The Denver Press Club has long been known as a historic building and a historic location. Now it’s being honored as a “historic site in journalism.”
The 82-year-old club, at 1330 Glenarm Place, has been honored by the Society of Professional Journalists for being “the touchstone” of Colorado journalism. The club’s organization has roots going back 130 years to a band of poker-playing “newsies,” making it the longest continuously operating press club in America.
Today the organization has much less of a focus on gambling and drinking and more emphasis on educating and training young journalists, hence the honor by the SPJ.
“I’m as pleased as I can be that we got this award,” said John Ensslin, president of the Colorado chapter of SPJ and former president of the press club. “Particularly because our SPJ chapter was founded inside the press club. Our first chapter meeting, which included Denver Post Editor Palmer Hoyt, was held on Oct. 13, 1949. The history of the two have been very much entwined over the years.”
The club’s free-standing headquarters was designed and built in 1925. In 2002, it underwent a thorough refurbishing, including a new bar, new fireplace and new kitchen. Despite all the fresh paint, it still houses two ghosts, who live between the boiler and the poker room in the basement.
The club’s walls proudly display the seven Pulitzer Prizes won by reporters and photographers from the city’s two daily newspapers — The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News.
The club’s colorful history includes visits by President Woodrow Wilson, poet Carl Sandberg and entertainer Ginger Rogers, famous for dancing backward, in high heels, with Fred Astaire.
For each of the past 13 years, the club has honored whom it considered to be the most influential journalist of that year by presenting them with the Damon Runyon Award, named after a native Colorado journalist who practiced his craft in Denver and New York, later writing the Broadway play “Guys and Dolls.”
Recipients of the award, all of whom accepted it personally at the club, include Ted Turner, Tom Brokaw, Ed Bradley, George Will, David Halberstam, Jimmy Breslin, Mike Royko, Herb Caen, Molly Ivins, Pete Hammill, Carl Hiaasen, Seymour Hersh and Maureen Dowd.
“As much as any newsroom in America, the Denver Press Club holds a special and significant place in the annals of journalism,” said SPJ national president Clint Brewer, executive editor of The City Paper in Nashville, Tenn. “History hangs in the air. It is a treasured space that deserves this fine honor.”
Mike McPhee: 303-954-1409 or mmcphee@denverpost.com
