Defunct Playgrounds - Ridge Home History

Defunct Playgrounds >>> Ridge Home History

Re-Written September 15, 2009
Re-Write of the June 23, 2006 history revise
No clue when I first wrote this. But it has been re-written because of the updates I have to add and somewhat of a 100 year tribute to Ridge Home.

The History of Colorado State Home for Mental Defectives at Ridge

It is the year 1909 in Colorado. The State Insane Asylum at Pueblo is running at full capacity and the State of Colorado realizes they need to do something to relieve the stress of this mental facility. Times as we know it now is not how they will be come 100 years later in 2009. To the medical community there is no difference between the insane and the mentally disabled. The way we treat our “inmates” which you will know as patients is going to be thought of as inhuman, cruel and even shocking in 2009.

To relieve the stress of the state run, State Insane Asylum at Pueblo, the State of Colorado is planning to build a 310 acre site 2 miles west of Arvada. There will be a new state run institution here to be named “State Home for Mental Defectives at Ridge.” These plans do falter a little. Instead, the State Home for Mental Defectives at Ridge is going to now be built on the south side of Arvada. So why continue to call it “State Home for Mental Defectives at Ridge?” Easy, along the North side of this facility is a road, a road named Ridge Road. Soon the State Home for Mental Defectives at Ridge will be commonly be known as “Ridge Home.”

After a year’s hard work and planning, Ridge Home is being built. The main administration building is proudly wearing a corner stone that says “A.D. State Home and Training School, founded by the State of Colorado through the efforts of Ella Parish Williams and the State Board of Correctives.” The superintendent of the State Insane Asylum at Pueblo, A.P. Busey is going to be the Director of Ridge Home as well.

Ridge Home’s first “inmate” is a 7 year old girl named Gertrude Haast. She was sent to Ridge Home by the State of Colorado after living at the House of the Good Shepherd after the murder of her mother. A jury declared her mentally unbalanced in a court room. She arrived at Ridge Home in July 5th of 1912. Her story hit newspapers May 30, 1912. At the time she was declared mentally unbalanced until the time she arrived at Ridge Home, she was kept at the Good Shephard. She was waiting for Ridge Home to be completed.

As I mentioned before, some of the methods of the early 1900s would be harsh to you. In 1914 the Director of Ridge Home A.P. Busey, put forth a bill that was killed by Legislature to have the “feeble-minded” sterilized so they could not have children. Yet, in the State Insane Asylum at Pueblo at least in the 1920s that we know of, a superintendent was permitting these types of procedures. They had no permission to do so and there was a lawsuit filed against them. Nothing that has come forward, yet, has to say the same happened at Ridge.

Well in the early days of Ridge, inmates left only a few ways. They could die here at Ridge or they could wait at a relative’s home as they were transferred to the State Insane Asylum at Pueblo. Some escaped. You have to understand in the time of 1912, when Ridge opened its doors, is different than you know times of 2009. It was hard for the medical community of that day to say if one was insane or mentally disabled. They were put in populations together.

In 1916 Dr. A.P. Busey was still superintendent of Ridge Home. He then found himself facing another over crowded facility. It was then filled it “its utmost capacity with feeble- minded children and adults.” They also had a waiting list of 165 more. Planning for four new cottages was being urged by the legislative community in 1917. They said that it could hold another 200 inmates and help the overcrowding that Ridge was dealing with. Two years later however, a plan for a new institute to be built on the old Indian School Buildings in Grand Junction was in plans. This would open under the name “State Home for Mental Defectives at Grand Junction.” It was supposed to hold 1,000 people.

By 1936 Ridge Home had an enrollment of 260 out of the capacity of 300 patients. The original buildings consisted of a school, a farm and housing. But in the day of Insane Asylums and State Homes for Mental Defectives, they ended up in a self dependent institute. Which means, hospitals, power houses, the whole nine yards.

