Masonic Lodge

Masonic Lodge - 300 Wilcox Street
By Judy Hostetler
(Photo courtesy of Castle Rock Historical Society)

Castle Rock’s original business district was located on Perry and Front Streets due to their proximity to the Railroad.  New businesses began to sprout up around Courthouse Square in the early 1900’s as the Town began to grow, and several important buildings were constructed with Castle Rock rhyolite, which was quarried locally and sold throughout Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming.  In 1904, the First National Bank of Douglas County entered into a land trade with the Methodist Episcopal Church that involved moving the church building from Third and Wilcox to Third and Perry, so the Bank could construct a new building at the Church’s previous location.  This was the Town’s first church, constructed in 1887.  The church building was moved again in 1922 to make room for the current church at that location, and the original building eventually burned.  First National was the first “real” bank in Douglas County.  Originally called Douglas County Bank, it received its State charter in 1902 and was the only bank in Castle Rock to survive the crash of 1929.  This bank was originally located in the Cantril Courthouse at the corner of Fourth and Wilcox.  The Courthouse building later housed the Castle Rock local newspaper and is now located further east on Fourth Street.  Castle Rock was beginning to develop a new business district around the Square, and the bank building became an important anchor, located across the street from the Courthouse.

The Bank chose a two-story Richardson/Romanesque style for the building and constructed it with rhyolite from the local Santa Fe Quarry, which was the last Castle Rock quarry to close its doors just two years after the bank was built.  The original building had a cupola on top with the name of the bank on it and the construction year on a corner sign just below the roofline.  The Bank operated at this location until 1933 when President Roosevelt closed all the banks during the Great Depression.  Philip Miller served on a committee that attempted to reorganize the Bank so that it could re-open.  Mr. Miller started The Bank of Douglas County in 1939 and is considered by many to be Castle Rock’s greatest benefactor.  Unfortunately, the reorganization committee was unsuccessful, and the Bank’s assets were liquidated in 1937.

The local chapter of Freemasons had been holding their meetings in the building since the Bank opened, and they purchased it in 1937, establishing Douglas Lodge No. 153 A.F. and A.M.  Mr. Miller was an active Mason at this Lodge for seventy years!  Over time, the building has become a gathering place for various organizations and has received both local and national historic designation.  The cupola has been removed, the sign has faded and the building is sorely in need of repair, but most of the historic features have remained intact.

In 1920, the Bank constructed two brick buildings on the Third Street side of the property, one of which housed the Post Office for forty years and the Town’s first telephone exchange.  The Masons purchased these buildings as part of the original Bank property acquired from the Church.  The building on the alley was sold in 1943, but the Masons still own and lease the building where Bogey’s West music store has been located for many years.

The Masonic Lodge building represents over one hundred years of rich Douglas County history.  It is an important icon in Downtown Castle Rock, displaying Castle Rock’s unique building stone in a style that makes citizens and visitors alike stand up and take notice.  It is important to the banking history of our county and has provided a meeting place for the Masons for over a hundred years, as well as a gathering place for citizens from all walks of life.  This author has fond memories of taking small, freezing children inside its doors to find warmth and hot chocolate during Starlighting ceremonies.  This is a building that is truly worth preserving for the use and enjoyment of future generations that will become active forces in our community.

Judy Hostetler, Staff Liaison
Castle Rock Historic Preservation Board

Sources:

Castle Rock Historic Buildings Inventory, 1985
Colorado Cultural Resource Survey Nos. 5DA2658 and 5DA2659
Town of Castle Rock Historic Preservation Plan
Philip Simon Miller - Butcher, Banker and Benefactor, by Debbie Buboltz-Bodle
Douglas County, A Historical Journey, by Josephine Lowell Marr
Fading Past, the Story of Douglas County, Colorado by Susan Consola Appleby

The Saunders House

The Saunders’ House and the Historic 200 Block of Perry Street
(by Fred Edison)

Few buildings in Castle Rock can claim a history going back to the 1870s.  The wood frame structure at 203 Perry Street, known today as the Saunders’ House, holds such a pedigree.  George Lord, then local school superintendent, purchased two lots at auction on a portion of Jeremiah Gould’s original homestead in 1874.  Within the next several months a pioneer house went up on the property.  Originally the front door and porch faced Second Street.

For the next seven decades the 1½ story home accommodated many owners.  Wilbur F. Waller, editor of the newspaper, owned the building in the 1880s and moved his Founder’s home down the hill and attached it to the northeast corner of George Lord’s former building.  Over the next seventy years 203 Perry’s Chain of Title read like a ‘Who’s Who of Castle Rock.’  The owners in succession were Mary Russell, William Whitney and Wallace Holcomb (hardware store owners), Charles Woodhouse (pioneer brick manufacturer), Ada Ritchey and then George Leonard (plumber).  Mr. Leonard used his skills and the help of a local carpenter, Ben Saunders, Sr., to completely remodel the home’s interior during the Roaring Twenties.  In 1950 a pair of long time residents began their lives in the home at the corner of Second and Perry.  Generations later the house still carries their name.

