Although the Denver assessor’s website lists the build date for the residence as 1906, the house appears in the 1904 Sanborn Fire Insurance map indicating an earlier construction date. A building permit could not be found but newspaper articles suggest that the building may have been constructed as early as 1896.
In 1890, this property was bought by divorcee Bertha K. Shaw. Bertha lived at the address of 1045 Washington Avenue (now Washington Street) in 1891 according to that year’s city directory. In 1892, her home was totally destroyed by a fire under suspicious circumstances. Because her insurance claim was denied, Bertha hired a financial advisor, Henry Chittenden, to help with litigation against the home insurance company. In 1895, Bertha married Chittenden but their union was short-lived. She filed for divorce in 1897. Court documents from the divorce proceedings revealed that Bertha had several valuable properties in the city including this house at 1045 Washington Street valued at $9,000. This information, along with the address reappearing in newspaper articles in 1896 associated with new tenants, suggests that Bertha had the current home built on her property after fire destroyed the first residence.
