A Family Connection to Lower Downtown Denver

As a follow up to my blog "Remembering the Destruction of Denver's Chinatown..." from last Sunday I wanted to write a short entry about my family connections to Lower Downtown Denver. After WWII, in approximately 1945, my maternal Grandfather, Fred Hosken, and Uncle, Ed Hosken, purchased the Refrigeration Service Company (RSC).

RSC was located at 1509-1515 Blake Street near the corner of 15th in LoDo for approximately 10 years until they moved to a York Street location north of Downtown Denver. At the time, Blake Street was part of Denver's Skid Row and every morning when they opened up the shop they had to chase homeless people away from the entryway. This portion of Blake Street had also been part of the original Chinatown District in Downtown Denver (See Areas "a" and "d" in Figure 1 below in the September 30th blog entry on Denver's Chinatown).

Of course, this area is now part of trendy LoDo. The current street address of the old RSC building is now 1517-21 Blake Street and houses Wahoos Restaurant on the ground floor and offices on the upper floors.

Contemporary Photograph of 1517-1521 Blake Street, former location of Refrigeration Services Company in LoDo.




Sadly, both my Grandfather and Uncle have passed away so I can't ask them for stories about the old neighborhood.