Abandoned Death - Watson's Memorials - Denver, CO
That locked up patriotic headstone wasn't intended as a political statement or anything.
Just a happy coincidence?
In June 2017, I was seriously planning the start of this blog. Part of that was finding even more material than when I was still planning stories for zines. Naturally, my very amateur photography efforts would need to venture further outside my normal routes to find new subjects.
Quebec Street was road I rarely travelled. It was on the eastern edge of Denver, and I was rarely in that part of town, after around 1999. Laura and I drove south on Quebec in late 2016, and this building caught my eye. I didn't take a picture, since I wasn't prepared for it. But it stood out. Using all of my superpowers of "half-assed research", I found it was an abandoned memorial company.
Which made sense, because Fairmount Cemetery was directly across Quebec!
Also in June 2017, I tagged along with Laura for her doctor appointment, one afternoon. It was in the new development where Stapleton International Airport previously stood. The northeast corner of the Denver city limits was still undergoing conversion from obsolete airport to a massive residential, commercial and park land. A project that began in earnest in 2000, and was still ongoing in 2017.
Certainly photos of any remaining piece of Stapleton International Airport would eventually be used in my (future) blog!
Googles presented an aerial photo of Stapleton International Airport, in 1971. By the late 1980's, any potential for much needed expansion was limited at best. A major issue was the runways were becoming too small for larger aircraft to safely use. Obviously there were parking and space for travelers to arrive and depart issues as well. Denver was quickly outgrowing its airport. By 1995, Stapleton was the 4th busiest airport in the country. A new and much larger one would be built another 20 or so miles northeast of Denver.
The last flight departed Stapleton for London, England, at 9:27pm on February 27, 1995. All operations were immediately shifted to the brand new Denver International Airport (which has its own major set of issues and lore...). Stapleton International Airport officially closed after that flight took off.
After moving to Englewood in 1996, I was a regular subscriber to the Rocky Mountain News, for several years. Since they printed a tabloid style newspaper, it was far easier to read while standing (outside smoking). On January 19, 1998, a story spelling out the doom of Stapleton's buildings ran. Because of that awesome photo, I cut the story out and kept it. Not like I was going to be let in to explore Stapleton myself anyways.
The airport sat shuttered for a few years while the city of Denver tried to repurpose the airport buildings. However they would need a great deal of renovation, which wouldn’t be practical or cost efficient. Combine that with a questionable decision to drain the plumbing and cut utilities to the main buildings, not long after the airport closed. In July 1997, the airport’s terminal and concourses were hit by a hailstorm. The storm and water damage accelerated the decay. Before long, the whole structure was essentially worthless and needed to be demolished.
Rocky Mountain News a few days later...
Denver Mayor Wellington Webb (loved that name!) had already decided the complex was going to come down. Redevelopment plans were set in motion. It was looked at as a chance to add another small city's worth of people and business, into an already booming city.
Demolition of the the entire Stapleton Airport complex began in 1999, and lasted over 15 years. All the runways had to be torn out, and the land cleaned up underneath them. Over 120 individual buildings were removed from the site over that time.
This site has some incredible photos of Stapleton Airport. Spanning from its distant past, to active and booming years, shortly after it closed and demolition of the entire complex.
One of the last remaining structures, the Stapleton Airport control tower, was kept for an as-yet undetermined future use. These photos were taken on November 9, 2016. I tagged along on Laura's appointment as she had told me that a construction crew was working on it, the last time she came through. So I should probably get some pictures.
Tower from the southwest angle.
Tower from the northwest angle.
The Tower was renovated into a new Punch Bowl Social restaurant/club (food, with a bar, mini-golf, video games, etc.), which opened in 2017. Never went. Not my thing.
Punch Bowl Social closed during the 2020 pandemic, and did not reopen. Eventually it reopened as the Flyte Co Tower, and featured roughly the same set up and atmosphere of the Punch Bowl Social gimmick. I don't know... Again, not my thing.
Back to that June 2017, Watson's Memorials drive by I was talking about earlier. Before I was all distracted by an abandoned airport. Losing about 45 minutes to the Googles rabbit hole it opened. Laura and I drove back from her Stapleton adjacent appointment, taking Quebec south. Approaching the Alameda Avenue intersection, I snapped this photo and decided that I'd come back the next weekend for better ones.
Of Watson's Memorials.
Not the closed up Watson's Grocery on Lincoln Street.
Which I also drove by this morning, and wrote about several years ago.
Sunday, June 25, 2017.
