Molly Brown House Museum
1330 Pennsylvania St. | 13th Avenue & Pennsylvania Street | Capitol Hill Neighborhood
The house once owned by the 19th century socialite, philanthropist and activist Margaret “Molly” Brown, of Titanic fame, had started to decline by the 1920s. Once a lavish mansion owned by mining tycoon J.J. Brown and his wife, the house was being used as a boarding house by 1926. The house was sold after Margaret’s death in 1932 and became a settlement house in the style of Chicago’s Hull House which was founded by activist Jane Addams.
The settlement house movement began in the 1880s. Residents of settlement houses lived communally and tried to address problems of urban poverty. By 1900, there were over 100 settlement houses across the United States. Jane Addams was a woman-loving-woman; there were many lesbians involved in the settlement house movement. It is believed that the former Brown house may have been a “homosocial” environment where same-sex relationships occurred. After the settlement house disbanded, the house served as rooming house for single men. As many historic Denver buildings were lost in the 1960s and 70s, the Brown mansion was considered for demolition. Before it could be torn down, the Brown mansion was donated to a new nonprofit organization, Historic Denver, and was transformed into a museum.
The Capitol Hill neighborhood that surrounded the Molly Brown House continued to develop a reputation as a center of gay life.
In 1977, a young gender non-conforming person came to Denver under the name Irene DeSoto. Irene lived across the street from the Molly Brown House. At age 30, Irene was involved in survival sex work and was arrested by an undercover police officer. The officer said that Irene pulled a pair of scissors out of her bag and tried to stab him before she escaped. She ran down the alley between Pearl and Pennsylvania where she was shot and killed by the officer. In response, activists formed the Transsexual, Gay, and Lesbian Defense Coalition to protest the killing of DeSoto and other trans women at the time. Over 300 protesters attended the protest march.