http://www.unionprintershome.com/

Union Printers Home, 101 S Union Boulevard, Colorado Springs, CO (2026)

03/09/2024

The newly released vision for the revitalization of the historic Union Printers Home in Colorado Springs includes a modern boutique hotel, a plaza with splash pad fountains, and retail spaces. The expansive plan also calls for the renovation of the property's most recognizable building.

02/19/2024

Did you see the article in yesterday's Gazette about the Union Printers Home? We're so grateful to Stephanie Earls, Jerilee Bennett, and Skyler Ballard for this amazing coverage of the Home's past, present, and future!

https://gazette.com/premium/recovering-the-castle-union-printers-home-in-colorado-springs-poised-for-epic-sequel/article_7792d436-ca80-11ee-8a51-a7943ab3fca9.html

02/08/2024

In April of 1909, Union Printers Home superintendent Charles Deacon sent a letter to a Mr. H.B. Wood in Santa Cruz, California. The letter was never picked up by Mr. Wood, so it was returned "Unclaimed" to the Home. Mr. Deacon never removed the letter from its envelope, and filed the unclaimed letter away.

Fast forward 115 years to February of 2024, when we discovered the letter in our collections and opened it for the first time since Mr. Deacon sent it. While the content of the letter isn't particularly novel, the letter - and particularly the unique, colorful letterhead - are in excellent condition because they have been protected from the elements for so many years. The colors preserved here are beautiful, so we wanted to share! The image likely came from a hand-colored photograph and depicts the Home grounds right around the time the letter was sent in 1909.

01/20/2024

Happy International Printing Week!

Here are the answers for the printing in TV and films quiz from Thursday! How many of these have you seen?

01/19/2024

Happy International Printing Week!

As part of many Printing Week celebrations around the country, the Craftsmen's Clubs (or the International Association) would select a "Miss Printing Week," usually a celebrity or performer. This image from a 1957 Inland Printer shows that Chicago's "Miss Printing Week" 1957 was Patricia Scot, a local singer.

Some of the international "Miss Printing Weeks" included actresses such as Virginia Mayo (1949) and Dorothy Malone (1954).

01/18/2024

Happy International Printing Week!

Can you name all these TV show and film characters who are working with printing equipment? Bonus points if you can name the characters, show/film, AND the actors!
(All answers will be revealed on Saturday - stay tuned!)

01/17/2024

Happy International Printing Week!

Today is Benjamin Franklin's birthday - the reason Printing Week is held during this week each year! Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, so he would have been 318 years old today.

Born and raised in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Franklin apprenticed as a printer beginning at the age of 12. At age 17, he left for Philadelphia, where he worked in several printing shops. He was then sent to London by the governor of Pennsylvania under false pretenses, but secured work as a typesetter in a London printshop before returning to Philadelphia in 1726. He remained involved and connected with the printing trade and newspapers throughout most of the rest of his life, and used his connection with the press to further the revolutionary cause.

Because of his importance as an early American printer, a sculpture of Franklin was given to the Union Printers Home in 1914 as a gift from the sculptor, Paul W. Bartlett. Bartlett was a famous Washington, D.C., sculptor who did some work on the reliefs in the US Capitol building. The plaster cast given to the Home was then reproduced as a large bronze statue that was placed in a public park in Waterbury, CT.

01/16/2024

Happy International Printing Week!

International Printing Week was established in 1944 by the International Association of Printing House Craftsmen (IAPHC), a trade association separate from the International Typographical Union but one that celebrated the printing industry just as much! International Printing Week is celebrated each year during the week of Benjamin Franklin's birthday.

The IAPHC was organized in 1919, and several of its local clubs are still in existence today. The Clubs were created to provide a place for printshop craftsmen (especially those who were overseers of printing operations) to find mutual support and education on the various elements of the printing craft. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many new technologies in printing created lots of specialized areas within the trade, so - for the first time in printing history - the people overseeing whole operations may not have necessarily been familiar with all the work being done in their shops.

The IAPHC's emblem is the first printer's mark ever used - that of 15th Century German printers Johannes Fust and Peter Schoeffer. This specific mark is believed to be a combination of Fust and Schoeffer's individual family crests. The emblem is particularly important to us at the Union Printers Home because it shows up in the architectural detailing on the North and South buildings on our property!

01/05/2024

Did you know that Stargazers Theatre (formerly Cinema 150) was actually built on the Union Printers Home property in 1969? The company that built it leased the land from the International Typographical Union for a number of years before purchasing it. This page from the Typographical Journal in early 1970 features the "almost too contemporary to be true" domed building shortly after its opening.

What are your favorite memories of this theatre?

