Page 35 - Lariat Loop

Bear Creek Canyon (Hwy 74) Villages
Joyland to Starbuck to Idledale 80453
After the rst homestead was recorded at “Joyland” in 1866, within 20 years it was a popular place for Sunday school picnics from Morrison resorts. Grocery stores, taverns and dance halls sprang up along Bear Creek. By 1900, it became
know as “Ida’s Dale.
Legend says John Starbuck won Joyland in an East Coast poker game in 1906. He platted 25x100 feet summer cabin lots
for “Starbuck” subdivisions and boarded horses and sheep. He bred miniature “leopard skinned” horses to sell to the circus. Starbuck donated a 10-acre, apple-tree park to Denver Mountain Parks in 1914 and sold 65 acres to the Denver Motor Club for its “country home.” This sparked expansion of businesses along the creek.
Denver preserved 400-acre Little Park in 1917. Locals built a school in 1921. There were carnivals, rodeos, and ve dance halls during the 1920s. Joyland was a haven for moonshiners during Prohibition. Floods and re brought Je erson County to
Idledale 1925
build the Grapevine Road from Idledale north to Highway 40 in Mount Vernon Canyon after a devastating ood in 1938. Residents changed the name of their town to Idledale and the Civilian Conservation Corps built the Highway above Bear Creek.
The 1940s brought new residents seeking a ordable housing away from the city. Many commuted to employment at the Federal Center in Lakewood. Neighbors shared square dancing, box socials, bingo and poker games. Children enjoyed Easter egg hunts, ice skating, horseback riding, baseball, Anny-I-Over, and birthday parties.
Lariat Loop Scenic & Historic Byway 31