History of the Boulder County Sheriff

This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Well over one hundred people crowded into the Left Hand Grange Hall in Niwot last Wednesday evening for the latest lecture in their annual series. Entitled Bootleggers, Jail Breaks, Bank Robberies and Heroes, it covered the 157 years of the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO).

It was presented by Dr. Bill McCaa, who is a retired BCSO Captain, and Phil West, who retired from the BCSO as a Division Chief. In the audience were the current Sheriff, Joe Pelle, and his predecessor George Epp, who was term-limited and retired in 2003.

The first of Boulder County’s 27 Sheriffs was William A. Corson, elected for a two year term in 1861, and neither he nor the next four were elected for a second term, probably as the position was in a state of flux, as was the area population. Like many of his successors, Corson was a miner, and then he progressed to ranching in the Colorado Springs area.

Corson’s replacement, David H. Nichols, did not have such a peaceful career, as he took a leave of absence from his Boulder County duties to join the Third Colorado Cavalry. His Company was called upon by the Governor of the Colorado Territory to suppress Native American uprisings, including the infamous Sand Creek Massacre in 1864. This did not preclude him from furthering his political career, both at the state and local level.

Another stain on the County’s law enforcement record was the lynching of the innocent William Tull in Boulder in 1867 during the tenure of Sheriff Henry Green. The last Colorado lynching was in 1919, but this form of justice was common and even popular in the Front Range mining towns before statehood in 1876 and even beyond.

While most of the 19th century sheriffs tried to bring a sense of professionalism to their post by introducing telegraph and telephone technology, providing medical care for prisoners, and forming the Sheriff’s Association of Colorado, many of them were perhaps unfairly noted only for the number of prisoner escapes from the jails they oversaw.

Despite being responsible for a new Boulder County courthouse and jail on Pearl Street, Joseph Yates still lost two prisoners to escapes. And Sheriff Edward Autrey decided in 1890 that even that jail was not fit for purpose, as he had endured “multiple escapes”, before moving the jail to another Pearl Street location. Warren Dyer had an even tougher time as Sheriff, as he had to deal with five murders, two escapes and a Hundred Year flood between 1894 and 1898. Populist Party Sheriff Thomas Thompson rounded off the century with five prisoners escaping custody through a tunnel. Perhaps to mitigate the furor that surrounded this, he claimed he also had to deal with 48 insane prisoners.

The new century brought in more natural disasters, with three major fires in the first five years, handled by Sheriff “Cap” Sipple, who was a Civil War veteran. The next few decades were even more tumultuous, mostly due to a protracted coal miner’s strike and the introduction of Prohibition. The Longmont jeweler Charles Bartell managed to quell a jail riot, but probably decided his $3,000 annual salary was not worth it and only served one term, before handing over to another Longmont sheriff, M.P. Capp in 1908.

Capp had a tough job ahead of him, as Colorado introduced Prohibition in 1909, a full seven years before the national enactment. He also had to deal with the miner’s strike between 1910 and 1914. Despite successfully speaking down what was likely to become a violent strike action, and considering himself the county gambling and liquor enforcer, even arresting the Boulder mayor at one point, he also decided not to run again after one term.

From the mid-20s and onward, life for the Boulder County Sheriffs remained eventful – Sanford Buster had to confiscate over 700 illegal guns, but provided his deputies with their first motorized vehicles in the form of four motorcycles. Robert Blum conducted more than 300 liquor raids and investigations, including finding one of his deputies running an illegal still in Niwot, but never carried a gun. Later a Longmont mayor, Sheriff George Richart allowed his deputies to use their own cars while on duty and gained notoriety during his 10 year term by once participating in a boxing match with one of his political opponents. He also approved the building of the “old” Boulder County Justice Center that remains on Pearl Street today.

Art Everson served longer than anyone before or since as Sheriff, retiring from the post after 24 years in 1966. He was involved in many high profile cases and used the opportunity to improve processes and procedures in the BCSO. He introduced 2-way radio communication and a 24/7 department service. The Theresa Foster homicide case prompted forensic improvements and he helped establish the Boulder Crime School in 1949. He also kept a jar on his desk for donations to the County Sheriffs.

Despite improving dispatch and communications services, his successor in 1967, Marvin Nelson, was dogged by charges of nepotism and appeared to be unable to deal with the “hippie movement” of the late 1960s, serving only one four year term.

Brad Leach was only 30 years old when elected Sheriff in 1971 with the remit of restoring public confidence in the organization. The first Democrat to hold the position in nearly 40 years, he stressed stability, professionalism and modern techniques, and he needed this approach to deal with the street riots and bombings in the County during the widespread civil unrest of the early 1970s. He introduced the first K-9 team, with two dogs, and the building of the new, larger County Justice Center on Canyon Boulevard in 1976. And 1988 saw the opening of a separate Boulder County Jail facility in east Boulder. It had a capacity of 287 but has since nearly doubled in size during six expansions. The rapid response team was also introduced in 1976, originally called STAR, and since renamed SWAT.

Following Leach’s retirement after 20 years, another Democrat, George Epp, was elected and he remembered as a boy delivering the evening paper to Art Everson in the jail, slipping it through the bars. Epp introduced more social programs in the organization, including victims’ advocates and restorative justice. The widely publicized death of JonBenet Ramsey in 1996 brought Boulder County back into the national spotlight again.

Which brings us up to the current Boulder County Sheriff, Joe Pelle, who has served from 2003 to the present, and is on the 2018 election ballot to allow him to serve another four year term. Pelle’s mantra is “character first” and tries to include that in all his dealings, both with the public and with county administrators and commissioners. Under his watch, the BCSO moved into a brand new building off Foothills Parkway, complete with a museum of the organization’s history. He had to lead us through the devastating Fourmile Canyon fire in 2010 and then the September 2013 floods, which dropped close to 17 inches of rain in Boulder County.

Far from needing a jar on the Sheriff’s desk, the organization now has an annual budget of $35 million, responded to 60,000 patrol calls in 2017, provided $922,000 in Jail medical services, travelled over 2 million miles using a fleet of 154 various vehicles, confiscated 92 pounds of illicit drugs, handled nearly 250 search and rescue emergencies, and a long list of other services in the eight districts covered by the BCSO.