The difference in the sizes of the houses in Curtis Park represents the brief time in Denver’s earliest days when people of widely varying social and economic backgrounds shared a common neighborhood in a truly democratic mix.
On Monday, June 20th the Denver City Council voted in favor of Bill 145 designating Curtis Park “H” a Historic District. This historic district completes the efforts of Curtis Park Neighbors, Inc. to unify and protect the city’s first street car suburb. Curtis Park “H” is the 8th district in Curtis Park and ties together and unifies the districts already in place, and finally provides the neighborhood with the kind of comprehensive protection still needed to assure its continuance into the future. The landmark status will guarantee the protection of the old and to assure that new development will be compatible and harmonious with the historic structures found in one of Denver’s earliest residential neighborhoods.
Congratulations to all the owners of “new” landmark homes!
READ the application
(An interesring excerpt from the Application for Curtis Park Landmark District "H")
The history of the 2300 block of Stout Street, odd numbered side of the street, is uniquely tied to the history of a single family who made considerable contributions to the young city of Denver. The paterfamilias was Frank Kaub, who lived with his wife at 2343 Stout. Born in southern Germany, he and his bride-to-be came to the US in their 20s, he for political reasons. His story is a classic American tale of hard work and enterprise which made it possible for him to prosper in his new homeland.
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Beginning as a porter in a saloon in New York City, Frank Kaub moved on to Illinois where we became a master mechanic for the Chicago and North Western Railroad. In 1871, at a time when Denver was just getting started, he came to Denver to install a pump in the city’s first water works. He went on to become a locomotive engineer and worked for the narrow gauge South Park and Pacific Railway in its early days, the rail line that ran between Denver and Leadville. He also served as the driver and engineer on Denver’s first horse-drawn steam pumper of the Denver Fire Department.
Around 1885, he bought or built the Kaub Block at 17th and Champa, a commercial building that paid so well he was able to live off its income for the rest of his life. When he died in his house at 2343 Stout in 1911, the Denver Post said of him that “He accumulated a fortune in Denver real estate.” The house (individually designated a Denver Landmark, as with 2335 Stout) is of special interest because it is that extremely rare thing in Curtis Park: a house with much of its original interior decoration still intact. The Kaubs had four daughters and a son. Three of their daughters eventually came to live on the same block as their parents.
Ten or twelve years after Frank Kaub came to America, another young German, age 21, also arrived in New York City. His name was Henry Nagel. While in NYC, he learned the watchmaker’s trade. In 1869, three years after arriving in the US, he decided to come west. He went by train to Cheyenne, thence to Denver by stage coach, there being no rail connection at the time. Hired as a watchmaker by Gottesleben & Son, his repair bench faced a front window where he was seen by three of the Kaub daughters on their way home from school. Eventually, Nagel and Clara Kaub met, and the rest is history.
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About the same time that his father-in-law, Frank Kaub, was building his new home at 2343 Stout, circa 1885, Henry and Clara Kaub Nagel erected a smaller house at 2329 Stout. At the time, they already had four children, and when the family grew larger, they built another house at 2335 Stout on what was probably the Kaub’s side yard. Well before building the Stout Street houses, Nagel had gone into business for himself. His jewelry store was first located on Larimer, then moved on to 17th Street, then to 16th. His long experience as a watch and clock repairman led to his position as the official clock man whose task it was to service the clocks in all of Denver’s public schools. He also became the official watch-inspector for the engineers and trainmen on the railroads running into Denver, a position he probably got through his father-in-law who was the local treasurer of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. Nagel also dabbled in real estate. He owned the four lots at the corner of Stout and 23rd (now Park Avenue West), just down the street from his own house, on which some frame houses stood. Around 1890, he tore them down and built a terrace complex, five units facing Stout Street, three facing 23rd, all of them rental units.
In 1871, another young 21-year-old, Frederick Sigel, arrived in Denver, just a couple of years after Henry Nagel arrived. His father owned a large tannery in New York state, and young Fred went into the shoe and leather business upon his arrival here. In connection with his business, he travelled widely in western Colorado, selling leather and buying hides. At the time, Indian tribes and old trappers and hunters were common on the Western Slope and Sigel knew them and befriended some. In 1876, Sigel became an associate of Philip Zang, the prominent brewer, and three years later married one of his daughters. When she died, Fred met and married Clara Kaub Nagel’s sister, Anna. The same year as his marriage, 1889, Sigel built the five unit complex at the corner of Stout and 24th Streets, three units facing Stout and two facing 24th. He and his new wife lived at 2363 Stout. He died there in 1913. By the time of his death, he was reported to be a millionaire, his wealth coming from a variety of sources - mining, real estate, cattle-raising, and banking among them.
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The third of the Kaub sisters to reside on the paternal block of Stout Street was Emilie, who married and eventually divorced Andrew Campion, about whom less is known than his brothers-inlaw. He was primarily involved in the livestock and meatpacking businesses. He was one of the two organizers of the Burkhardt Packing Company, which became the Colorado Packing Company. Eventually, he most likely went into business with his brother-inlaw, Fred Sigel, in a company called the Sigel-Campion Live Stock Comm. Co. Andrew and Emilie lived at four different addresses on the 2300 block of Stout, moving with some frequency, which suggests that he rented rather than owned property there. The one house he owned was 2351 Stout, which he gave as his address from 1901 to 1905.
Five of the buildings still standing on the 2300 block of Stout were owned by members of the same family, surely something of a record.
