Eleanor Caulkins grew up in Orange, New Jersey. When she was 24 years old, during a flight to a ski vacation in Europe, she met George Caulkins, and two weeks later, they got married. She moved with him to Denver, Colorado, where his oil company and business were. Four years later, Caulkins, who already had four children, decided to complete her studies and enrolled in the University of Colorado. She always had an interest in Opera, so she took a course titled Opera as Literature. It changed her life. She became involved with the art, helping with the auditions for the Rocky Mountain region for the Met and with the Met itself. In 1980, alongside her professor from college, she founded the Friends of Opera, a volunteer group that worked to bring Opera performances to Denver. Two years later, while she worked as a development director at Graland Country Day School, she was reached out by a director from the Met who offered her to establish the Opera Colorado. From that day on, Caulkins’s name became a synonym to Denver’s Opera, bringing performances to the city and promoting the art. She chaired the board of directors’ multiple terms, served on the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Opera Association in NYC, chaired the Metropolitan Opera’s National Patron Program, as well as president of Metropolitan Opera’s National Council. In 2004, her husband and children secretly donated $7 million to name the new Denver’s Opera house in her honor. Opened in 2005, The Ellie Caulkins Opera House is the second-largest performing arts center in the world. Read more...

Mary Elitch Long was born in Philadelphia and grew up in California. At 16 she fell in love with John Elitch Jr. – an older actor whom she met in a church. Despite her parents’ disapproval, the couple ran away to get married and settled north of Denver, where they bought an apple orchard. Elitch had a vision of turning the place into a cultural community resort, combining nature – a zoo and botanical gardens, and the arts – theater and live music. Her husband and partner in the enterprise died a year after the opening, and at the age of 34, she remained to manage the gardens on her own, at times partnering with investors. She was both a pioneer businesswoman, and a community activist, a member of various Denver clubs, such as Woman’s Press Club, Colorado Branch League of American Pen Women, and Camp Fire Girls of Denver. Elitch initiated weekly free-entry days for kids and the elder and hosted Native American arts and crafts classes. In Denver Elitch was famous and known as “Lady of the Gardens”, and later called “First Lady of Fun.” The Elitch Gardens became popular with an innovative program for its community: outdoor symphony concerts, showing first animated pictures, the country’s first summer stock company, hosting star actresses such as Ginger Rogers and French Sarah Bernhardt. When eventually selling the business, the conditions of the deal included that she will stay living on the grounds, plus a monthly stipend and boxes in the theater.   Read more...