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The large building on 9th Street used to be a pickle factory, representing the overlap between Auraria’s industrial and residential worlds, where children played freely among factories and alleyways. It features memories from Frances Torres and Gloria Gallegos of growing up in the Westside’s mixed environment of homes, businesses, and open space.
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Rachel Gross: As you face the long brick building on the right side of the plaza, you’ll see a small sign above the stairs that says “Arts” and “1150 10th Street.”
Imagine opening a jar of pickles and breathing in the sharp, tangy scent of vinegar and dill.
This was the signature aroma of the Perkins-Epeneter pickle factory, located at the approximate spot where you are standing.
The Perkins-Epeneter factory brined millions of cucumbers in large vats of salt-water each year in order to make jars of dill pickles, sweet relish, and sauerkraut. The scent of dill and vinegar mingled with the smells coming from the other businesses and factories: Rubber tires. Cans of paint. Fermenting beer. Fried potato chips. All of this came together in what Sheila Perez-Kindle remembers as “the smell of business.”
This mixed landscape of homes and businesses, warehouses and lots, streets and alleyways, became one big playground for the neighborhood kids. Some remember lining up for free daily pickles at the factory, while others claim they engaged in a bit of mischief, swiping a salty snack from the factory when nobody was looking.
After the pickle factory shut down in the 1960s, some kids would climb the fence to slide down the factory’s chutes or play hide and seek in the empty vats.
Frances Torres remembers a feeling of freedom while playing:
Frances Torres: We played a lot of kickball, a lot of softball…we did a lot of alley playing. I mean, we just did. We just walked through the alleys and we walked through people’s yards and people walked through our yards and I guess you just have to understand and nobody really thought anything bad about it.
Rachel Gross: Children roamed throughout the Westside, by bike and on foot, throwing footballs, playing kick-the-can, or even climbing inside abandoned tires and rolling each other down the sidewalk.
Freedom and autonomy came with growing up in Denver’s Westside. This freedom was only possible because of the watchful eyes of neighbors.
Gloria Gallegos remembers her busy single mother telling her to go out and find her younger brother:
Gloria Gallegos: And at the end of the day, my mom would be like, where’s the baby or where’s baby? And we had to be young, like two or three years old. Oh, she’d say, well, go, go ask the neighbors. Go look for him. There was no concern, you know, as far as him being lost or it was just he’s, he’s with some of - one of the neighbors. So we would, we’d go knock on the doors and say, is baby here?….I guess she didn’t have a real concern. She thought, well, you know, he’s in one of these playing with someone.
Rachel Gross: While this hands-off approach to childhood may seem jarring today, it reflects the tight-knit nature of the Westside community. The neighborhood’s blend of industrial and residential life created a space where children could roam freely, their laughter and games mingling with the sounds and smells of factories and businesses.
To continue our story, keep walking in the same direction until you get to the steps of the large blue and yellow church named St. Cajetan’s, which was the cultural center of the Auraria community.