Denver Woman’s Press Club

The Denver Woman’s Press Club (DWPC) clubhouse, known as the Burr House, was built in 1910 in the architectural style of a 20th Century English Craftsman cottage by famous American etching artist, George Elbert Burr (1859-1939). Burr built this house as a combination art studio, salon and home. He designed much of the house working with architectural firm Varian and Varian. He lived here with his wife Elizabeth until he sold it to the Denver Woman’s Press Club in 1924. The Burrs left 12 of the artist’s etchings to the club which are often on display alongside the interior features. In a 1930 letter to DWPC members, Mrs. Burr described these features: “…the brass globes in the dining room made from Benares bowls. The Japanese candle lantern in the hall, and outside, under the hood of the door, the shade which Craftwood made for us…The hood of the front door is from a sketch Mr. Burr made when we were walking one day…on Lake Geneva.”

The house also boasts the original dumbwaiter that carries food from the tiny 1st floor kitchen to the larger kitchen in the basement, brass fixtures, the original wood banisters, bookcase, and original skylight, the A.B. Chase piano purchased by DWPC in 1935, and a large portrait of Mary Elitch Long hanging on the north west wall.

The tiny 2nd floor space which once served as the Burrs’ bedrooms, now house the archives of the DWPC. Photos of presidents and various documents line the wall.

The Denver Woman’s Press Club was founded in 1898 by nineteen charter members, including organizer and first president Minnie J. Reynolds. Reynolds was an influential suffrage leader, serving as “Press Secretary” in the victorious 1893 Colorado campaign, and later as a national suffrage organizer. She was one of the first female political writers for the Rocky Mountain News, and an early stump speaker and activist in the Populist Party. The building is a unique example of the era and a real survivor! The DWPC is the only woman’s press club in America to own their own building. The clubhouse was purchased for $9,000 and paid off in full after four years.

The club’s membership, throughout its history, has included numerous women leaders. Among them:
– Mary Elizabeth Bates, one father first women doctors in Denver
– Mary Florence Lathrop, one of Denver’s first woman lawyer
– Helen Ring Robinson, Colorado’s first woman state senator
– Helen Marie Black, first woman business manager of a major symphony orchestra (she was instrumental in the founding of the Denver Symphony)
– Mary Coyle Chase, Pulitzer Prize wining author of the play “Harvey”
– Dottie Lamm, journalist, activist, former First Lady of Colorado, and member of the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame
– Sandra Dallas, renowned author and member, Colorado Authors Hall of Fame

The house contains not only the history of famous 20th Century George Elbert Burr, whose works appear in galleries and museums across the U.S., including the Denver Art Museum, but the history of the Denver Woman’s Press Club, an important and ground-cutting Denver institution since 1898.