Page 44 - AreaNewsletters "Dec 2021" issue

Did You Know This About the...
Hotel
LAST MONTH’S COLUMN focused on Tweet Kimball and her contributions to Douglas County, to include the foundation that preserves Cherokee Castle and Ranch where her cherished Santa Gertrudis bulls still roam! All this came to be when Tweet divorced her rst husband, the diplomat, in the 50’s. He promised to buy her whatever she wanted, as long as she stayed on the West side of the Mississippi River and he’d stay on the East! Click to read it.
Castle Rock
by Lora Thomas
Douglas County Commissioner and former State Patrol O cer assigned to Castle Rock in the 1980’s
But first, another “Castle Rock” Trivia Question:
Who is Castle Rock’s Mayor? (Answer at the end of this article)
Many wandering around downtown Castle Rock have passed the empty former apartment building on the west side of Perry Street, in between 4th and 5th Street, and wondered about the building. It has an antique façade that really whispers to curious folks about its past. It was used in the recent past as
an apartment building, and when I was serving as county coroner from 2011- 2015, I did attend to a death of a tenant in the building. The building is now unoccupied.
So where did it get its start?
Thomas S. Harris was born in Chilton, Wiltshire, England in January 1837, came to America in 1858 and settled with his brother, John, in Colorado in 1871. They founded the town of New Memphis with the Memphis Colony Company. The town was setup close
to the previous settlement of Citadel,
December 2021 • Castle Rock “AreaNewsletters”
approximately two miles north of Castle Rock. New Memphis was started shortly before the new Denver & Rio Grande railroad tracks reached it and when the railroad was laid through, a stop called Citadel with a depot was established. A document from the Colorado Cultural Resource Survey says that the Harris Hotel was constructed in the Town of New Memphis in approximately 1872 when the town was inhabited by settlers from Memphis, Tennessee, and it was located near what is now Highway 85 and Liggett Road.
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CASTLE ROCK HISTORY