4709 Race Street was built in 1911 by Charles and Louise Heartz. That same year, the couple was also issued a building permit for the one-story brick shop located behind the house. Charles worked as a butcher before becoming an auto mechanic and the treasurer for the Boston-Ford Starter Company, a manufacturer of crank starters for Ford cars. Louise died in 1914, leaving Charles a widower with three young children. In 1918, Charles was one of 8,000 Coloradans who died in the influenza epidemic.
The property housed renters from 1918 to 1926, at which point it was sold to the Neighborhood House Association. From 1926 to about 1933, it served as the Elyria Day Nursery.
James K. and Bertha J. White purchased the home in 1934 and moved in a year later. In 1920, James and his father, Josiah, opened a neighborhood grocery store, J. White & Son. It was originally located at 2100 East 47th Street, then at 1926 East 47th Street, both just blocks away from the Race Street residence.
In 1936, the home was purchased by Danish immigrants Niels Peter and Christina Nielson. They lived here for thirty years, operating Sunset Dairy out of the building behind the house. The Nielsons also took on boarders, including an oil refinery pumper, a tailor, a railroad foreman, a maid at the Brown Palace Hotel and numerous stockyard workers.