That year, Ben Saunders, Jr., a successful carpenter like his father, and his wife Elizabeth ‘Bette’ Saunders purchased 203 Perry.  Both were born in 1914, attended DCHS (on Wilcox St.) and lived in Douglas County their entire lives.  Ben grew up in Sedalia, after graduation he served in the Navy during WWII and then returned home to pursue a building and trade career; most notably the construction of Safeway Stores around the West.  Bette grew up in Cherry Valley a frontier community with unpaved roads, working farms and ranches, horse drawn sleighs, Model T’s, one-room schools, no electricity or radio or TV.  Her father, David Gilbert, was mayor of Castle Rock and a County Commissioner in the 1940s.  When Bette began dating Ben she was working as a telegraph operator at the D&RG depot.  They married in 1945 and Bette earned a living as a seamstress.  Both became active community members, Ben as a volunteer fireman and Bette participating in the Red Cross and local historical society.   Their home at 203 Perry Street provided the Saunders a picture window view of the tiny Post-war community.  At the time of Ben’s death in 1987 the town was beginning a phenomenal growth spurt.  Bette passed away in 2006 bearing witness to Castle Rock’s shift from a tiny hamlet of 400 into a small city with over 35,000 residents.

Today the Saunders’ House anchors the west side of the 200 block of Perry Street one of the last historic blocks in town, if not the last, to have its original buildings still intact.  Just to the north, stands 207 Perry and what many consider the oldest house in town built by storied pioneer Samuel Dyer, son of famed Methodist Circuit Rider Father John L. Dyer. To the north the 1887 Owens House at 213 Perry Street once welcomed affluent travelers many seeking respite from the maladies of Tuberculosis.  Finally at the corner of 3rd and Perry resides the Covenant Church, once the Methodist Episcopal Church, opened in 1922.

All four buildings are places that matter and currently sit on center stage in the Development and Preservation Debate.  Each building by itself represents an important piece of Castle Rock’s history.  However when taken together, left standing in their original locations, they take on a more significant meaning.   They stand as sentinels to a Castle Rock established by the Saunders’ and the rest of their generation.

(Sources used for this article include the Colorado Cultural Resource Survey from the State Office of Archaeology & Historic Preservation; the Biography Files in the Douglas County History Research Center; and the Town of Castle Rock’s Historic Downtown Walking Tour brochure) 

The City Hotel

By Victoria Gonzalez and Ryan Dyke
(DCHS students in the Fall 2010 Colorado History Class)

It was 1871 when the Harris brothers, John and Thomas made their dream become a reality. They helped build a town called New Memphis once located two miles northwest of present-day Castle Rock near the site of today’s outlet mall.  It became known as the Independence Colony and here the City Hotel got its start.

New Memphis had a switching station connecting it to the recently built Denver & Rio Grande Railroad.  Here the brothers built a two-story hotel and named it the Harris Hotel.  When Castle Rock won the special election in 1874 to become the county seat the brothers saw the handwriting on the wall and soon moved their hotel and other buildings to the new town.  They placed the hotel on the 400 block of Perry Street a short walking distance from Castle Rock’s recently built train depot.  At this location, it would be convenient for travelers and also somewhat removed from obtrusive noise.

At the new location the brothers changed the hotel’s name to the Castle Rock House.  Then in 1879 the Harris’ faced competition just a few blocks south on Perry Street when the Owen’s House opened. Castle Rock proved to be a good location.  Thomas Harris eventually became the town’s second mayor and led Castle Rock until his untimely death in 1884 when he was gored by a run away steer rambling down Perry Street.

On his deathbed, Thomas Harris transferred ownership of his hotel to his wife, Mary.  She ran the operation for a brief time.  By 1890 the hotel’s fourth owner, Philip Crawshaw, renamed the building the City Hotel.  For over a century, despite many owners, the name remains unchanged.

The building currently stands empty, a silent reminder of Castle Rocks’ pioneer days.  The structure pre-dates Colorado statehood, one of a dwindling few across the state.  For the sake of the towns’ collective memory this place matters. Just the fact that the City Hotel stands in downtown Castle Rock keeps our rapidly growing community connected to its forgotten past.

Sources for this article include Robert Lowenberg’s landmark book Castle Rock: A Grass Roots History and Susan Appleby’s Fading Past: The Story of Douglas County, Colorado published in 2001.