History’s Mysteries -

    The Fort Lupton City Museum, an invaluable archive for research of all things Fort Lupton, is looking for a little help, and a few good memories. A repository of some of the city’s finest treasures, the museum is at a loss to identify some items and is sponsoring History’s Mysteries, a monthly quest for answers on some of the more baffling pieces of the museum’s collection. This month is two photographs and a birth certificate, all discovered together along with several other items.

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Family reunion: Some speculate that this is a gathering of one of the three Penfold families that have lived in the city throughout the years, but a positive identification has never been given for any of those pictured.

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Do you recognize these children? The trio is one of the thousands of unnamed photographs in the possession of the Fort Lupton Museum.

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One of the documents found tucked in the wall in a house on Ninth Street in Fort Lupton, this Height/Weight chart is one of many items the museum would like to identify through History’s Mysteries, the brainchild of museum director DebraRay Thompson.

    The documents were found tucked behind a wall in a house undergoing renovations on Ninth Street. During teardown, a worker discovered the pictures, and brought them to the museum, hoping to discover who some of the people are within the photos, and the history behind them. Noting that the previous owners were of Japanese descent, it’s unlikely that the photographs were of their family, leading perhaps farther back into the history of the house.
    Conjecture on the large, family-style photo is that it may be a possible Penfold family reunion, though currently there is no hard evidence to support that. Adding to the confusion is the commonality of the Penfold surname in the area.
    “There were three Penfold families (in Fort Lupton). Two of those are related,” Thompson explained. “The other, Nancy’s husband Bud’s family, is not necessarily related to these people.”
    A dilemma facing the museum is a lack of documentation on the photos themselves; something Thompson said is a common problem with the older pictures, of which the museum has thousands.
    “We have boxes and boxes and drawers of wonderful photographs, but they are not labeled, so we don’t know, its just a guess. Even if they come from the Twombley estate or any one of the estates, they are lovely but we don’t know who these people are.”
    But whatever you do, make sure to mark your photographs for future family members and historians.
    “Get with your family and start to get your pictures organized and catalog them,” Thompson said.
    “What we are hoping with History’s Mysteries is to get people to realize it’s never too late to sit down with Grandma or Grandpa and go through your pictures,” Thompson said. “Talk to them; find out what is going on, and what happened. Get their stories; get it down on audio or videotape. The photographs are wonderful, but only if they are documented.”
    Contact DebraRay Thompson at 303-857-1634.

Contact Staff Writer Gene Sears at gsears@metrowestnewspapers.com.