The Denver Tramway Strike was a colorful and traumatic event that took place in August of 1920.

The Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees of America was formed in Denver in 1918. Things went smooth until the company announced that a raise of 10 cents an hour which would bring a motorman's salary to 58 cents an hour would be dropped back to 48 cents an hour because the company was in bad financial straits. The workers at that time demanded 75 cents an hour.

Weeks of futile negotiations took place and the union called a strike to start on that August 1st of 1920. An injunction to stop it was issued prior to that time by Judge Greeley W. Whitehead but they went on strike anyway. Public sentiment was against the strike.

The Denver Tramway Co. hired a professional strikebreaker named John C. "Black Jack" Jerome. Black Jack Jerome had earlier been successful in breaking a strike in San Francisco.

An editorial in the Rocky Mountain News on August 3, 1920 said, "The demands of the men are liberally considered unreasonable. Seventy-five cents an hour for the work required by trainmen seems beyond good sense. The men so employed do not have to serve an apprenticeship; usually a couple of weeks' instruction is sufficient. The work is not tiring. The men can work all the year round if they so desire."

Streetcars didn't run on August 1st or 2nd and by August 2nd more than 500 buses were operating without licenses to carry passengers and the papers reported "bicycles are more numerous than they have been since the height of the cycle craze."

Black Jack Jerome brought a strikebreaking car out of the Central barns at 3:00 p.m. on August 3rd. Suggestions of lead pipes and brickbats to be used against strikebreakers were used as the first car prepared to come out. Mayor Dewey C. Bailey urged that the cars be used at any cost. He promised "all possible protection and assistance of the Tramway Co. as long as it is making an honest effort to serve the people." Thirty-five special officers were situated around the city to protect the tramway property. Every car that went out was to be protected throughout the journey.

As the first streetcar came out of the Central barns and into the downtown district, Chief of Police Hamilton Armstrong lead in a car with Frank M. Downer, manager of safety. Other police cars followed as the streetcar made a round trip from downtown to East 11th Avenue and Humboldt Street.

On August 5th four streetcars were overturned and windows were smashed on East Colfax Ave. and Logan Street. Bricks were thrown, injuring bystanders. The strikebreakers who were manning the streetcars ran into the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and priests barred the doors.

On East 40th Avenue and Williams Street, near the East Side barns two cars were wrecked and set on fire. At the South barns on Broadway and Dakota Avenue shots were fired from within and two people in the crowd outside were killed.

Then a mob of angry persons who objected to editorials published in support of the Tramway Co. marched into the Denver Post plant. They destroyed desks, demolished the offices of the publishers, Harry Tammen and Frederick Bonfils, smashed machinery and tried to damage the presses.

A further mob marched on the Tramway Building at the Central barns and hurled bricks through the windows. One shot fired hit a strikebreaker in the leg and the chief of police was hit in the head by a rock.

By the time the rioting finally came to a halt two people were killed, 33 people were injured and eight tramcars were wrecked.

Three hundred members of the Trades and Labor Assembly marched into the Mayor's office demanding that he withdraw police protection from the strikebreakers but he refused.

On August 7th at 1:20 a.m. in the morning infantry troops were brought to Denver in trucks from Fort Logan. Military law governed at the police station, fire department and the city offices. Another 500 troops were sent from Camp Funston, Kansas. Six people had been killed by that time.

By August 10th, 614 strikebreakers operated the 107 streetcars and the company announced that all former employees who did not reapply for their jobs by August 12th would lose seniority.

In spite of the strike Union-management negotiations dragged on for weeks. The city gradually returned to normal and military rule ended on September 9th. The strike ended on November 4 of 1920 and the strikers voted nearly unanimously to return to work.

Hundreds of workers came to the Tramway Building asking to get their old jobs back, but the company said they would be rehired on the basis of past job performance and ability. Seniority was not renewed and the employees hired during the strike would be kept on the job.

"We have lost the strike," union President Harold Silberg said. "We could see no hope of gaining our demands. The company won and we lost."

The trolley strike of 1920 was a traumatic incident in history. It would live forever in the memories of men on both sides of the conflict.