01/03/2024

Happy New Year from the Union Printers Home! Here's a photo from New Year's Eve 1957-'58 at the Printers Home party - we hope you had as wonderful time celebrating the new year as these folks were!
From the photo's caption in the Typographical Journal: "Obviously enjoying themselves in an appropriate manner in greeting the New Year are from left to right: H.G. Dennis, Colorado Springs No. 82, former resident of the Home, who 'just barged in,' Mrs. George Theodore, bookkeeper, Miss Marilynn Johnston, secretary, Resident Carl Johnson, Winnipeg No. 191, and Mrs. L.G. Waddell, medical record librarian."

11/11/2023

After a long hiatus, we're finally back to present our final ! The last superintendent of the Home was Vincent H. Hansen.

Vincent Hansen (1921 - 2000) served as the superintendent of the Home from 1969 - 1982. Following his retirement from the position, the Home transitioned from the superintendent/matron model - which had, to that point, exclusively consisted of superintendents who were printers and members of the ITU themselves - to a more modern hospital and nursing home structure, with professional hospital administrators and activities directors taking over from that point forward. Described as a staunch, aggressive unionist, Hansen served in a variety of union leadership positions throughout his career before becoming the Superintendent of the Printers Home.

Vincent Hansen was born on February 21, 1921, in St. Joseph, Missouri. He apprenticed at the St. Joseph News Press and was initiated into the St. Joseph Typographical Union in 1945 at the age of 24. During his apprenticeship, he took a break to serve in the Marines during World War II, and he also lived in the Union Printers Home as a patient due to an illness for 18 months around that time - making him the only superintendent we are aware of who had actually been a patient at the Home previously. He worked as a printer in Colorado Springs for a time before he returned to St. Joseph, where he met and married Marian Clark in 1947. Marian Clark Hansen was the first wife of a UPH superintendent to have not served as the matron of the Home, as Elva Patterson remained in the position after the death of her husband, Dowell E. Patterson, in 1968.

The Hansens remained in St. Joseph for ten years, where their first two children - Kristin and Clark - were born. In 1957, they moved to Kansas City, MO. Their third child, Larry, was born there around 1960. By 1962, Mr. Hansen was hired to the staff of the Union Label and Public Relations Bureau at the ITU Headquarters, which had just officially relocated from Indianapolis to the Union Printers Home property. Mr. Hansen remained in that role until he was appointed Superintendent of the Home in 1969.

Mr. Hansen's time as Superintendent spanned 13 years during which the International Typographical Union - and therefore the Printers Home - were in decline due to technological advances that made many typographical trade positions obsolete. Hansen's tenure saw the sale of large portions of the Home property, the closing of the South building as it was no longer up to code as a hospital, and significant changes to Union funding and to the city around the Home. By 1982, he decided to retire to spend more time with his family, but remained in Colorado Springs until his death in September 2000 at the age of 79. Upon his death, his family asked for donations to the Union Printers Home in lieu of flowers, showing that Hansen's love for the union and for the Home remained strong through the rest of his life.

11/08/2023

Have you been wondering in great detail about the tuberculosis tents that once stood on the Union Printers Home grounds? Well, look no further!

The first four tents were built in the summer of 1904, and by 1910, the "tent colony" was made up of 20 pavilion tents that stood south of the main Castle building at the Home. These tents were used to facilitate "open-air treatment" of tuberculosis - providing the best opportunities for getting lots of fresh air, Colorado sunshine, and (perhaps most importantly) isolation to prevent the spread of the disease.

The tents at the Union Printers Home were in use until 1932, when they were demolished to make room for newer methods of tuberculosis treatment.

A 1906 letter from Home superintendent Charles Deacon describes the tents in detail. Here is a transcription of the letter:
"Replying to your favor of the 24th, beg to advise that we have found the open air treatment for tuberculosis very beneficial.
Our tents are built on the celebrated Nordrack plan. They are octangular in shape and are twelve feet in diameter. As you are doubtless aware, these tents have an improved system of ventelation [sic] which is very satisfactory. They have a wire netting around the flooring at the edge and a ventilator at the apex of the roof, producing a continuous current of air. The tents are heated with steam and lighted by electricity. They have hardwood floors, stationary clothes-closets, wash stand and drawers and the regulation hospital bed. Each tent has electric bell communication with the nurse’s apartments in the hospital.
We put into the tents such patients as seem to have a chance for recovery and do not use them for those cases whose condition precludes all possibility of recovery. The patients live in the tents regardless of the weather, and while the temperature at times falls below zero, they do not suffer any ill effects. However you will appreciate that the cold here is a dry cold, neither do we have the damp weather that is characteristic of the East. The majority of our tent patients leave us ready for work."

Union Printers Home