The Hiwan Homestead Museum is a

historic house museum A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that has been transformed into a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a ...

Evergreen, Colorado Evergreen is an unincorporated town, a post office, and a census-designated place (CDP) located in and governed by Jefferson County, Colorado, U.S. The CDP is a part of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. The Everg ...

. It is located at 4208 S. Timbervale Drive in Evergreen.

History

The property was purchased in the late 1880s by Mary Neosho Bailey Williams, widow of General Thomas Williams. The only structure on the property at the time was a hay barn, which Mary and her daughter

Josepha Josepha is a given name. Notable people with the name include: * Josepha Abiertas (1894–1929), Filipino lawyer and feminist, first woman to obtain a degree from the Philippine Law School * Josepha Barbara Auernhammer Josepha Barbara Auernha ...

hired local carpenter John "Jock" Spence to convert into a three-room cabin, finished in 1893. They named the property Camp Neosho, after Mary's middle name. After Mary passed away in 1914, the Douglases contracted Jock Spence to expand the house to a total of seventeen rooms. The expansion was completed in 1918. The house remained in the ownership of the Williams-Douglas family until Josepha's passing in 1938. The house was sold to the Buchanan family, which used the building as the headquarters for Hiwan Ranch, and their descendants who lived in the home until 1973. In 1974, Jefferson County purchased the property, marking the first usage of county Open Space funds in the area. The county commissioners asked the Evergreen Mountain Area Historical Society (then the Jefferson County Historical Society) to supply volunteers to provide tours, exhibits and educational programs for the museum, which opened to the public on August 3, 1975. Heritage Grove, a four-acre parcel adjacent to the property, was purchased separately in 1977.

Jeffco Public Schools Jefferson County School District R-1 (a.k.a. Jefferson County Public Schools or Jeffco Public Schools) is a school district in Jefferson County, Colorado. The district is headquartered at the Jeffco Public Schools Education Center in West Pleasan ...

students visit the museum as part of the fourth grade Colorado history unit, an optional field trip program which began in 1976.

Architecture

The Rocky Mountain rustic style log building utilizes local pine, fir, and granite. Its architectural features are described in its National Register of Historic Places nomination: Other structures built by Jock Spence in the area include the Church of the Transfiguration chapel (c. 1900, moved to its current site in 1961), the

Evans–Elbert Ranch Evans–Elbert Ranch, also called the Elbert-Austin Ranch, was built as a 300-acre family retreat and ranch in Upper Bear Creek near Evergreen in Clear Creek County, Colorado by John Evans, Colorado's second territorial governor. Covering most of ...

residence (1908), the Bell Tower at Church of the Transfiguration (1911), the Anne Evans Mountain Home (1911), Greystone Lodge (1917), and Center Stage (1924, originally the

Evergreen Conference The Evergreen Conference (EvCo), known as the Tri-Normal League from 1920 to 1938 and the Washington Intercollegiate Conference (WINCO) from 1938 to 1947, was an intercollegiate athletic conference composed of member schools located in the states o ...

Meeting House).

References

External links

Hiwan Heritage ParkEvergreen Mountain Area Historical Society
*{{YouTube, WjFK5UaascQ, Hiwan Heritage Park and Museum Virtual Tour Historic house museums in Colorado Houses completed in 1893 Museums in Jefferson County, Colorado National Register of Historic Places in Jefferson County, Colorado Rustic architecture in Colorado