Allen Lefferdink was broke when he arrived in Boulder. And, to the relief of his swindled investors, he left Boulder broke, as well. In-between, in the 1950s, the failed financier built a bogus multi-million-dollar empire based on worthless securities.
Silvia Pettem / In Retrospect He also left his mark on Boulder with the construction of the Colorado Insurance Building at 1919 14th Street. In 1949, the Nebraska native founded the Colorado Credit Life Insurance Company in a formerly city-owned building on 14th Street. He offered one-stop shopping for insurance, savings, loans and investments –– all underwritten by stocks purchased on the installment plan.
At the time, the press called him “a youthful financial wizard.” Lefferdink wasted no time in demolishing the old building and constructing a nine-story retail/office building at 14th and Walnut streets, complete with penthouse and rooftop helipad. After it opened in 1956, the locals watched Lefferdink’s helicopter land and depart, as his personal pilot shuttled prominent businessmen between the building and Denver’s Stapleton Airport.
For 24 years, Joslin’s department store occupied the basement, first, second and third floors, with the latest fashions and home furnishings displayed in the building’s storefront windows. The elegant store became a downtown shopping alternative to J. C.
Penney, Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward, all, at the time, on Pearl Street. Above Joslin’s were four floors of office spa.
