

For example, here is the old pier for the long gone Lakeside Speed Boats, with a beautiful view of the Rocky Mountains over Lake Rhoda (named for Lakeside owner Rhoda Krasner)