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BROMWELL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL (214)
2500 East
Fourth Avenue,
80206-4214
(Columbine Street at East Fourth Avenue)

Telephone:
(303) 388-5969
Fax: (720) 424-9355
E-mail: Bromwell@dpsk12.org

Mr. Jonathan Wolfer, Principal

An Introduction to Bromwell History

Now Bromwell children drive to school in minivans and station wagons, but once upon a time, the children of our neighborhood rode to school in the back of a wooden bus that was drawn by two horses. Now our school sits on the edge of a thriving business community, and single-family homes are being replaced by condominiums at a dizzying pace, but long ago, there were vacant lots, and fields of corn, and the city dump was located east of First and York. The life we experience now, with all its speed and color and strange detail, could hardly have been imagined by the people of this neighborhood a hundred years ago. Fortunately, we do not face the same limitation. We can look back across a hundred years or more, and we can be enriched by what we discover about the history of our school and our neighborhood.

The school that eventually became Bromwell Elementary School began in a small frame building in 1867. In those days, it was a part of the town of Harman, and a part of Arapahoe County, too. The Harman School was not just a schoolhouse, but the center of social and political activity for a small and vital community. Church meetings were held there, and the Town Board met there until 1891, when the Town Hall was built at 4th and Saint Paul.

The town of Harman was named after Judge Edwin P. Harman, a highly decorated Confederate veteran who came to Colorado from Mississippi after the Civil War. Local folklore held that Harman had become disillusioned with the post-bellum South and sought new opportunities in Denver. He bought a parcel of land in 1869 which was eventually titled "Harman's Subdivision" as a part of Arapahoe County bordering on Denver. It was 320 acres, plotted into individual tracts for homesites, and was owned by approximately 140 people.

"This used to be a fine little town of its own back in the 1880's," one Harman native recalled for a historical booklet published in 1976. "They used to hitch up their buggies and wagons and go riding over to Denver across the open fields and countryside. Well, that's all gone now and people drive right through here and think it's just another old part of Denver... but that's not right!"

Another resident described the area this way: "It was open prairie with wildflowers and a good supply of buffalo grass which made fine grazing. The community was in the valley and some houses were built between Race and Madison streets, and from First to Fourth Avenue. A road ran diagonally through the community, and other roads and footpaths ran into it. On Sunday evenings, you would see the people coming to church (held in the Harman schoolhouse) on these roads and paths, carrying lanterns to light the way so they would not stumble in the ruts."

Back then, there were sand pits between Colorado Avenue (later, of course, Colorado Boulevard) and York, and there was a clear pool at Clayton Street. One resident recalled that children congregated at the pool to "swim, fish, and trap minnows and frogs, and to pan for gold or have rock-skipping contests." During the winters, children returned to ice-skate.

The original Harman School stood where Bromwell Elementary's main playground is now. It was a two-story building, with a separate room for each grade, including a kindergarten. The entire building was heated by a coal furnace which set the school on fire in 1883. A Colorado sandstone building had replaced it by 1885. Over the next ten years, several improvements and enlargements were added to this building. "A public reading room was established recently," The Rocky Mountain News reported in an article on the school in 1892, "It contains a library with a large amount of literature which is being added to rapidly."

One Harman School graduate remembered school life this way: "There was a drinking fountain which had two heavy metal drinking cups with long handles chained to both sides. The janitor, Mr. Parks, would ring a hand-bell at recess times. Teachers who lived some distance from the school would take the street car, and it was customary for girls to meet them at the stop and escort them to school. One afternoon each week, the older boys would take Sloyd classes (woodworking) at Stevens School nearby. When the boys did so, the girls would study sewing."

Another student recalled a girl named Stella Johnson, who "had a pony and would ride to school from the other side of Colorado Boulevard. She would leave her pony at the blacksmith's shop at Third and Detroit, and walk the rest of the way to school."

In 1895, the town of Harman was annexed into the city of Denver. Harman's residents were eager for the lower tax revenues and other amenities that were enjoyed by Denver's citizens. Primarily an agricultural and residential community, Harman enjoyed a building-boom, and a business district developed in the area of Third and Detroit. People came to take advantage of the inexpensive land and the clean air, far away from the smoke and haze caused by Denver's many manufacturing plants and ore smelters.

