After decades of activism, the Stapleton neighborhood is set to finally get rid of its name. Ben Stapleton, a Denver mayor who served a total of two decades in the '20s, '30s, and '40s, was, at one time while mayor, a card-carrying member of the KKK.

Mayor Ben Stapleton installed Klan members to his cabinet, including appointing a KKK member as his police chief. Mayor Stapleton was also, at one point, close to the KKK Colorado chapter's Grand Dragon.

While Stapleton wasn't public about his KKK affiliation when first running for office in the early 1920s, during his first years as mayor, it became readily apparent that he was on the side of the KKK.

Opponents of Mayor Stapleton pushed for a recall in 1924. At a rally before the recall election, Ben Stapleton addressed members of the KKK.

"I have little to say, except that I will work with the Klan and for the Klan in the coming election, heart and soul. And if I am re-elected, I shall give the Klan the kind of administration it wants," Mayor Stapleton told the Klan rally.

Stapleton won the recall election easily. When they heard the results, Klansmen who had gathered on South Table Mountain celebrated by burning crosses that were visible in Denver.

In the mid-1920s, the Klan peaked in power in Colorado. The governor, the Denver mayor, many judges, state legislators, and other elected officials were Klan members.

But in April 1925, Mayor Stapleton turned on the Klan. And in 1927, Stapleton won his re-election without an endorsement from the Klan. He continued serving until 1931 and then again from 1935 to 1947.

Mayor Stapleton was the head of Denver while some major projects were being started, like the Red Rocks Amphitheatre and the first airport.

In 1944, city officials decided to name the newish airport after the mayor, coining it Stapleton Airfield.

Stapleton continued as mayor until he lost to Quigg Newton in 1947. Stapleton died in 1950. But his name stayed as part of the airport. The city of Denver kept it on in 1964 when it added 'international' to the airport's name. It became Stapleton International Airport.

"I suspect that it was, in part, a reaction to the civil-rights movement that was occurring at that time, during the mid-1960s," says William Wei, the Colorado state historian. "They came up with this way of honoring him and were implicitly opposing the efforts of civil rights."

Advocates began pushing for a name change in the late 1960s & early 1970s. And then, in the 1990s, as the city of Denver was set to pivot from Stapleton International Airport to a bigger and better Denver International Airport, the name could've gone away.

But, as the city, community, and a developer came up with a plan to redevelop the land that was the site of the Stapleton International Airport into a neighborhood, those behind the project simply left the name Stapleton in place. The new neighborhood would be called Stapleton.

Wellington Webb, who was the mayor at the time, characterizes transitioning the name of the airport to the name of the neighborhood as the path of least resistance at the time.

But advocates say that their activist predecessors had let the city know that they wanted the name changed. Either way, the Stapleton name stuck and when residents started moving in in the early-2000s, they were living in the Stapleton neighborhood.

Around that same time, the Master Community Association of Stapleton created a mechanism in the neighborhood bylaws that allowed for a possible name change in the future.

10 years passed and the neighborhood swelled in size. In 2015, Black Lives Matter 5280 members flew a banner that read #ChangeTheNameStapleton from the East 29th Avenue Town Center sign in Stapleton. They also distributed fliers pushing for a change around the neighborhood.

And then Charlottesville happened in 2017 and the group Rename St*pleton for all formed. They continued pushing for the name change. The name disappeared from some signage and organizations began to drop the name from their title.

In August 2019, the Master Community Association held a referendum of property owners about the name change. 65 percent voted to keep it, while 35 percent voted for the change. Things seemed settled, at least for the foreseeable future.

But then the George Floyd protests started sweeping across Denver and Colorado. A police reform bill at the state level that was nearly unimaginable in scope before the protests began passed in strong bipartisan fashion. Denver Public Schools and DPD are cutting ties.

Big things have been happening. Behind the scenes, some delegates of the Master Community Association were starting to push for a name change vote. And their efforts received an injection of momentum when Tay Anderson tweeted an ultimatum: change the name or we'll march.

Anderson, the 21 year-old Denver school board director, was one of the individuals behind DPS cutting ties with DPD. A day after that tweet, the Master Community Association posted on Facebook to let people know that it was voting to get rid of the Stapleton name.

'Stapleton' will soon be a thing of the past for that neighborhood. Mayor Hancock supports the move. As does former mayor Webb. And Chris Herndon, the councilman who represents Stapleton and had previously said he didn't think the name needed to be changed, now supports it.

After the name is gone, the next step will be coming up with a new name. Some suggestions I've heard: Landri, Westbrook, Justina.

Former mayor Webb wants to name the neighborhood in honor of Landri Taylor, a well-known Denver public servant who passed away in February. Taylor was CEO of the Stapleton Foundation in late 2017, when that organization decided to drop Stapleton from its name.

Westbrook would honor Joseph H.P. Westbrook, a medical doctor and light-skinned black man who infiltrated the KKK at its height in Colorado.

And Justina would pay homage to Justina Ford, the first female African-American doctor in Denver.

"Changing the name is a way of empowering those who oppose what Stapleton stood for and what the KKK stood for," says state historian William Wei. "I think that’s a very positive thing."

Anyway, thanks for reading this thread. I'll be doing more research on the KKK in Colorado in the 1920s and Mayor Ben Stapleton today and tomorrow. Here's an article all about that history and how it got us to where we are today: https://www.westword.com/news/stapleton-neighborhood-will-vote-on-new-name-11725869