I set out on today's mission, by going downtown via Broadway/Lincoln, then taking Colfax Avenue east to Aurora, then back to Quebec. From there, I'd go south for photos of Watson Memorials. As of now, I'm planning on covering that morning’s Colfax segment in my next story...
Later that morning, I discovered somewhere else that you can't get groceries.
This one near the intersection of Quebec & Leetsdale.
Safeway operated here until they closed in September 2013, as part of the grocer’s Colorado downsizing. (Taking out the one I wrote about on Sheridan Avenue, a few years later.) Corporate cited “underperforming sales” as the deciding factor of its closure. A little research on the Yelps adds context. Reviews pointed out the store was always understaffed, with mold growing on the produce shelves (including photos), broken fixtures and freezers, and apathetic employees. Of course you can call that “underperforming”, but I call that poor management. Which is 100% on Safeway to deal with.
Closing the place is just a cop out.
I’m almost positive that I picked up some groceries here in the late 1990’s. Likely on my way home from Overpriced Art School, in Aurora. A route likely deflected to Colorado Blvd., for reasons I can’t remember.
Peeking through the dirty water splotches on the window, inside the former Safeway. Pretty sure that wall on the left side of the store is new. Safeway likely occupied several spaces that could be chopped up into smaller retail stores, once the massive grocery store was cleared out.
Help Civil War Hostle Free?
I don’t know what you’re saying.
Looking inside the dirty glass at the main front entrance of Safeway. The store has been completely cleared out, and really isn’t very interesting.
This former Safeway is now part of the Save A Lot Food Stores chain, according to the Googles.
At least they had to clean up the moldy produce shelves before opening.
Oh well... Let’s drive a couple miles south to Alameda Avenue, then figure out where I need to park so I can get my desired Watson's Memorials photos.
There’s zero on street parking in front of Watson's Memorials, on either Quebec or Alameda, so I’m going to need to drive into the residential area behind the structure. I'm sure no one will care if I park in front of their house for about 20 minutes, while I take a brief walk.
Watson's Memorials sits on a corner lot at 365 S Quebec Street, in Denver, Colorado. It had been closed for just over three years when the Googlesmobile drove by for this picture. Watson’s space is secured by a temporary fence circling the property.
This Googlesmobile drove by was done in October, 2011. Watson's Memorial had already closed at this point, it just didn't look like it. Someone should bring all of those headstones in or something. They're just going to get wet if you keep leaving them outside like this.
The Denver Post supplied some background information on what was going on here.
I'll summarize: After more than 100 years of business, Watson's Memorial Company closed without warning. The doors were locked and they stopped answer calls. The business had been taken over by a guy named Andy Noe, who bought out family members who ran it. Then he disappeared. Screwing over all the customers who were in the middle of the process of buying a head stone.
Go read the link. It does a better job of telling that story, than I did.
Thanks to the layout of the residential area, I had to park a few blocks away, on South Olive Way.
At least that name is cool.
Walking up to the corner of Alameda and Quebec, with Watson's Memorial in the distance. Not sure if this grassy area was part of Watson's or not. It's not fenced in, so it may belong to someone else.
I found this sign laying on the ground by the sidewalk. Unfortunately the phone number was unreadable for some reason. Thus denying me of my chance at earning $150k a year, as a real estate trainee!
If you're offering a salary of $150k/year, shouldn't you be casting a much narrower net? Nothing says human trafficker more than posting handwritten signs, promising a small fortune, near the graveyard.
Big pile of weather beaten wood just inside the Watson's Memorial security fence.
Looking over the fairly low fence. I'm honestly surprised they didn't wrap the fence to prevent people like me from easily looking at it.
Watson Memorial Co. on its own headstone. "Since 1897".
Sad that a local business with a legacy lasting over a century, goes out like this.
Back when it was open, this used to be a small parking area.
According to real estate records, this Watson's Memorial building was constructed in 1946. That would mean there was a different location, or building on the property, prior to this.
Someone stole most of the W.
Watson's Memorial used to be just crawling with headstones, back in 2011...
I really do like that front door.
That closed sign is quite the understatement...
Wait, what's that hiding behind the bushes? It's a stray headstone! Separated from its family when they were all whisked away someplace offsite! Poor little guy trying to stay sheltered from the rain and snow. All alone and scared, with no one around to carve letters and numbers into his face...
At first glance, I thought that was the Punisher skull hanging in the doorway.
Again, I really like that entryway. I really hope someone does something with this building. And I don't mean turn it into a Starbucks.
