Fourth of July – Denver’s first stage stop still sees lots of action
Four Mile Historic Park is a Denver landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
By Rosemary Fetter
On the banks of Cherry Creek, just a few miles from downtown, Four Mile Historic Park stands as a colorful echo of Denver’s frontier past. The 12-acre living history exhibit features the city’s oldest standing building, pioneer exhibits, special events and guided tours that transport guests back in time.
Legend has it that Mary Cawker warded off an Indian attack with only a skillet and her false teeth.
Four Mile faces the old Cherokee Trail, which once ran parallel to Cherry Creek. The Trail became a major thoroughfare during the early 19th century, linking South Platte trappers and traders to Bent’s Fort on the Arkansas River and the Santa Fe trade. At the time, travelers and explorers considered the future Denver area another dry hole in “The Great American Desert” and a wasteland unfit for human habitation, notwithstanding the Native Americans. This proved a premature judgment when a small gold strike by William Greene Russell and his brothers sparked the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush of 1858-59, attracting an influx of nearly 40,000 gold-crazy prospectors.
The Russells founded the first settlement in present-day downtown Denver on November 1, 1858, on the west bank of Cherry Creek. As prospectors rushed to the fledgling gold camp, the Cherokee Trail experienced a considerable increase in traffic, with covered wagons, cattle and freight wagon trains pouring into Denver daily. With a stage stop in mind, pioneers Samuel and Elizabeth Brantner built a two-story log house outside Denver/Auraria in late summer 1859, which they called Four Mile House. Wayside inns or taverns were traditional along the nation’s roads, catering to the needs of the public and marking the distance to a destination point. The Brantner home was actually five miles from Denver, but way stations were traditionally measured from the terminus of a road, a practice that dated back to America’s colonial days. The distance from Four Mile House to Denver was measured at the junction of the Cherokee Trail and the cutoff to the Overland Trail, which later became 14th and Grant streets.
Within a year, the Branters moved their family north to Henderson and a 47-year-old widow named Mary Cawker took over the property. With the help of her teenage children Samuel, 19, and Elizabeth, 17, she developed the site into a stage stop.
Mary Cawker was born in Orange County, N.Y., in 1813. Her family moved west to pioneer northern Wisconsin in the 1830s, and Mary wedded Englishman Matthew Cawker around 1840. When he died 10 years later, Mary took her children back to her family in Green Bay. During the Pikes Peak Gold Rush she worked as a cook on wagon trains heading west. One colorful legend tells how she frightened off a group of hostile Indians by yelling, waving her skillet and moving her false teeth in and out of her mouth.
On April 17, 1860, she purchased the Brantner property.
Mary Cawker was a spirited woman who knew how to deal with the rough and tumble clientele who frequented Four Mile House. As her business flourished, she opened a tavern downstairs. She sometimes used the second floor for dances or to bed overnight guests. Her holdings eventually included most of the most of the Cherry Creek Valley between Colorado Boulevard and Holly Street,
By 1862, the stage traveled regularly along the route, and Four Mile was one of several “mile houses” along the way. On Oct. 19, 1862, the Rocky Mountain News announced Elizabeth’s marriage to Calvin A. Loomis Jr., at the “home of the bride’s mother, four miles up Cherry Creek.”
Unfortunately, the Cherry Creek Flood of 1864 inundated most of her land and put her out of business. After Levi and Millie Booth bought the property for $800, Mary moved on to other real estate pursuits, at one time operating a theatrical boarding house in Denver. She was clever enough to deed most of her considerable estate to her family before she died in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1906.
Levi Booth was a New Yorker who moved to Madison, Wis., after being orphaned at age 9. Thanks to the encouragement of his uncle, Gillett Knapp, Levi became the first graduate of the University of Wisconsin in 1854. Shortly thereafter, he married Millie Downing and obtained a master’s degree four years later. After being admitted to the bar, Levi worked with his uncle in real estate, but his heart was never in the law. He and Millie headed west in 1860, where Levi tried mining and hauling freight before purchasing Four Mile House.
The Booths continued to operate the stage stop and hotel, but gradually shifted to agricultural pursuits. After the railroad arrived in 1870, stage travel along the Trail came to a halt, and Levi plowed over the land to dig irrigation ditches. By 1883, the Booths owned 600 acres of prime farmland, including fruit orchards. Millie was a businesswoman in her own right, raising honeybees and selling butter to clients, including the Brown Palace Hotel. Her trademark was a rose in full bloom.
The Booths added partitions to the house and built a large brick and frame addition in 1883. Four Mile stayed in the Booth family until 1946, when Glenn and Pearl Boulton purchased the property to build a greenhouse and nursery. By that time much of the acreage had been sold. In the early 1960s, the Boultons moved to Texas, leasing the land until it became park property.
Today, Four Mile Historic retains many of the original buildings, along with a blacksmith shop, farm equipment and live animals. Costumed guides provide tours of the house, which has been restored to its 1859 and 1883 condition. The park is operated by a nonprofit organization, Four Mile House, Inc.
Four Mile hosts numerous heritage events during the year, including a major Fourth of July celebration, featuring a Civil War encampment complete with canon firing, blacksmith and craft demonstrations and children’s gold-panning, games, and crafts. The museum is open Wednesdays through Sundays, noon–4 p.m.
