Harvesting Historical Riches

Preservation by the Letter: Alpine Clubs Save Golden High School

Originally published in Colorado History NOW, September 2004

On March 13, 1924 Golden’s newspaper announced a letter-writing campaign designed to promote Colorado’s scenic wonders and attract out-of-state visitors and businesses.  Here’s how it would work: The paper promised to print weekly articles espousing selected aspects of Colorado’s attributes.  Then, English teachers—including those working at Golden’s recently opened high school—would ask their students to write compositions based on those articles.  Teachers encouraged their students to incorporate their essays into letters written to friends and family.  “Convince a boy or girl of high school age that he’s living in the best place in the best country in the world and you can have no more enthusiastic booster in the community,” opined the Colorado Transcript’s editor.

The Transcript’s first article, “Switzerland Scenery Excelled in Colorado,” favorably compared the Rocky Mountains to the Swiss Alps.  “While Switzerland has 9 peaks towering more than 14,000 feet above sea level, Colorado has 46,” the paper asserted (we know today that the paper sold the state short by six).  That week, Golden High School students opened their composition books and penned essays glorifying Colorado’s alpine wonders.  If all went according to plan, the essays found their way into envelopes and into the mailboxes of friends and relatives around the world.

If only those teenage boosters could see their high school now.

The 37,000-square-foot building served Golden as a high school until 1956, and then as a junior high until 1988.  For the next five years it languished as an unused landmark.  Then, in what amounted to a much-belated response to all those letters promoting the state’s mountains, the American Alpine Club, with help from the Colorado Mountain Club, bought the school and transformed it into its national headquarters.

The American Alpine Club is dedicated to the promotion of knowledge related to mountain resources.  Its partner, the 10,000-member Colorado Mountain Club, collects and disseminates information regarding the Rocky Mountains on behalf of science, literature, art, and recreation.  By choosing the old Golden High School to house their offices, meeting rooms, and library, these two prestigious organizations unknowingly followed a precedent set decades ago by dozens of students completing an English assignment.

It was a good choice.  Designed by master architect Eugene G. Groves, the Beaux-Arts school features an elaborate façade with paired engaged pilasters topped by Corinthian capitals flanking the main entrance.  The pilasters support an entablature with fanciful scolls and cartouche while terra cotta tiles add color and texture. Sitting atop a hill next to Parfet Park—also established in 1920s—the facility crowns the surrounding urban landscape.

The American Alpine Club and Colorado Mountain Club spent the last decade transforming “old school” into “new school.” That is, they took a deteriorating facility and turned it into a state-of-the-art cultural and educational center that enhances the community’s enjoyment of the outdoors and encourages the protection of natural resources.

After saving the building from possible demolition, the partners committed themselves to its preservation.  The project has benefited from five State Historical Fund grants that helped contractors rehabilitate the structure from the foundation to the roof.  Two historic building assessments gave planners the information they needed to identify and address problems.  The other grants partially financed interior and exterior work, including exterior stabilization, entrance restoration, roof replacement, and chimney repair.

Today the old Golden High School functions as the American Mountaineering Center, a multi-use educational, cultural, and training center, providing a vital resource for all those who care about the outdoors.  Recently, the Colorado Outward Bound School joined the original partners in the building.  Together, these groups have revived the school’s original purpose while inadvertently legitimizing dozens of letters promoting the beauty and resources of Colorado’s high country.

BY BEN FOGELBERG, Editor

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