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This keeps coming up and so I want to address it in its own post so that there isn't any confusion. The Burnham and Wayne houses were torn down by the landlord in early 1912. They aren't there any more. The address didn't change. They are gone and have been for over 100 years. The people who keep getting bothered by others coming by DO NOT live in the Burnham home. There isn't any confusion on this. The houses are GONE. Leave whomever lives in the house in Colorado Springs alone. The only people who are confused by this whole thing are people who refuse to believe history or listen to me. The picture on the right is the Google Street view of the corner in question. As I noted in the screen grab, the house pictured is not the Burnham house. The entire neighborhood is over 100 years old. All of the houses surrounding this corner were standing in 1911. The old grocery store is there. The house Mrs. Brown lived in is still there. The Evans' house is still there. But the house Arthur Burnham rented and the house that Henry Wayne rented are not there any more. However, the empty space they occupied is still there. If the owners of the house with the arrow over it believe there was an axe murder in their house, it's because they have been convinced there was by people who think they know better. There wasn't.
The screen grab at the left is the 3D view of the same corner. The red boxes represent approximately where the Burnhams and Waynes were living at the time of the murders. The Burnham cottage faced Dale Street. The Wayne cottage faced Harrison Place. There was a bit more room between them. Now I know, "But Inspector, how do you know this?" Because it's documented. The Denver Library has a huge collection of historic maps of Colorado, including the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. What are those? From the Library of Congress
"The Sanborn map collection consists of a uniform series of large-scale maps, dating from 1867 to the present and depicting the commercial, industrial, and residential sections of some twelve thousand cities and towns in the United States." These maps are huge. The Denver Library has a special Map Room which is the only place you are allowed to view the maps. You have to wear linen gloves and the only way to make a copy is with a camera without a flash. You also aren't allowed to touch the table the maps are set on lest the oil from your skin transfer to the table top. The Sanborn maps were updated every year.
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| Special Thanks to Me |
The picture on the right is my photograph, tightly cropped, of the 1912 Sanborn map of Colorado Springs. This is the corner in question. Dale Street is on the top and Harrison Place is down the right. You can see the house number listed along Dale Street for the Burnham House...and no building corresponding with the number 321. If you look really close though, you can see the faint outline of the Burnham cottage through the paper overlay. The Wayne cottage faced Harrison Place along the bottom of the square. Hopefully this post puts the issue to rest.
Once more, though, for the record, the Burnham and Wayne cottages were torn down 107 years ago. If you want to visit something, visit their graves at the Evergreen Cemetery and leave the folks in 323 alone.
4 comments:
I think it’s possible people are confused because judging by the 323 and 325, which are long houses, people assume the vacant space was only enough room for one house. I suspect that’s where the confusion lies and that people don’t understand the size of the two murder houses and that they both fit on what looks to be one lot.
I get the reason for confusion. However, I have posted before this article that the houses WERE NOT THERE. It doesn't help that a certain book was published that indicated the houses were still standing. It's why I try to avoid publishing addresses, I don't want someone running up to a house yelling "but Internet-Axe-Murder-Don-Knotts says you live in a murder house!"
I read an old article recently that contained a letter from the Chief of Police in Colorado Springs to the Chief of Police in Ellsworth, I believe, where he talked about the killer laying in wait in a nearby house and throwing the axe under the porch of said house. Is this accurate? And also, do you know what house he was talking about?
Lee...It's hard to say if it was accurate. The newspaper in Colorado Springs was pretty clear that the murder weapon was an axe that had been borrowed from a neighbor that lived in one of the houses behind the Wayne's house. But, a private investigator (shocking) for reasons I do not know, had decided to investigate a long vacant house that was next door to those neighbors. This detective claimed there were fingerprints and footprints visible in the dust on the floor and table of the house. No blood or bloody clothing though. There was an axe found under the porch of this house but no mention was made, to my knowledge, as to why it was a better candidate for the murder weapon. The axe found at the back door of the Wayne's house was definitely covered in blood when it was retrieved by the neighbor the morning the murders were discovered...she returned the axe after the murders had been discovered though. But she had cleaned it up so any usable evidence at that time was gone. Where did you find this article?
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