The yard just south of the building.
The Denver Post tells a particularly disgusting tale of the crap that Andy Noe pulled on one of Watson's Memorial's elderly customers.
I wish I could have found any information on if she ever got her headstone out of Watson's parking lot. Really would hope that sad story would have a happy ending.
Who knows, there may be other "paid for" stones laying in that pile.
Wonder how old this sign is...
It's really cool!
Googlesmobile view from just south of Watson's Memorial, in October 2011.
Watson's Memorial as I'm walking back up the block.
Hmmm... What's that hiding behind the building?
Oh, it's that funny looking Isuzu truck that appears in different places in all the Googles photos I found. Poor guy's been tagged and neglected, too afraid to come out anymore. Stuck guarding a small stack of headstones, in case the people who paid for them try to show up and take them.
Then I walked back to my car, bidding Watson's Memorial a fond farewell.
While I didn't get pictures of anything extremely noteworthy, this was an odd property. It had a rather sad story behind it, and stood out as a new sentimental favorite. An abandoned headstone engraver isn't something you see every day.
Not like it's an abandoned Burger King or something!
(Like the one in... Littleton, CO - St. Cloud, MN - Coon Rapids, MN - And coming soon... Moorhead, MN!)
When I got home that afternoon, I edited the several hundred photos I took that day and decided to share a few of the Watson's Memorial pictures to Facebook. I used it as a sort of test story for what would become this. I wrote a more detailed caption for each of the pictures I used, then put them in a logical story order. There wasn't really a way to format them, so it was just uploaded as a photo album. I don't know how many people saw it, but it was a Four Baggers prototype.
A ground rule double?
Getting back on Quebec Street, I took it south to Illiff Avenue, west. This photo is already facing west, in case it confused you. In the distance, you can see the road curve to the left. Illiff becomes Evans Ave after this turn. Evans was a major east/west route for me during my 20 years in Denver. I worked off Evans and Santa Fe for much of that, and it was my most used route for east west travel, in the south metro.
One of the favorite Evans attractions being the old Kmart. Built in 1967, closed in 2012 and finally demolished in 2021. I was here a few times. I remember eating Little Caesars pizza in the corner cafe, then buying stuff for the apartment, after classes at Overpriced Art School.
I was frequently in this part of town in the late 1990's for Newsland. Which used to sell thousands of magazines and newspapers, covering every subject imaginable, out of this building. One of my favorite retail stores ever.
And we continue west, past the grave of the Rockies Inn. Which burned down a few years earlier. I wrote about that one, years back as well. Actually, that story was posted on August 5, 2017. So it was among the first I wrote for this site.
Nothing to see here anymore.
So the Rockies Inn gets a token glance as I drive by on the way to Colorado Blvd., and my next stop...
The Criterion Shopping Center.
By July 25, 2017, full on demolition has started. I've been watching this property closely over the last few months. Consisting of several buildings of in-line retail and an old IHOP restaurant. I have a few thousand photos of Criterion, so it will definitely see coverage here at some point. Likely in multiple pieces.
A sneak preview would be a very old story I wrote about The Deadbeat Club, which burned down in 2015.
This corner unit of the Criterion Shopping Center was the Amish Furniture Gallery.
Years before that, it was a Cheapo Records franchise.
Between 1996-2003, I bought a lot of CD's from this Cheapo Records. I did make it to all three Denver area locations, but the other two had closed by 2001. Cheapo still exists in Minneapolis, MN and Blaine, MN, and I still go to the Blaine store occasionally. Just to see their reaction, I always ask the people working (only if I'd never seen them before) if they had any memories of the Colorado Cheapo Record stores. I've only ran into one Cheapo Records employee that even knew of Cheapo Records having stores in Colorado.
That pretty much covers the rest of the day I want to talk about for now. I'll wrap this up with a look at the latest Googlesmobile drive by, of Watson Memorial. Dated July 2024.
Looks about the same, just more tired. The paint is peeling pretty badly on the building. The Watson Memorial headstone has been removed. Hopefully it found a good home.
The front door has been boarded up. I'm sure someone broke in, just to destroy the place. Looks like they are doing a good job at keeping graffiti in check.
Oh good, that lost headstone hiding in the bushes, got out!
No sign of the strange little graffitied Isuzu truck
My patented half-ass research didn't find any more or newer details about Watson's Memorials or Andy Noe. So I have no way to sufficiently wrap this story up.
Someone knows what happened here.
And it sure aint me.
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