DENVER — In a chamber that focuses on the future, state lawmakers took a moment to honor the past.
For Women’s History Month, Colorado remembered a trailblazer - Denver’s first police woman.
No one on the state Senate Floor had met Sadie Likens. But more than a century after her death, the city she served wanted to honor the path she created for female officers after her.
Quentin Young traveled from Indiana to recognize his great-grandmother. Likens passed before he was born, but Denver is helping him feel more connected to her than ever.
“I am learning more and more about her,” he said at Tuesday’s ceremony. “Sadie was one of the first women to break that glass ceiling. She was the first police woman of Denver at a time when women were not seen as somebody who could hold that kind of a job.”
In 1888, Likens joined the Denver Police Department. At police headquarters, a photo hangs on the wall. The department portrait shows pictures of male officers, with Likens as the only woman in uniform.
“And when I saw it – it just stood out, so I would imagine you would say … Sadie pretty much stood out,” Young said as he looked at the photo.
Likens may not have felt welcomed wearing the badge, but Denver needed her. The department hired her to help female prisoners.
“They needed a woman to understand what women needed,” Young said. “She actually slept in the jail a lot of the time. She was on 24-hour call. When they arrested a woman, she would have to be there.”
Likens responded to reports of children and women who were abused. She worked at the department until 1894. After her time at the department, she was active in helping Civil War veterans, as well as WWI veterans with the American Legion.
Her dedication paved the way for female officers after her, like Denver’s former Deputy Chief Barb Archer.
“She was the first woman to show that, and then the woman who the police department hired since then – '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s – who faced hurdles I didn't have to face,” Archer said.
Now people who don’t know her story can be reminded of it for years to come. Denver put up a permanent sign in her honor on the corner of West Colfax Avenue and Broadway.
“In a few months, the men on the department wondered how they had done without her for so long,” Archer said.
Likens' role more than a century ago still makes an impact today. No one at Tuesday’s ceremonies had met her, but time hasn’t made Denver forget.
“I said earlier that I wish she had been around with me for me to spend time with her,” Young said. “It is quite touching that people would remember over 100 years ago.”
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