EDGEWATER, Colo. — Joyride Brewing Company co-founder Dave Bergen’s idea for a brewery logo has extra meaning in the small city of Edgewater.
“For whatever reason, I had this idea of having an elephant riding a tricycle as kind of whimsical and irreverent,” Bergen explained.
The building that became the brewery also featured an elephant mural, though Bergen said the city “made” the brewery owners replace the mural with garage doors.
That mural harkens back to the story of Roger the Elephant, a figure that looms large in the community less than one square mile big.
“Once I found out about him, I'm like, ‘Oh, now we get to tie it into local history. This is great,’” Bergen said. “Then we find out about the other stuff, and we're like, ‘Oh no, oh no. What have we done? We have named our mascot and brewery after a child killer.’”
According to old newspaper articles, Roger was delighting crowds at Manhattan Beach, an amusement park on the shores of Sloan’s Lake, back in the late 1800s.
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The history of Sloan’s Lake and the Edgewater elephant
“They put a basket on his back, and he used to give rides to children in it,” Bergen explained, adding that the story turned grim one day in 1891.
“What we understand, you know, from the Rocky Mountain News is he got spooked by a hot air balloon and threw all the kids off of, you know, out of the basket,” Bergen said. “When he came back down, ended up coming back down on, George Eaton was his name.”
Joyride Brewing regular Chris Burnham describes Eaton as a “young kid, somehow, wrong place, wrong time.”
Legend has it that Roger was buried in Edgewater, under what is now Edgewater Public Market.
However, Bergen said there’s proof that Roger stayed in the area after the tragedy. He likely was sent elsewhere before he died.
“Folklore is that he was immediately led to a nearby swamp and shot,” Bergen said. “But what we've been actually been able to find is that two years later, the owners of the park Manhattan Beach were advertising and selling tickets that they were going to give Roger his annual bath in the lake.
Regardless of his actual whereabouts, Roger’s story has lived on in Edgewater.
“We've actually met some of George Eaton's descendants,” Bergen said. “They've come into the brewery and bought merch, which is crazy... [Roger] was a big deal, you know, here in the area, literally and figuratively. And you know, maybe one day will be a big deal, too.”
Burnham said his team trivia team name, ‘Eaton’s Ghost,’ is a nod to the story.
“It's niche, it's weird, it's nerdy,” Burnham said.
Another Joyride customer, Will Frazier, compared the story to the morbid account of ‘Blucifer’ outside Denver International Airport, which accidentally killed its creator during installation.
“I feel like people in this area, kind of embrace that bit of like, morbid history,” Frazier said.
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