6 westword.com WESTWORD NOVEMBER 13-19, 2025 | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | When Flanigan founded the East Denver Golf Club, the Denver mayor’s offi ce was occupied by Benjamin Stapleton, who’d been number 1,128 on the Ku Klux Klan member- ship. Stapleton had fi lled several city posts with Klansmen during his fi rst term as mayor in the 1920s, including the parks manager who oversaw the municipal golf courses. By the end of that decade, the Klan was all but defunct, but discrimination remained. To attract members for the East Denver Golf Club, Flanigan took out an advertise- ment in The Colorado Statesman in May 1945. “The East Denver Golf Club is going great,” he wrote. “It is growing larger by the day. I join the East Denver Golf Club in extending their invitation to you. Remember, young or old, rich or poor, you can learn to play this grand sport of golf.” Flanigan recruited men from his neigh- borhood for the club. They were a collec- tion of railroad porters, dentists, soldiers, fi refi ghters and business owners, men with nicknames like Huck, Coochie and Gip. “They competed at everything,” says Lawren Cary, the son of an East Denver Golf Club member, who still lives in a house neighboring City Park. “They had hunting clubs, ski clubs, bowling clubs. I remember them getting home from the course and staying up all night to play cards. When the sun came up, they walked back across the street to the golf course and went at each other there.” To gain recognition as a bona fi de orga- nization, the East Denver Golf Club wrote to the United States Golf Association asking for guidance, drafted bylaws and set a com- petition schedule. Still, the club had trouble fi nding local competitions it could enter. Flanigan to Five Points, Biffl e from Five Points James C. Flanigan, the backbone of the East Denver Golf Club, was born in either Fort Smith or Ozark, Arkansas, in 1914 or 1915. He was raised in Kansas by his mother, who instilled in him the importance of education. It was a value she learned from her father, a former slave nicknamed “Fess,” short for “professor,” because he could read and write. Flanigan attended junior college and supported his family by working behind the fountain at the American Candy Shoppe at 123 West Myrtle Street in Independence, Kansas. When his wife, Luella, developed tuberculosis, Flanigan fl ipped through an almanac to fi nd a city with a dry climate and a large Black population where he could continue his education. After lingering on Albuquerque, Flanigan scrolled through the B’s and C’s before landing on Denver. Since the late 1800s, Colorado had been a haven for tuberculosis patients, whose lungs responded well to the aridity. While Luella recovered from her illness, Flanigan could continue his education and seek professional opportunities. Denver was a growing city with more than 6,000 Black residents by the late 1930s, most of whom lived in the Five Points neighborhood. To get to Denver, Flanigan said he “ho- boed” on a midnight train from Goodland, Kansas. At least, he hoboed for a while. It was January 1938, and the sleet and snow on the plains proved to be too much. By the time his train got to Limon, a little more than halfway to his destination, he conceded to the weather and purchased a ticket for $1.85 to secure a spot inside a train car for the rest of his journey. Dubbed the “Harlem of the West’’ by Jack Kerouac, Five Points was a city within a city where Black-owned businesses lined the streets. Musical legends, including Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, performed at the Rossonian nightclub on Welton Street. Heavyweight champions Joe Louis and Sonny Liston held court at Bishops Barbershop. In Growing Up Black in Denver, Biffl e said Five Points was “where everybody went, where all the action was and all the social- ization; and if anyone bothered you, you’d report to the bartenders at Benny Hooper’s or ‘Knockout Brown’s,’ and they would take care of the situation.” Social, political and professional clubs emerged, many with overlapping member- ships. The Protective Order of Dining-Car Waiters #465 unionized to fi ght for better conditions for railroad workers. The Cosmo- politan Club was formed to combat racial and religious tensions. The Owl Club was founded to recognize academic achievement by young Black women. (The group would later honor Denver high school student, future Secretary of State and self-described “medium handicap golfer” Condoleezza Rice.) Flanigan arrived at Union Station without knowing a soul in the city and rented a room at the YMCA until Luella could join him in their new hometown. He enrolled at the University of Denver and worked odd jobs as a postal worker and porter on the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. After graduation, he was chosen for a special school at Lowry Air Force Base, a few miles east of Five Points, and later got a job as an associate economist with the War Labor Board. In 1943, Flanigan accompanied a friend who was applying to Westminster Law School. When the pair walked in the registrar’s offi ce, the clerk persuaded Flanigan to submit an application as well. Although his friend later dropped out of the program, Flanigan was accepted. He had found his purpose. At around the same time, Biffl e was es- tablishing himself as a standout on the East High track team. Biffle was all-city and all-state in four events. He also starred as a halfback on the