Historic Preservation Commission Agenda and Packet 2023 04 17

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The eldest LaSalle son, Toney, gained recognition as a baseball player for regional teams. Tragically, some of his local friends and supporters were on the Interurban train going from Boulder to Denver to watch him play in the championship baseball game of the Denver Post's annual tournament in Denver when the train's cars crashed head-on with another train in Globeville (just north of Denver) on Labor Day in 1920. Seven Louisville residents were killed and about 40 other Louisvlle residents or their close relatives suffered injuries. More information about this accident is in the Summer 2020 issue of the Louisville Historian that marked the 100th anniversary of the collision: 637323404353930000 (louisvilleco.gov) . The Denver Post (09-07-1920) reported that Toney's brother, Louis, and his father, Michael, were both on the train and suffered injuries in the accident. Louisville directories and the 1930 and 1940 censuses show that after Rose's death in 1928, Michael continued to live in the house. At the time of the 1930 census, his sons John and Victor lived with him. Michael was listed as the owner of the house and his occupation was that of being a janitor for Red Men's Hall in Louisville (a community building owned by a fraternal organization). John was a miner and Victor worked as a driver for a grocery store. Meanwhile, Rose and Michael's daughter, Adeline (1903-1986) had married Luigi Antonio "Tony" DeSantis (1898-1936) and they started a family. Adeline is closely associated with 1045 Front. Tony DeSantis is remembered as being one of the eight miners who were killed in the Monarch Mine Explosion of 1936. The Monarch Mine was located south of Louisville and was the place of work for many local men. William M. Cohen wrote a narrative about the Monarch Mine Explosion for the Louisville Historical Museum. The resulting 2006 report, entitled "Blast: The 1936 Monarch Mine Explosion" can be found on the Historical Museum's website here: Microsoft Word - Blast Revised 092606.doc (louisvilleco.gov) . The following excerpt from pages 43- 47 describes this family and the impact of Tony DeSantis's death. (See the full narrative to view footnotes and sources.) Cohen interviewed siblings Louis DeSantis and Doris DeSantis Winslow about their memories and family stories. Luigi Antonio De Santis was a young boy about 14 years old attending school in Italy when his older brother Val summoned him to Colorado and immediately started "Tony" on his career as a coal miner. At first, Tony worked outside jobs at the mines, like sorting coal, until he was old enough to work inside the mines. He spent the rest of his life as a coal miner. Tony De Santis was born on July 4, 1898, in Consano, Italy, about 90 miles east of Rome. He had completed about 8 years of schooling in Italy before emigrating to the U.S. around 1912. Tony was boarding with a neighbor of the La Salle family in Louisville when 4