EXCERPT:
Craig Roberts Stapleton, shown here at the Ambassador’s Residence in Paris with his mother Katie Stapleton, is the United States Ambassador to France, nominated by President George W. Bush and sworn in by Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice two years ago last June 27.
We met Mrs. Stapleton three years ago at Versailles with her companion Patrick Coulson. Mrs. Stapleton is from Denver where the airport is named Stapleton, after her husband’s father – grandfather of Ambassador Stapleton – Benjamin Stapleton who in the 1920s through the 1940s was mayor of Denver. In his day Mayor Stapleton was considered one of the most powerful municpal politicians in America, with influence wielded far beyond the city limits of Denver. He was also responsible for a good deal of the development and growth of Denver into a major American city.
Ambassador Stapleton is one of Mrs. Stapleton’s two sons. Her other son is named after his father and grandfather, Benjamin Stapleton III and is a prominent lawyer here in New York. Ambassador Stapleton, who before serving in Paris was ambassador to the Czech Republic from 2001 to 2004, is married to a cousin of President Bush, the former Dorothy Walker.
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| The ambassador, who was born in Kansas City (where his mother comes from), went to Exeter and then Harvard where he graduated magna cum laude, and then Harvard Business. He and Mrs. Stapleton before moving to Europe as ambassador, made their home in Greenwich. His profession is business. Before taking the Czech post, he served as President of Marsh and McLennan Real Estate Advisors of New York for almost twenty years. He also served on the board of directors of several companies and was at one time a co-owner in the Texas Rangers baseball team, along with his cousin by marriage, the President. Although Ambassador Stapleton is a Republican, his illustrious forebear, His Honor, the Mayor of Denver, Benjamin Stapleton was a Democrat. And a very powerful one at that. The Ambassador’s mother still lives in Denver with Mr. Coulson. However, she loves to travel. She told me the day I first saw her again in Paris that she and Mr. Coulson had recently returned from a thirty-five country tour around the world. On her own plane flying out of Stapleton, in Denver. http://www.nileguide.com/destination/denver/overview/history EXCERPT: Speer faced harsh criticism for some of these projects, especially for the boulevard that bore his name and meandered from downtown to the country club district. But it was nothing compared to the wrath his successor, Benjamin F. Stapleton, faced for building Denver's first airport. Stapleton, notorious for his membership in the Ku Klux Klan, was captivated by flight. He strove to end the city's isolation on the plains by laying the foundation for Denver Municipal Airport in 1929. Critics went wild, calling the plan downright stupid, and saying the location was so far out east of the city that it might as well be in Kansas. Ultimately, the airport was a success. After the Great Depression of the 1930s, the city and Stapleton focused on the mountain parks, calling for the creation of a "rock garden" in the nearby hills. Years of diligent planning and painstaking construction carved the jagged red rocks into an intimate, natural stadium known as Red Rocks Amphitheatre which even today is still universally recognized as one of the greatest outdoor concert venues in the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_F._Stapleton EXCERPT: After politics Stapleton's career in politics finally ended when he lost his 1947 mayoral re-election bid to James Quigg Newton.[1] After leaving office, it was uncovered that Stapleton had ties to the Ku Klux Klan, from which he had enjoyed considerable influence in return for its electoral support.[3] This association continues to overshadow his notable contributions to Denver's economic and cultural institutions. Stapleton died on May 23, 1950 at his home in Denver.[1] There are photos of the Klan in Colorado if you click the link. ........cal http://buckfifty.org/2009/03/11/the-ku-klux-klan-in-colorado/ The Ku Klux Klan in Colorado—by Marshall Sprague (1909-1994) Excerpted from “Colorado: A History”, published in 1984 by the American Association for State and Local History. Reprinted in paperback in 1996 by W.W. Norton & Company and available from Amazon.com. “1921 marked the start of one of the most serious aberrations in the state’s history—the rise of the Ku Klux Klan under the Grand Dragonship of a strange Denver physician Dr. John Galen Locke. Many residents of Colorado, like Americans everywhere, found themselves full of fears after World War I—fears of hard times, of the communism of Karl Marx, of Eugene Debs and his American socialism, of the Industrial Workers of the World and their violence, of spies in the land working for foreign governments.B50 Note: It is difficult to imagine the amount of power and influence the Klan held in Denver and Colorado between 1920 and 1926; Mayor Ben Stapleton and Governor Clarence Morley were both members of the “Silent Empire.” Eighty years later, Colorado is the only state in the country to have both houses of its legislature headed by African-Americans (Terrance Carroll and Peter Groff). Marshall Sprague was a author and historian, well known for his prose about the American West. Images are courtesy of The Denver Public Library Western History Collection. The definitive resource on this topic is “Hooded Empire: the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado” by Robert Alan Goldberg, published by University of Illinois Press in 1981. A review of the book (from 1987) is available on Dark Cloud’s site. Tags: 1920s, Ben Stapleton, Clarence Morley, Hooded Empire, John Galen Locke., KKK, Ku Klux Klan, Marshall Sprague 2 Responses to “The Ku Klux Klan in Colorado” |
March 12th, 2009 at 6:38 am My grandpa (Italian) talked about the “ku kluxers” at C.F. & I. in Pueblo trying to get him fired. He claimed that one time they spread word that he was fooling around with one of the women there (presumably she was white anglo-saxon). He didn’t get fired.
March 12th, 2009 at 2:14 pm My grandpa was Irish Catholic. He said that people would name businesses with titles like “Kozy Korner Kitchen” or “Klean Kountry Kottages” to let other members know they also part of the Klan.