That same year, the Harman Kindergarten Mothers Association was organized by Lizzie Lamont, who was also secretary of the School Board. The Association helped furnish equipment for the school's kindergarten and bought materials such as paper, curtains, dishes and table cloths and many other necessities. Members of the Harman Kindergarten Mothers Association paid a ten cents admission charge, and dues were one cent a week. Once during the school year, each mother was assessed one cake or its equivalent. This forerunner of the modern PTA also performed charitable works for the poor people who lived in shacks and tents near the school, just beyond the area where the Cherry Creek Mall now stands.

In 1901, Denver incorporated as a County, and the jurisdiction of Harman School changed from Arapahoe County to Denver County. With a new administration came a change in the fortunes of the Mothers Association. The principal of the school informed the mothers that their help was "no longer required," and that it was no longer "necessary" for them to meet at the schoolhouse! The group, however, decided to continue as a social and civic club, renamed the Columbine Mothers Club, and it has one of the longest histories of continual meetings and charitable works of any organization in the Denver area.

In 1906, the Denver School Board changed Harman School's name to the Bromwell Elementary School. This was in honor of Judge Henry P. H. Bromwell, a respected politician who had come to Colorado from Illinois in the 1869. He had been a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, and was an early champion of voting rights for women and minorities. He was also one of the foremost authors of the the constitution of the State of Colorado.

Judge Bromwell's daughter, Henrietta or "Nettie" Bromwell, was also an important person in the early days of our community. She was a noted artist who helped start the Denver Art Museum. She was also an author and publisher, and she preserved valuable records from the early history of Denver and Colorado.

The school building was damaged by another fire in 1911. All the students and teachers were out of the building in record time, and no one was hurt. The horse-drawn fire carriages, unfortunately, were misdirected to Stevens School (at 12th and Columbine), so the destruction was greater than it might have been. As a result, classes had to be held in neighborhood homes while the old school building was again repaired and rebuilt. Students who thought that they would be free from their responsibilities were sorely disappointed!

Historical records from the 1920's through the 1940's are hard to come by. We do, however, have many photographs, papers, and momentos from the 1950's and the years following. By the time of the 1970's, the school arrived at a crossroads. Funds were needed -- either to provide extensive renovations for the existing structure or to help provide for a new building, with many modern features. The school community became interested in the "open-school" concept, and it was decided to build a new "school without walls" that would best support this approach to education.

A Bicentennial Reunion was held in 1976 to inaugurate the new school building and to memorialize the old, and many former teachers and pupils came to the celebration. Bricks, brass coathooks, and wooden banisters from the school were sold as momentos and souvenirs. Harman and Bromwell graduates were interviewed and photographed, and a historical booklet was published. That booklet, in fact, provided much of the information for this essay and can be found in its entirety at The Town of Harman and the Harman-Bromwell Elementary School.

The transition into the new building was overseen by James Manley, Bromwell's principal from 1973 until 1984. Manley was always remembered fondly by neighborhood residents and the members of the school community, and after his death these groups petitioned the city government to name the park to the north of the school in his honor. In 1996 their petition was approved, and the park was dedicated in a ceremony attended by members of Manley's family and by students and teachers, old and new. It was the first park in Denver (and indeed, the state of Colorado) to be named after an educator.

As our community moved toward the end of the century, the school continued to provide a dynamic center for the neighborhood. While the "open school" concept never quite succeeded, the movable walls that remain have been utilized in a number of creative ways. An addition was completed in 1994 that provided two large Kindergarten rooms at the south end of the school. And in 1998, the Bromwell Learning Landscape was dedicated. This unique setting provides for an exciting blend of educational, athletic, and leisure activities. Finally, in the last years of the decade, the school was "brought on-line." Every classroom was equipped with computers and related equipment such as printers and scanenrs, and the school was connected to the internet. The relationship between computer technology and education is still evolving, but one result (of course!) is this site and the information it contains.

Now the century has turned for the second time in our school's history. The Bromwell neighborhood, while very much a part of modern age, enjoys a heritage that can be traced back to the earliest days of Denver. From Principal James Manley to Judge Bromwell, from Edwin P. Harman and the early settlers to Lizzie Lamont and the Harman Kindergarten Mothers Association, from Mr. Parks with his hand-bell to Stella Johnson and her pony, we can learn about individuals worth knowing and read stories worth sharing. Parents, teachers, and students alike can be enriched by this sense of our history as we learn together, and as we face our own future.