My book is a 100 year history of a Denver suburb called Park Hill. The first development began in the 1890s. Before that it was prairie land. For perspective, Park Hill is closer to Denver than where I live about 7 miles further east. We need histories of suburbs because Americans are too quick to bulldoze everything after 50 years and simply loose the information that has gone before.

Park Hill was platted by a german possibly related to the "Red Baron" of WWI. His name was Baron ...von Winckler. He had a very sad life and committed suicide here but left us what became a beautiful suburb with architect-designed homes and tree-lined streets.

Then, in the 1970s, the school busing laws began to be enforced here. That was a complicated process where public school boundaries were redrawn to include lower economic areas so that blacks would be bused into the white schools.

This happened all around the country. "White flight" followed, meaning that white families sold their houses quickly and moved further outside of Denver to avoid busing their kids.

But in Park Hill, a core group of residents and churches decided to embrace the changes. The problems they had and the law suits that followed hopefully will be my next book.

How about that for a summary?

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