The Unlikely History of the Adams County Fairgrounds

Laurel Michele Wickersheim

Rawlene LeBaron

It's fair time again, the first week of August, when the Adams County Fairgrounds come alive with laughter and music, crowds fill the midway, sleek livestock are paraded by proud adolescents, and brightly-lit carnival rides and their passengers scream through the night.

Who would ever imagine that this was once the site of the Denver County Farm?

At the turn of the past century, before the "safety net" of Social Security and social services, communities throughout the country were establishing "poor farms" to care for their indigent, aged, and sick. Boulder, Denver, and Gilpin Counties readily reached out to embrace the farm as a way to care for their needy residents. This noble experiment was successful, by and large, and filled a painful void until the middle of the twentieth century.

The Denver County Farm was established in the late 1890s with the $30,000 purchase of the 2,000-acre McCool Ranch at East 124 th Avenue and Henderson. At the time, the farm was in Arapahoe County, but in November 1902 it was rezoned as Adams County; it would continue to be managed by Denver County.

The first ramshackle buildings were depressing, with bare wooden floors, drab paint, and no window coverings. Separate buildings housed men and women. Apart from the main farm buildings was a "pest house," for those with contagious diseases, frequently tuberculosis. Buildings were painted, the grounds were landscaped, and living conditions improved. With time, more buildings were added so the growing farm could care for more of the area's needy.

In 1923, Harold Moore replaced Phillip Janson as superintendent and built the farm into a self-sufficient model housing nearly 200 residents. No one could have foreseen the looming danger. On December 27, 1933, the crippled, old beekeeper, Jacob Kiter, shot and killed Harold Moore in an outburst of baseless paranoia and an imagined "dirty deal." At the time of Moore's murder, the Rocky Mountain News called the farm "one of the show places of Adams County."

In early January 1934, Denver Mayor Begle appointed Nora Moore, Harold Moore's widow, to be superintendent. She became one of the first women in the country to run a large poor farm. She managed the farm with its growing agricultural operation and its 175 to 200 residents until 1937, when she retired. It was whispered that she was forced into retirement because the commissioners wanted a man to run such a successful operation and that they had already chosen her replacement. When the Rocky Mountain News announced Nora Moore's retirement "effective immediately" on February 20, 1937, it also announced that Harold ("Duke") Lascelles had been named as her replacement.

Harold Lascelles was superintendent until 1952. That year, Denver Mayor Quigg Newton, who had grand plans to turn the farm into a country club, closed the farm, and evicted the residents. When resulting newspaper criticism and voter anger blocked his plans, the farm sat virtually empty for a decade until the old buildings were razed and the Adams County Regional Park Complex was built.

Today, the poor farm and its successes have faded into history. Its residents are remembered in the census rolls for Adams County, Precinct 10, Lower Platte.

Laurel Michele Wickersheim and Rawlene LeBaron have written numerous articles and several books on Colorado history. They are members of the Front Range Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution