Trust Dick Kreck to dig up the dirt on Denver society. A 38-year Denver Post reporter and columnist chronicling the doings of Denver notables, Kreck is adept at turning up fascinating trivia on the city’s elite.
He is also the author of “Murder at the Brown Palace: A True Story of Seduction and Betrayal,” a detailed tale of Denver’s most scandalous killing. So itap little wonder that he now chronicles the sordid doings of even more of Denver’s rich and famous.
“Rich People Behaving Badly” tells the stories of 15 people and their ill-advised escapades. Many of the stories are about infidelity. Kreck recounts the events of the Brown Palace murder, which might well have piqued his interest in the subject of the scandalous wealthy. In 1911, Isabel Springer, the beautiful young wife of a Denver civic leader 20 years her senior, was involved in not one but two romances with men-about-town. When the two, egged on by Isabel’s tales of abuse, encountered each other at the Brown, one of them ended up dead. Lurid headlines about the trial and conviction of the killer entertained Denver for weeks.
Another socialite whose escapades made the news was Courtland Dines. The Denver clubman enjoyed romping with Hollywood flappers, including the actress Mabel Norman. He was shot by her amorous chauffeur. “I suppose I’ll kick the bucket … . The girls will miss me,” Dines said from his hospital bed. But he didn’t, and went on to be married four times.
Newspapers loved such goings-on, although not when the scandals involved the newspaper owners. Kreck tells of Rocky Mountain News founder William Byers, who was spurned by a lover who followed him home and tried to shoot him. And Denver Post owner Frederick Bonfils not only had his own romantic dalliances but also was deeply involved in the Teapot Dome scandal. The Post relentlessly revealed the irregularities of the oil leases near Teapot Dome, only to suddenly go silent when Bonfils was bought off.
Along with the tales of prostitutes and enraged spouses, gangsters and family murders, Kreck has a couple of tales of financial frauds.
Following World War II, super salesman Fred Ward was the biggest Hudson dealer in the West. He was a showman who gave splashy parties and charity events at his ranch north of Denver and hobnobbed with the elite. He was so well known about Denver that kids sang a ditty to the tune of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”: “My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of Fred Ward/He is coming round the corner in his little yellow Ford.” (Why it was a Ford and not a Hudson, who knows? Perhaps because it rhymes.)
Folks might have taken heed of the fact that Ward had once been jailed for passing bad checks. But they didn’t, and Ward sold hundreds of Hudsons, some more than once and some that he didn’t own. He soon was over-extended, and eventually his empire crashed. “Hell, I’m no financial genius. I know that,” he explained before being sent off to prison again.Another Denverite who was found guilty of fraud was the Rev. Charles Blair, who took over a church with a couple dozen members and built it to a congregation of 6,000. His then-modernistic Cavalry Temple, at South University and Alameda, opened in 1955, perhaps the largest church in the state.
The charismatic Blair was no shirker when it came to personal expenses. He lived in a mansion near the church and stopped at his favorite barbershop each Friday for a haircut, shoe shine and manicure.
He was even more cavalier with his church’s money, with plans to expand the church and build a life center. Of course, this was with money provided by the faithful, many of whom invested their life savings with the pastor. They lost it, of course, when Blair’s empire crumbled.
Like Fred Ward, Pastor Blair shrugged that he was no financial genius. But again, like Ward, he was a heck of a salesman — and persuaded church members to help pay off the debts.
Although Kreck’s stories are short, they contain a great deal of detail — dates and addresses, for instance. And Kreck is always entertaining. “Rich People Behaving Badly” is as fun to read as its title. Who doesn’t like to learn about how the mighty have fallen?
Rich People Behaving Badly.
By Dick Kreck
(Fulcrum)
