The home of Colorado’s first Black appellate judge is part of a historic landmark
February 2, 2022
Hart Van Denburg/CPR News Judge Raymond Jones, right, and his son Raymond II, walk around the house once owned by the family at 780 Steele Street in Denver. Jones was the first Black Appellate Court Judge in Colorado, and Historic Denver is trying to get the home declared a historic landmark.
The steps leading up to the front porch at 780 Steele Street in Denver’s Congress Park neighborhood are an intricate maze of geometric shapes: blocks and wedges, twisting and rising from the street up to the front porch.
Pretty to look at, but torturous to shovel.
“The bane of my existence,” Raymond Jones II said.
But eventually, winter’s agony melted into summer and the property bloomed into a field of dreams for the athletic-minded kid.
“The yard was a huge piece of the house for me,” Jones said. He spent many hours practicing baseball and soccer on the expansive lawn, and “literally throwing the ball to yourself and running forever to catch it, or practicing soccer kicks because the yard was so large.”
Creating memories like that are what Jones’ father, also named Raymond Jones, envisioned when he bought the property in 1977.
Last December, the Denver City Council voted unanimously to designate the 600 and 700 blocks of Steele Street a historical landmark. When residents of the neighborhood began that campaign two years earlier, with the help of Historic Denver, a non-profit urban historic preservation organization, they chose the elder Jones — a gentle, unassuming man who was the first Black appellate judge in Colorado — as its focal point.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR NewsJudge Raymond Jones on the front porch of his former home at 780 Steele Street in Denver.
The historic landmark designation to the two blocks on Steele Street encompasses 19 homes. While the stretch also became known as an enclave for Jewish residents and provided shelter for some of the city’s noteworthy families, “it was the story of Judge Raymond Jones, and the community that grew up around these blocks, that got us interested” in pursuing the designation, said Annie Levinsky, executive director for Historic Denver.
