by Kenneth Jessen
The adobe brick Garden Park Schoolhouse is located about nine miles north of Cañon City on the Garden Park Road leading to Cripple Creek. The area was settled during the late 1860s, not long after the Colorado Territorial Legislature established Fremont County. The attraction of Garden Park is obvious – a lush north-south valley with fertile soil and a good supply of water. It was perfect for a variety of crops, especially apple trees. Starting in the early 1890s, vast quantities of gold ore were discovered in the Cripple Creek area, spawning the last great gold rush in Colorado. The need for fresh produce was immediate, and a toll road was constructed from Cañon City through Garden Park to Cripple Creek in 1892. This substantially added to the agricultural business.
School district No. 5 was established in 1869 for the Garden Park families. The first schoolhouse was built about a quarter of a mile from the present-day school. It was destroyed by fire in 1891, and construction of its replacement began immediately. Starting with 48 students, the new Garden Park School opened four years later. It was built of adobe bricks produced by the area families and with time, the building started to erode. In 1916, a stucco layer was added.
During harvest time, children were asked to help their families. Some missed weeks of school. According to a long-time resident, there were students as old as 21 in the eighth grade. Children arrived at school on foot or on horseback. A barn once stood on the school property for the horses.
One of the favorite lunch time games was known as “Guards and Convicts,” humorous since the State Penitentiary was located in Cañon City! The game worked like this – half of the children played guards and the other half escaped convicts. It was the duty of the guards to round up the convicts.
Attendance starting dropping during the 1950s and at times, only five students attended the school. In 1961, the school closed in favor of bussing the students to Cañon City. Since then, the stucco has started to break away exposing the adobe bricks. Engineering studies have been made, and efforts are in progress to save the only remaining country school in the area. The Garden Park School was added to the State Register of Historical Properties in 2008.
Kenneth Jessen is published over 100 times a year in newspapers and magazines and to his credit, has had 20 books on Colorado put into print. He travels the back roads of our state looking for great photographs and interesting stories. Ken and his wife, Sonje, live in Loveland.
