Making fountain youthful again
City Park landmark replica takes shape
Jeff Kass, Rocky Mountain News
Published May 8, 2007 at midnight
Larry Kerecman says it doesn't matter where you live, or how much money you make: He's got the perfect pastime.
It's watching a replica of a nearly 100-year-old City Park landmark named the Electric Fountain.
"This is something that puts a smile on everybody's face," said the 59-year-old electrical engineer who lives in the Park Hill area and founded Friends of the Electric Fountain.
The original fountain, whose central geyser spouted 90-feet high, had been sickly for a couple of decades because of lack of funding, Kerecman said. He now hopes to restore the nozzles and lights to their former glory by the fountain's 100th birthday with the help of the city, Denver Water, and donations from the public.
Then-mayor Robert Speer had the fountain completed in May 1908 to beautify the city as it hosted the Democratic National Convention. Now the city will be hosting the 2008 Democratic National Convention in August.
"We're repeating history," said Kerecman.
A new fountain began to take shape as the city renovated the park's Ferril Lake as part of a project to improve storm drainage. It made sense to do something about the fountain, which sits in the middle of the lake.
Kerecman - who appears to be better informed than anyone in the city about the fountain - says various city departments and Denver Water ponied up $1.4 million to install a new fountain, pump house and underwater control vault.
But that is still not enough to fully reconstruct a fountain that once featured elaborate water and light shows with names such as "Old Faithful," "The Beehives," and "Giant Peacock Display."
The central geyser is expected to start up next month, but Friends of the Electric Fountain needs $1 million from individual and corporate donors to fund about 2,000 nozzles along with lights and other components that will make it a showpiece.
Fountain facts
$19,500 Cost to build Ferril Lake fountain at City Park in 1908
$2.4 million is the approximate cost for the new fountain that will mirror fountain's 1908 capabilities
2,500 gallons per minute was the capacity of the 1908 fountain
3,500 gallons per minute is the capacity of the new fountain
• Online: electricfountain. home.att.net/index.html
kassj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2406
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Suggest removal
northstar writes:
I read the article "Illuminating the electric fountain" and was thrilled to find out Mr. Kerecman has made the restoration possible. I am a female, in my sixties, that remembers as a child going to City Park on Sunday evenings with my mother, father, older brother and sisters, to have a picnic dinner and anxiously wait until it was time to listen to the band and watch the sprays from the fountain keep in rhythm to the music. We didn't have alot of money so every once in awhile we were treated to the boat ride and an ice cream cone before the entertainment started. It was a perfect way to spend a summer Sunday.