Little much else is known by me of the happenings of Ridge Home until the 1960s. My grandmother and two of my great aunts worked at Ridge Home during this time. My grandmother was a “pill pusher.” As I had mentioned, in the early 1900s it was hard to believe in the year 2009 that people were treated as they were. In the 1960s, it is the same, hard to believe happenings for 2009. Some “normal” children were dropped off at Ridge. That is what my mom had mentioned to me. My guess would be these were the “insane” children who ended up in a sad story of becoming socially mentally disabled.

Though still not much is known by me of these times. Let’s not believe or assume that everyone at Ridge treated these patients as animals. They had camp outs by the water tower, many of the people who have worked at Ridge, did love these patients. My grandmother among them. She and a few others were trying to change how people were treated at Ridge Home. My grandmother passed in 1988 of cancer.

One year after her passing though, life at Ridge was about to start on a new path. Federal Agents came to Ridge Home to investigate on some complaints they had received. Even though the conditions were undesirable, such as body waste from patients and other unclean conditions, that doesn’t mean that there weren’t people who tried or cared. So let’s not assume this either.

When two Federal Agents visited Ridge Home one day, while standing and talking with the director of the time, a man started to bang his head into a wall. According to the Feds, a male staffer “dangerously and improperly” restrained the man. Between April 2 and 9 of 1990, Health Care Financing Administration officials, documented several times in which residents were injured, or their health was threatened.

In that same year, it was determined that Ridge Home needed 155 new staffers and they had to spend at least $1.3 million to get the new staff. The people who ran Ridge Home at that time said that the conditions and staff was fine and refused to do anything they were asked to do about the conditions.

Starting in 1989 the federal agencies started to look into Ridge Home; they began making threats of cutting off funding to Ridge Home. Many lay the blame of the closure of Ridge Home on the president’s beliefs and actions on institutions such as Ridge Home at this time. So please pay attention, this is where the real reasons of Ridge’s closure is. In 1990, federal agencies finally lost their patience with Ridge Home and their refusal to make a change. They had then given Ridge Home 5 days to get it cleaned up. The administration then made appeals saying that 5 days was a short deadline. The people who had family at Ridge Home started to fear Ridge would close and didn’t know what would become of the family they had in care of Ridge Home.

Ridge Home got their 90 day reprieve. They feds came back to Ridge Home for a checkup, and they had found that the conditions were getting better. However, the deadline came July 8, 1990, almost 78 years to the day that Ridge Home’s first 7 year old patient arrived. Again, Ridge Home was thrown a bone. The deadline was extended to August 17. Finally, August 29, 1990, the feds had enough waiting. They cut off more than $12 million in Medicaid funding to Ridge Home. The State of Colorado wasn’t pleased with this and appealed. They said they had taken massive steps to clean Ridge Home up and they weren’t done yet.

Even though the community and patients were not ready for this, Ridge Home couldn’t do much else. Their funding was gone and had to do something with their patients. They were moved into the communities into group homes, that is where most of them reside today. There are a few that still live on site at the “new” Ridge Home. I say it like that because it is still state run, it is still in some of the newer Ridge Home buildings but it has a new name and new ways of looking at the life of these patients. The ones who still are on site are those who are so severely disabled, they are unable to live in a group home. These group homes have nurses around the clock who are there to care for them, but they have much more freedom of those inmates from the early 1900s.

The After Life of Ridge Home

Of course there was life still at the new Ridge Home, there was still people living there, working there and of course, there was the empty shells of a home over at one point the 60s, thousands of people were cared for.

In September of 1991 the empty beautiful almost gothic style original Administration building saw the beginning of the end. A large scale fire ran through the building. It was the third blaze in the last two months. No one was hurt, but firefighters did drench a black and white cat they found in the attic of the building. This massive building was three stories and the fire destroyed it all. The roof of the building collapsed.

The following day, a security guard was arrested on suspicion of setting the fire. His name was Michael George King, and two week guard of the Burns International Security Services. Kind of an ironic name for the company. He was 24 years old and admitted to setting the fire in the attic. Remember the building I mentioned in the start that proudly wore its cornerstone? That is the building. That cornerstone was all that was left of the gothic style building that stood at the entrance to Ridge Home. That cornerstone was taken in 1992 by the Colorado Historical Society.

