The neighborhood of Lowry Field in east Denver is bounded partially by Alameda and 11th Avenues, Quebec and Yosemite Streets, with Arapahoe County to the east. The neighborhood has been home to several historic sites including the 33-acre campus of St. John’s College, which featured Jarvis Hall, a four-story, state-of-the-art boy’s school and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. The school closed after Jarvis Hall burned to the ground in 1901 when a chemistry project exploded. St. Luke’s has been restored and designated as a Denver Landmark.

The National Guard Field, located between East 26th and 28th Avenues at Dahlia Street opened in 1923 and was named Lowry Field for Denver’s first World War I hero, Francis Lowry.

In 1902, Lawrence Cowle Phipps, previous vice president and treasurer of Carnegie Steel Company, purchased 160 acres of land at East 6th Ave. and what is now Quebec Street. Phipps opened the Agnes C. Phipps Memorial Sanatorium, which became one of the nations best centers for lung disease. Later when newer treatments became available, the sanatorium was closed in 1932.

The city purchased the site and used it to lure the U.S. Army Air Corps into opening Lowry Air Force Base on the site in the 1930s. The Lowry National Guard Field had been deactivated, so hangars and equipment were moved to the new Lowry base to help get it started. Lowry Army Air Base opened in 1937 and continued to expand, causing the clerical school to move to Fort Logan in 1941. Lowry Army Air Field became Lowry Air Force Base and was the birthplace of the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1948. Due to neighborhood pressure and overcrowded air traffic, Lowry moved its aviation operations to Buckley Air Base in 1966. Lowry continued as a prominent training facility until its closure in September 1994.

The neighborhood features many popular mid-twentieth-century house styles along with newer housing included in the redevelopment, influenced by New Urbanist concepts, with neo-traditional-styled houses on small lots with abundant community spaces.

Sources: Denver’s Ups and Downs, City and County of Denver. Accessed at http://www.denvergov.org/AboutDenver/history.asp on Oct. 19, 2007. Lowry: Military Base to New Urban Community, Thomas J. Noel and Chuck Woodward. Historic Denver, Inc.