F. Charles Fröelicher Papers

Collection

Identifier: WH1219

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Collection contains Colorado Academy materials consisting of yearbooks, appointment calendars, histories, business papers; Colorado Outward Bound School manuals, reports, school catalogs, articles, pamphlets, brochures, clippings, invitations, correspondence, audiocassette and videocassette; Gates Family Foundation annual reports, grant applications, correspondence; Copper Mountain Resort correspondence and preliminary site plan; Donald Bain's unsuccessful Denver, Colorado mayoral campaigns working files; 10th Mountain Hut Association maps, correspondence, and ephemera; Pocahontas Mining Company papers; and Froelicher family history, photographs, and genealogy.

Dates

1888-2015

Creator

Froelicher, F. Charles,1924-2014. (Person)
Froelicher, F. Charles, 1924-2014 (Person)
Goodspeed, Mary Beth, (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research.

Copyright

All requests for permission to publish, reproduce, or quote from material in the collection should be discussed with the appropriate librarian or archivist. Permission for publication may be given on behalf of the Denver Public Library as the owner of the physical item. It is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained by the customer. The Library does not assume any responsibility for infringement of copyright or publication rights of the manuscript held by the writer, heirs, donors, or executors. Reproduction restrictions are decided on a case-by-case basis.

Biographical / Historical

Charles Froelicher (1924-2014) was headmaster of Colorado Academy, founder of the Colorado Outward Bound School, a cofounder of Copper Mountain Ski Area, and executive director of the Gates Foundation.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 9, 1924, he grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University after a WWII military interruption serving in the U.S. Navy. Froelicher moved to Denver, Colorado to become headmaster at Colorado Academy (1955-1975), which he turned from a struggling military academy into a successful coeducational country day school. During this time period, Froelicher founded the Colorado Outward Bound School (1970). Also in 1970, he was a cofounder of the Copper Mountain Ski area, and remained as a partner and director until it was sold to the Apex Oil Company in 1980. In 1975, after retiring from Colorado Academy, Froelicher became executive director of the Gates Foundation, a position that lasted until 1992 when he became a trustee. He also served as the Managing General Partner for the Pocahontas Mining Company of Bluefield, West Virginia on and off from 1966-1993. Froelicher was a trustee of the College Entrance Examination Board, the Yosemite Institute, and the Headmasters Association of the United States.

Froehlicher resided on Martha’s Vineyard during the summers and was a trustee of the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation, a Martha’s Vineyard land trust.

He died on October 17, 2014 in Denver, Colorado.