kenlutes.com - Elitch Theatre

Elitch Theatre - A Promise for the Next 100 Years

by Ken Lutes

On a winter's evening sometime during 1995, I took the long way home from the home of a friend who lives in the 3500 of Tennyson Street. Instead of heading south, for some reason I was strangely compelled to turn my car around and go the other way.

The remains of Elitch Gardens were laid out just ahead, and I turned west on 36th Avenue.

A cache of memories rushed me-some as bright and clear as the moment, some dimly faded as old Levi's-and I pulled over and stopped the car. Pale blue moonlight glistened off a hill of roller coaster track rising tall against an icy winter sky. Behind skeletons of old trees, I heard the eerie screams of panicked delight blasting from coaster-riding ghosts. Here, along the north side of this four-block stretch of road between Tennyson and Wolff Streets, had once been the backside of a living, breathing amusement park and the home to one of the ten best wooden roller coasters in the country: Mister Twister.

Out of respect for what shone from the darkness, I turned off my lights, switched off the ignition, and listened to the sound of my car's engine sink into the silent resolve of a time gone by. I got out of the car and walked around the hood, slowly leaning against the right front fender, and began to sort through past memories.

Pellet-like snow had begun to fall, as though I needed another grim reminder that these remains would soon be covered by row houses and condominiums. Funny, isn't it, how snow can be so beautiful and at the same time serve as a fated messenger of change to come; or in this moment, the settling snow became like a cleansing backdrop for memories frozen in time.

When I was in fourth grade, my mother and grandmother loaded us (along with a lunch basket of chicken) onto a bus bound for the Gardens. I loved the working clock made of living flowers, and I remember trying to understand what was meant by the slogan, "Not to See Elitch's Is Not to See Denver." I know we took in a matinee at the theatre, but I napped through it and have no recollection what the play's title might have been.

My high school days would have been seriously diminished without regular summertime visits to the park. The Tilt-A-Whirl was my favorite ride (still is). It was important to situate my date so that with each whirl the centrifugal force would oblige her body to inch closer to mine. If my friends and I had no dates, we would arrive at the main gate wearing arrays of confidence, knowing this time we were certain to pick up girls; of course, that never happened. Then there were times when we had no money for ride coupons, and we would simply pay the nominal walk-in fee just to be inside, to mingle our senses with everyone else's. I was engulfed in a since of pride and ownership, even though I wouldn't truly appreciate it for years to come.

Now, with the sting of hard, steadily falling snow hitting my face, I resigned to imagine what this place would be in years to come. I wiped away the snow that had caked around my eyes, shook off the loose pellets from my coat, and returned to my car.

I started up the engine and, with a final look up to the roller coaster rise, gradually crept forward in the dark. By summer, I knew, the new Elitch's would be relocated in the Platte River Valley. I wondered whether the new place would ever rival the old one for memories. Maybe not for me, but for others-youngsters, teens, new families-sure, they would someday cherish fond feelings for the new Elitch's as those in my generation do for the grand times we had here.

There is a part of me that yearns for things to be as they were. Deep inside me is the wish that I might have served a part in preserving the old Gardens, but in truth there was nothing I could have done. In the face of the inevitable, it's always too late. So, I cling to my Elitch's memories not with remorse for its passing, but rather out of reverence for what it gave to me.

Today, the condos and apartments sit in the shadow of a Denver legacy. The Elitch Theatre is still in the place where it has weathered more than a hundred years. And the restored carousel pavilion sits across from it. They are like two old friends perennially meeting at the park to play chess. They both are winning survivors of a hard struggle to stay alive, and with the plans to renovate the theatre, there is hope that they will be around to ring in the next century.

Ken's Main Page