The most powerful mayor Denver has ever seen, Robert Speer has been alternately praised as a visionary leader and condemned as a minion of the utilities cartel that ruled the city in the early 1900s. A self-proclaimed Democratic Party machine “boss,” Speer had personal charisma and a genius for politics coupled with bulldog determination and a willingness to bend (or more frequently ignore) the rules. Although often accused of being self-serving and unscrupulous, more than anyone else he symbolizes the city’s transformation from a dusty overgrown cattle town into a modern metropolis. As one of his friends said upon his death in 1918, “Denver is and always will be his monument.”
Even today, Mayor Robert Speer remains a controversial character.
Speer was born into a comfortable middle class Pennsylvania family on Dec. 1, 1855, and for a short time attended Dickinson Seminary in Williamsport. At age 23, like many tuberculosis sufferers, he re-located to Denver, where sunshine and dry air affected a miraculous transformation. With a sunny disposition that matched his newfound health, he got his first job as a clerk selling carpets at Daniels and Fisher Department Store. Before long he became involved in real estate, eventually joining developers of the Denver Country Club district, where he built his own home at 300 Humboldt St. Critics later accused him (somewhat unfairly) of creating Speer Boulevard and the parkway system to accommodate his cronies in the city’s elite neighborhoods.
A budding politician with a finger in every pie, he became a member of the police and fire board in 1891 and served on the Board of Public Works. He joined the Chamber of Commerce just in time for the Festival of Mountain and Plain, a “spit in the eye of adversity” kind celebration organized by city boosters after Colorado’s economy took a nosedive in the Depression of 1893.
By 1900, Speer had become the undisputed kingpin of the party machine, labeled by muckraker Lincoln Steffens, “the Big Mitt,” because of its grip on the political fortunes of cities nationwide. A loose coalition of politicians, real estate moguls and utilities giants, the party gained a foothold in Denver shortly before voters ratified Article XX of the Constitution to create the City and County of Denver out of Arapahoe County. Speer and the Democrats pushed through a new city charter which, along with about 10,000 bogus votes, swept Mayor Bob into office on May 17, 1904. It was probably the most corrupt election Denver has ever seen.
Tree-lined Speer Boulevard, circa 1910.
Speer immediately put his plans for a “City Beautiful” into action. The popular term, coined during the 1893 Chicago exposition, referred to a well-planned city with multiple public amenities – flowering parks, tree-lined boulevards and neoclassical buildings – the antithesis of Denver at the turn of the 20th century. The mayor’s first move would be the overhaul of Cherry Creek, a long-time eyesore dangerous to the community because of frequent flooding. Speer’s idea was to wall in the creek and add landscaping from 14th and Larimer all the way to the Denver Country Club neighborhood. Although much of the land adjacent to the creek belonged to Speer cohorts (and some to the mayor himself) the result was impressive. Speer’s architects created mini-parks along the diagonal boulevard and a Sunken Gardens Park in front of West High School. The expansive parkway, originally called Cherry Creek Drive, would be rechristened Speer Boulevard by City Council in 1910.
In the heart of the city, the mayor proposed a gracefully landscaped Civic Center. Between the State Capitol on the east and a projected new City and County Building on the west, he commissioned some of the country’s most prominent city planners to design grounds, monuments, a central library, fountains, and an outdoor Greek theater. Completion of the City and County Building would be delayed until 1932, 16 years after his death
Speer built large neighborhood parks with flowering gardens and playgrounds for children. An early environmentalist, he gave away 110,000 shade trees and created the Denver Mountain Parks system. He purchased the land for Inspiration Point, with its 300-mile panoramic view of the Rockies, and sold it back to the city for the price he originally paid.
Speer would be elected mayor in 1904 and 1908, ousted in 1912 and re-elected in 1916, the only year, incidentally, when he won a fair election. In order to fulfill his dreams, the mayor backed the monopolistic utilities companies that essentially controlled the government: Denver Gas & Electric, Colorado Telephone, Denver Tramway Company and the Denver Union Water Company. Labeled “the Beast” by the fiery reformer, Judge Ben Lindsey, the monopolistic “Fantastic Four” unapologetically bilked the city and took unfair advantage of the lower classes. Not without merit, Lindsey blamed most of Denver’s social ills on the greed of the economically privileged and the illicit connection between business and government.
Although his methods and motivations may have been questionable, Speer made countless contributions to Denver’s development. He turned Denver into a city that got the nation’s attention, winning the Democratic National Convention of 1908. The mayor loved animals and birds and helped to create the Denver Museum of Natural History and modernize the Denver Zoo, which became a national model. (During a speech, the enigmatic leader once told astonished Rotarians “animals, grain and vegetables have life and suffer when injured the same as any of us,” a statement that may or may not have helped the zoo project.) Coining the phrase, “Give while you live,” he convinced Denver businessmen to contribute financially to the city that brought them success. “Denver had been kind to most of us by giving to some health, to some wealth, to some happiness and to some a combination of all,” he lectured the Chamber of Commerce. “We can pay part of this debt by making our city more attractive.”
Undoubtedly, Robert Speer shook hands with the devil to get the job done and shadows still hover over his magnificent legacy. Personal enrichment, however, was not on his agenda. Upon his death in 1918, he left a modest estate of $40,000, much of which his widow, Kate donated back to the city.
