Sports
What do these photos tell you about the different sports and recreation activities that people living in the city would engage in?
Ignacio Indian School Softball Team
This is the girls' baseball team at the Southern Ute Indian School at Ignacio. The photo was taken about 1915.
Photo: Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
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Girls as well as boys played school sports by the early 1900s. The girls in this photo wore bloomers and a sleeveless top as uniforms. Sports clothes like these would in time influence the styles of women's everyday clothing.
Children Skiing At Steamboat
These young people from Steamboat Springs are preparing for a ski race.
Photo: Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
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Since the 1860s, miners had used skis to get around in the mountains. They called them Norwegian snowshoes. By the early 1900s, young people as well as adults were taking up skiing as a sport. At that time Steamboat Springs was the center of recreational skiing in Colorado.
Girl's Basketball Team
This photograph shows a girl's high school basketball team.
Photo: Denver Public Library, Western History Collection
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Basketball was a new sport in the early 1900s. It was played by girls as well as boys. The young women in this photo were the girls basketball team for Manual Technical High School in Denver.
Their Own Words
“Well, we didn’t do too much. The high school over here was just three little rooms. We didn’t have dances like they have now, [but] we did play basketball, the girls did, and I was on the basketball team; I was a guard.”
Source: Margaret Tagert Jones quoted in Julie Jones-Eddy, ed., Homesteading Women: An Oral History of Colorado, 1890-1950 (New York: Twayne, 1992): 113.
High School Football Team- 1919
In the early 1900s, football also was a new sport. This photo shows the football team for Pueblo Centennial High School in 1919.
Photo: Colorado Historical Society
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The uniforms worn by football players in the early 1900s had very little padding. These boys are wearing light padding under their sweatshirts, leather helmets, and pants with padded knees.
Their Own Words
"Our opponents in football were Aspen and Salida. We played two games each season with each team, giving us a total of four contests and this was plenty inasmuch as the football season in high altitudes was short. High school dances followed the home games in Leadville."
Source: Ivan C. Crawford, "School Days in Leadville," Colorado Magazine, 26 (July 1959): 226.
Denver Bears Baseball Team- 1906
This was the Denver Bears professional baseball team. The photo was taken in 1906.
Photo: Colorado Historical Society
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Baseball was America's most popular sport in the early 1900s. It was called "the great American pastime." Many cities in Colorado had amateur baseball teams that played against one another. The Denver Bears were Colorado's first professional baseball team.
Broadway Baseball Park- 1901
This is a photo of Broadway Park in Denver. It was one of Denver's early sport parks.
Photo: Colorado Historical Society
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The people of Denver attended many outdoor events at Broadway Park. They went there for baseball games and to attend the opening ceremony of the Festival of Mountain and Plain. It was located at Broadway and 7th Avenue, close to the uptown residential areas of the city. This large park seated 15,000 people.
