John Eatwell couldn’t pass up a liquor bottle – not because he drank, but because he collected whiskey bottles.
And for Eatwell, who died at his Morrison home Nov. 29 at age 73, they had to be Pikes Peak Whiskey flasks, which date to the mid-1800s.
Eatwell, an architect who designed many buildings in Denver, searched high and low for the bottles – sometimes in Denver where outhouses used to be, and sometimes at 10,000-foot-elevation Leadville, said his son Tom Eatwell of Fruita. People threw trash, including bottles, in outhouses, Tom Eatwell said.
John Eatwell and his wife, Karen Eatwell, came across plenty of other things in those “digs,” from perfume bottles to bottles of “medicine” sold in Leadville drugstores.
The medicines or elixirs were always supposed to cure something, said Karen Eatwell, “but the contents of most were about 90 percent alcohol.”
He never told his wife the highest amount he ever paid for a bottle, “and I never asked,” she said.
Many bottles they found were fancy, embossed ones that had been made in factories in the East, she said.
But John Eatwell was particularly attracted to the Pikes Peak bottles because he was “a Pikes Peak fanatic” and knew everything there was to know about the famous peak, said Tom Eatwell.
John Eatwell co-wrote two books, one on the history of Pikes Peak and one on Denver’s early drugstores.
Eatwell’s other passion was race cars, which began when, as a kid, he sneaked into the Lakeside Speedway to watch midget-car races. He drove in many races as a young man and later did hill climbs. And all four of his children learned to race. His son Andy Eatwell of Phoenix started at age 4 in a quarter- midget race car.
“It was unbelievable fun,” said his daughter Willow Ems of Littleton.
John M. Eatwell was born in Denver on Sept. 4, 1932, and graduated from West High School. But before that, the 6-foot-3 Eatwell lied about his age and enlisted in the Colorado National Guard at age 14. He could play the saxophone so was quickly put in an Air Force band, stationed at Pope Field in North Carolina.
After that he studied architecture at the University of Denver, paying for his schooling by driving a delivery truck at night. Eventually he owned his own firm, John M. Eatwell Architects.
He designed the Far East Center in southwest Denver and many of the area’s Wendy’s, Black-Eyed Pea and Burger King restaurants, as well as condominium offices.
He married Karen Schepler on Dec. 15, 1956.
In addition to their sons and daughter, he is survived by his daughter Margy Singer of Phoenix and five grandchildren.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at vculver@denverpost.com or 303-820-1223.
