Anne Evans

(b. London, 1871- d. 1941; b. Fairmount Cemetery)

Anne attended Misses Ferris’ School in Paris, the Willard School in Berlin and the Art Students League in New York City. Returning to her family in Denver in 1893, she joined the Denver Artist’s Club, which she helped transform into the Denver Art Museum. Anne never married, devoting herself to philanthropy and to her family. She was vice president and director of the Evans Investment Company, a firm capitalized at $600,000 to manage the family’s extensive real estate, railroad, tramway and other assets. The company held its monthly board meeting in the Evans House at 1310 Bannock St., now a house museum.

Mayor Robert W. Speer appointed her to the Denver Art Commission and the Denver Public Library Commission, where she helped organize the Western History Collection. As the daughter of Territorial Governor John Evans, who was dismissed for his role in the Sand Creek Massacre, she took a special interest in Native Americans. She made the Denver Art Museum the first in the world to feature a separate Native American Art collection.

A driving force in Denver civic and cultural affairs, she also co-founded the Central City Opera Association. Of her life’s work, she once said, "You have to get angry with people sometimes or they’ll think they can run over you, especially if you’re a woman." One obituary noted, "Throughout her long, useful life there was no hint anywhere of any occasion where Anne Evans sought personal aggrandizement or profit."

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