Douglas City Hall

After its founding in 1886, the survival of the city of Douglas was by no means assured. Starting with a population of 1,600, within a year or two, a typhoid epidemic, harsh winter weather, and other uncontrollable crises had reduced the town to a total of less than 300 stalwart survivors. It was not until 1915, when a population of more than 2,000 was thriving on the local sheep-ranching economy, and irrigation was spurring the growth of an agricultural base, that city officials felt confident enough to undertake some sorelyneeded civic improvements. Their first step was to commission a rising star in the Denver architectural firmament, William Norman Bowman, to design for Douglas both a County Courthouse and a new City Hall. Of the two structures, only the City Hall building remains—as a kind of civic monument to the persistence and resolve of those earliest Douglas settlers. And in tribute to the industry that almost singlehandedly saved the city from extinction, a ceramic medallion over the main entrance to the building features a ram’s head, replete with full, curled horns. The two-story brick building was designed to serve not only as a workplace for the city administration; it also offered living quarters for the Chief of Police and accommodated both a fire station and a jailhouse. Thus on any given day, while city staff toiled in offices within the north half of the ground floor, fire trucks might be exiting from the oversized doors at the south half, the Good Roads Club might be in session within chambers on the second floor, while a rabble-rouser might be paying dues in one of the two jail cells at the basement level. Later, the staff might notice the fire brigade clambering into the three-story brick tower at the rear of the building—there to drape, for drying, their sodden fabric fire hoses. The City Hall building remained in use by the local government until another building was obtained, in 1989; the replacement contains no jail, no fire house, and no hose tower.