In 1994, an argument broke out in a parking lot at Wheat Ridge Regional Center (the new Ridge Home.) A man named Wilbur Swift thought a WRRC psychiatric technician, Michael Fluellen who was 22 at the time, was having an affair with Swift’s wife, Joann, who also worked at WRRC.

The argument ended in the death of Michael Fluellen who was shot by Swift. The police were unable to tell if the murder was an accident or not. Arvada Police Sgt. Merle Westing said “Swift allegedly made a statement that he didn’t know the guy (Fluellen) had a gun.” He also commented, “Apparently they were having a pretty good go at it.” Numerous Ridge Home employees saw the fight, and many more saw Fluellen’s body. Draped with a white sheet, lying outside the northeast entrance. Sharon Wallace, a psychiatric technician who worked with Fluellen said he had worked a double shift Monday night and Tuesday morning without complaint. “That’s just the kind of guy he was,” Wallace said. “He was really easy-going, very happy with his job.” Wallace was disturbed that violence had reached her place of employment. “Any more, you’re not even sage in your own home,” she said. “People are getting shot in their front yards, they’re being shot in their back yards, and now, the workplace.”

For years companies had planned new ideas for what to build on Ridge Home. There were plans to make it into housing for troubled teens, but it was finally decided that it would be best to open a new building, and this was the start of Look Out Correction in Golden. They had planned an amusement park, a recreational center, building houses on the land, commercial uses, Red Rocks wanted to use it. Red Rocks does have some of the property but it was on the newer side of Ridge Home. The clean up to remove the asbestos could have kept many of those plans just plans. In 1998 the estimated cost was $5 million to clean the site.

In April of 1999 they kept 22 developmentally disabled sex offenders in the older buildings. They also had a small home for boys in one of the buildings of Ridge Home. When the demolition of Ridge Home was ordered, the home for boys was left scrambling to find a place for the boys to live. They weren’t given much notice and no option to buy and keep the housing on the southwestern side of the original Ridge Home site.

Now today, September 15, 2009, the original buildings of Ridge Home are gone. All the buildings that were South of Ridge Road, were torn down. Sadly, the area where the buildings were, have yet to be used. They build a Super Target and small strip mall down the hill where the giant field was. The tunnels Ridge Home had are reported to still be there.

Rumors of a priest coming to the property before the full demolition have been reported as well, but I am not sure on that as a fact. The Education and Training building was one of my favorites and it was one of the oldest buildings, it was built at the same time as the administration building that was burnt down. It almost made it 100 years. It wasn’t in the best conditions but I almost had it saved with the help of the Colorado Historical Society. However, we were too late to save it. When the man I spoke with from the Historical Society had heard, he tried to stop the demo of the building. He called just as the building had been torn down.

The Greatest Thank You

First, I think I would like to thank my mom for sharing her memories of Ridge Home with me. Many of which have been left out, because they are just her memories of the details of the people and the buildings.

To those of you who do mention my site and have kind words about my work. Strange enough as well, thank you to those of you who bring Ridge Home up to me in email or those who know me, those that bring it up and kind of make me get back on the ball of never ending research of Ridge Home.

I would like to send a special deep heartfelt thank you to the staff and the old Administration of the Wheat Ridge Regional Center. Those who took time to talk with me, share their stories, telling me if they remembered my grandma or not, the emails they send sharing their stories and more than anything, the comments you all send me about this writing, makes me feel as if I have done some justice to Ridge Home. As most of you from WRRC know, there is deep history here, there are amazing memories and the love you have shown these patients, is a selfless one.

Those emails are the best when those who know/knew what it was like at Ridge Home and are able to tell me I have done a good job, it means the world to me. I have done 10+ years of research through news articles, interviews, and records. Let me say it was rather heartwarming to read Obituaries of those who worked at Ridge Home at some point who did mention what they did at Ridge Home. To the “adopted grandmas,” the cooks, the technicians, the volunteers, the many other workers at Ridge, thank you.

Photos of Ridge Home - 109 Photos of Ridge Home

Ridge Home News Paper Collection

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