East High football team, leading the Angels to an undefeated record and state championship in 1945. He was the son of Denver’s fi rst Black fi re captain, who worked at station No. 3, the only fi rehouse in Denver where African-Americans could work, and one of the busiest in the city. As a student-athlete, Biffl e faced Jim Crow whenever his team left Denver for meets. “He would tell us about when his teams traveled to tournaments,” says Ed Mate, whom Biffl e later coached on the East High golf team, “and when the hotels would see Jerome Biffl e, they would say, ‘You can’t stay here,’ and the rest of the team would say, ‘Well, if he can’t stay here, we’re not staying here.’” At the University of Denver, Biffl e was called a “one-man track team” because he competed in the 100-meter, 220-meter, long jump, high jump and relay team. In 1950, he was named the top college track athlete in the nation after winning the broad jump in Kansas, Modesto and Fresno track meets. After graduation, Biffl e enlisted in the Army and prepared for possible deploy- ment in the Korean War. “I laid off track altogether after going into the Army,” Biffl e told a reporter in 1951. “Then this spring I thought I’d like to have a go at the Olympics. So I started working out in April, and the fi rst time I jumped I pulled a muscle.” Despite the rust, Biffl e managed to fi nish second in the long jump at the 1952 Olympic qualifi er, which was good enough to earn a spot on the U.S. roster. On a rainy day at the Helsinki Olympic Stadium, wearing a white USA track uniform and bib #1020, Biffl e found himself in second place after his fi rst two attempts, trailing fel- low American Meredith “Flash” Gourdine. On his third attempt of the day, Biffl e leaped 24 feet, 10.3 inches — below his personal best, but nearly two inches ahead of Flash. It was enough to win the gold medal. “It was one of the grandest feelings pos- sible,’’ Biffl e wrote in a letter to his mother, “to stand on the winner’s platform and accept my gold medal beneath the Star-Spangled Banner.” Returning to Colorado, Biffl e was greeted with a hero’s welcome at the airport and awarded the Denver Dollar, an old Mile High iteration of a key to the city. Later that year, Biffl e received the Robert B. Russell Award as the Rocky Mountain Re- gion’s outstanding athlete and was selected to stand alongside his idol and mentor Jesse Owens in the Drake Relays Hall of Fame. Governor Dan Thornton called Biffl e “a great sportsman and a true American.” Growing the East Denver Golf Club However accomplished Flanigan and Biffl e were in their respective fi elds (and tracks), they were not insulated from the omnipresent racism of their hometown. “When we moved to Denver from Mid- land [Texas], I remember being excited about leaving a city in the South that was so segregated. My parents were domestic workers. All the Black folks literally lived on one side of the railroad tracks,” recalls Tom Woodard, a local golfi ng talent who caddied for Flanigan and Biffl e at City Park. “When I got to Denver, though, it was more of the same. There were more professional op- portunities, but it was still a segregated city.” When Flanigan inquired about mem- bership in the CGA for the East Denver Golf Club in the 1940s, his application was rebuffed by CGA executive N.C. “Tub” Mor- ris, a history teacher at West High School. Without legal recourse to challenge the pri- vate organization’s membership standards, the East Denver Golf Club set up matches with other minority groups also ostracized by the CGA, such as the local Japanese club, and joined the Central States Golf Associa- tion (CSGA), a collection of Black clubs from around the Midwest. The CSGA was one of a handful of golf associations, such as the Western States Golf Association and United Golfers Associa- tion, that offered Black golfers a chance to compete against other Black golfers. When the CSGA was founded in 1931, municipal golf in America was segregated, and acces- sibility for Black golfers was subject to the politics of their city or state. There were 700 municipal golf courses in America, but fewer than twenty were open to Blacks. In 1947, the East Denver Golf Club was picked to host the CSGA Championship, an annual gathering of clubs from Des Moines, Kansas City, Omaha and other Midwest cities. The club worked with Mayor Quigg Newton, who’d succeeded Stapleton, to secure Wellshire Golf Course for the event. Newton was more amenable to working with the East Denver Golf Club than the previous administration, and Wellshire was the most prestigious municipal course in Denver, one of the few Donald Ross course designs west of the Mississippi River. The CSGA tourna- ment would serve as a trial run for the PGA Tour’s Denver Open, which was won by Ben Hogan at Wellshire the following year. With Flanigan serving as secretary of the club, the East Denver Golf Club established committees to divide and conquer the re- sponsibilities of running such a big event. A Housing Committee was established to secure safe housing for their guests. The Entertainment Committee, with help from member Leroy Smith, a record store owner, secured Ernie Fields and his Orchestra to play a private show for their guests at the Rainbow Ballroom. A handful of club mem- bers’ wives comprised the Scoring Commit- tee. Benny Collier, a Changing Course continued from page 5 continued on page 8 An election campaign card for Judge James Flanigan. DENVER EAST GOLF CLUB
