This is the history behind the old train station on Dartmouth and Santa Fe.

In 1910, a man named John Valentine, a realtor in Denver decided he wanted to grow and sell flowers. He looked around and found open land a little south of what is now Hampden Avenue. There he started a company called Park Floral. He began growing flowers and making some money and thought there should be a slogan to get people to buy flowers. He came up with,  “Say it With Flowers”.

Later that year he imagined greater things. He wanted to sell his flowers all over the country. He needed transportation and the railroads were the ticket. Cars had just been invented, everything went by train.  He wanted a train station in Englewood so he could ship out his flowers. He talked with the Rio Grande and they said no. He talked with the Santa Fe and they said yes if he could guarantee car loads of flowers would be shipped. He did and they did and the flowers began shipping all over the country.

The railroad station was built in 1915. Before long, Valentine began thinking what if there was a network of all the flower sellers in the whole country. If someone in Denver wanted to send flowers to a person in New York, it would make more sense to have the guy in New York deliver them instead of shipping all the way from Englewood.  He also wanted to set up a network so all the florists in the country could talk with each other.  The florists could send orders by telegraph.

He founded “Floral Telegraph Delivery”, which we today call FTD.

Doug Cohn, Englewood Historic Preservation Society