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Mayfair Park Neighborhood: Boundaries are Northern 6^th Avenue, Southern-1^st Avenue, Western-Monaco Parkway, Eastern-Quebec Street

The area that now is Mayfair Park was once a part of the Smoky Hill Trail.  During the 1840s and 1850s as many as 1500 Arapaho camped in this area around Westerly Creek.  This small tribe of Plains Indians had tattoos that led other tribes to call them the “Tattooed People”.  After the 1858 gold strike on Cherry Creek and the South Platte River, thousands of fortune-seeking emigrants from the eastern country-region poured into this area.  These new arrivals displaced the Arapaho and began settling the area.  By the 1880’s Denver had grown to a city of 100,000.

As the city grew east, the area where Mayfair Park is located was originally known as New Capitol Hill. The name was later changed to Mayfair Park when home building began in the 1940s.  World War II created a need to provide housing for both active and ex-servicemen and their families. Several of the first homeowners had been or were currently stationed at Lowry Air Force Base which was adjacent to our neighborhood. The homes built in the 1940’s were small one story brick homes with two bedrooms, one bath and no basements.  Larger homes were built in the1950's in the areas around the newly-built Whiteman Elementary, 6^th Avenue and Monaco Parkway.  These homes were more in character with the ones being built in the nearby Crestmoor and Montclairneighborhoods. This mix of housing styles provides for a wide range in the income and size of the households in Mayfair Park.   Recently we are seeing many of these small homes being added to or scraped and replaced with much larger new homes similar to those being built in Lowry.

Since Mayfair Park’s early residents were mostly servicemen and their families, we have always been closely linked with Lowry.  Of note, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, known as “Ike”, married a  woman, Mamie Dowd, and spent a great deal of time in Colorado, especially at Lowry while serving as president of the United States</st1:country-region> between 1952 and 1960.  The historic Eisenhower Chapel in Lowry was named for him and survives to this day.

Many members of the Mayfair Park Neighborhood Association were involved with the redevelopment of Lowry from an active Air Force base to a new urban neighborhood.  We were especially instrumental in the planning of the West Neighborhood which lies within our borders.  We are now involved with the planning of the Buckley Annex, more commonly known as the Air Force Finance Center, which is directly south of our neighborhood.  The Air Force will be vacating this property and the planning is underway for a redevelopment plan for this site.  Again, the face of our neighborhood will be changing.  The streets that now end at 1^st Avenue will extend south into a new development of homes, condos, apartments, shops, parks and new neighbors.

Whiteman Elementary has always been very special to us.  It is located in the center of our neighborhood and is the focal point for our community activities.  We hold two neighborhood meetings at the school each year and our annual ice cream social is held on the west lawn of the school.  Our neighborhood held fundraising events to assist in getting the grass playing field and playground equipment for the school.  We felt the children at Whiteman deserved better than a gravel playground and we are so proud to have helped them to get the beautiful play area they now have.   We hope to continue our close affiliation with Whiteman for many years to come.

Thank you to Kathleen Ruby, President of the Mayfair Park Neighborhood Association for this history.  Some of the information was obtained from Historic Denver Guides Lowry: Military Base to New Urban Community.