Founding and Reactivation:
The Arapahoe Hunt was founded in 1907 in Denver. We know very little about the early Hunt other than that its kennels were located on what is now the eighth green of the Denver Country Club golf course. Its hunt country was along Cherry Creek in what was then “South” Denver. John F. Kuykendall was M.F.H. and Lawrence C. Phipps was President of this original Arapahoe Hunt.
The Arapahoe Hunt went dormant during World War I but was reactivated in 1929 by Lawrence C. Phipps, Jr., who had moved to Denver from Pittsburgh with his father, Lawrence C. Phipps, who later became a U.S. Senator. Lawrence C. Phipps, Jr. was the father of one of our current Joint Masters, Lawrence C. Phipps, III.

Old Hunt Country:
Mr. Phipps located the kennels on his ranch, the “Diamond K,” now known as Highlands Ranch, located in northern Douglas County, about ten miles south of Denver. The old country consisted of about 28,000 acres, all part of the Highlands Ranch, plus 6,000 additional acres on the adjacent Cherokee Ranch and Daniels Park, a buffalo preserve owned by the City of Denver, and several small ranches along Santa Fe Drive. This old country comprised virtually all of the land south of County Line Road to Sedalia.
The north half of the old country was rolling grassland with very few trees, much like our present country. The south half, however, was rugged, hilly country cut by many steep arroyos. It was heavily forested with pine, spruce, cottonwood and scrub oak. It was easy to get separated from the hounds or the field in the old country.

New Hunt Country:
In 1988, we built a kennels and staff horse barn on the Lowry Bombing Range pursuant to the lease from the Colorado State Land Board. The Land Board had acquired the Range from the U.S. Air Force after the Korean War. We have the exclusive lease on 160 acres where our kennels, barn, and horse pasture are located. We also have a non-exclusive lease on 35 square miles (22,400 acres) which we share with other lessees, e.g., a rancher, several oil production companies and 3 model airplane clubs. Our lease runs to 2012. In addition, we have the right to hunt on about 6400 acres of adjacent private land presently used for grazing.
The new country is all rolling grassland cut by three drainages: Box Elder Creek, Coal Creek, and Piney Creek. There are willows and cottonwoods along the creeks. There are also some oil wells and a number of foundations of old homesteads.

In late 1998, the State Land Board placed the entire Lowry Bombing Range in the Stewardship Trust. As a result, this land will remain undeveloped open space unless and until the State Land Board removes it from the Stewardship Trust.
Occasionally, we hold hunts in the Plum Creek Valley area near Larkspur, Colorado, on the Monaghan Ranch near Laramie, Wyoming, and the Phipps/Younglund Ranches near Kiowa, Colorado. The Hunt is always pursuing new hunt country. Indeed, this year we will also hunt near Colorado Springs and Limon.

The Hounds:
We presently have 34 couple of hounds (i.e. 68 hounds)-16 couple of bitches and 18 couples of dog. This includes 12 couple of first season hounds, who are just a year old. This number declines as the season progresses due to attrition from age and a variety of incidents. This number is necessary to hunt 2-3 days a week.
Our hounds are straight English foxhounds rather than American, which include Penn-Marydales, July, Walkers, Redbones, etc., or Crossbreds. Our hounds’ lineage is directly tied to English packs-Old Surrey and Barstow, the Whaddon Chase, the Puckeridge-Thurlow, the Vale of the White Horse, the North Cotswold, the Exmoor and the College Valley. We’ve had very good success in breeding to a bitch Pennant of Irish descent. The ticking present in many of our hounds was introduced by Cardiff (Whaddon Chase) and Acrobat (Puckeridge-Thurlow) and has been a characteristic of good hounds. We have drafted hounds to other packs or bred their bitches to our dog hounds. Some of the hunts participating in this program are Los Altos, Bijou Springs, Cornwall, Juan Tomas and Fort Leavenworth.
The hounds are exercised most days; we do not hunt throughout the year. From early May to late July, we walk the hounds on foot. The rest of the year, we exercise on horseback.

The Quarry:
The Arapahoe hunts only the coyote and was probably one of the first hunts in the U.S. to hunt coyotes exclusively since its reactivation in 1929. The fox and the coyote seldom appear to coexist peacefully.
The coyote is one of the very few animals that has extended its range in the face of civilization. You have probably seen pictures of the coyote drinking out of a Los Angeles swimming pool or loping through a suburban New York City cemetery.
Unlike foxes, coyotes do not scurry about or “go to ground” frequently. They tend to “take off” and run long distances; for example runs of seven to ten miles are quite common. We have hunted since 1972 without “drawing a blank,” i.e. failing to chase a coyote. Although we hunt several coyotes each time we go out, accounting for them is the exception rather than the rule.
The Masters and Honorary Secretary:
The Arapahoe has had only five Masters since 1929 and two of those were in its very early years. Except for military service during World War II, Lawrence C. Phipps, Jr., served as Master from the mid-1930’s until he retired in the early 1970s. W. W. Grant served as Master from 1941 to 1945 while Mr. Phipps was in the Army. Mr. Phipps appointed his son, Lawrence C. Phipps III, a rancher, Joint Master in 1968. Donald J. O’Connor, a lawyer, was added as Joint Master in 1981, and Dr. Marvin Beeman, a veterinarian, in 1990. Dr. Beeman is also the Huntsman.
Mrs. Rowena Rogers, who began hunting at about age ten and is now in her 80’s, is Honorable Secretary Emerita and Mr. Rob Deline is the present Honorary Secretary.

The Huntsmen:
The Arapahoe Hunt has had only three huntsmen since its reactivation in 1929. David Thornton, a Scotsman, was the original Huntsman. George Beeman succeeded him in 1934 and George hunted the hounds for 53 years until his retirement in 1987 when his son Dr. Marvin Beeman succeeded him. Even after retirement, George occasionally hunted the hounds as Huntsman Emeritus, in his son’s absence, until 1990 when he sustained serious neck injuries in a fall on July 15, 1990, while exercising the hounds.
During these 53 years, George and his family were the “spirit” of the Arapahoe. His wife, Marguerite, produced two whips, their son, Marvin, and daughter, Bunny, and led the vehicular hilltoppers during the hunts. George not only hunted the hounds, but also bred and raised them, bred, raised and broke the staff horses, cared for 30 members’ horses boarded at the kennels, and mended everything from saddles to pickups to windmills.
When George retired in 1987, his son, Marvin, a well-known equine veterinarian, took over as Huntsman and has hunted, exercised, bred, and doctored the hounds ever since. Marvin began his career at the Arapahoe as a gateboy at age ten and wore scarlet as a whip for 42 years before becoming Huntsman.

The Hunts and Other Events:
The Arapahoe Hunt goes out 60-70 hunts a year, with cubbing from Labor Day to mid- October and regular season from mid-October to mid-April. Depending on the weather, we have approximately 30 field members on Wednesday hunts and 70 on weekend hunts. Guests are welcome for a $35 capping fee during the fall cubbing season and $70 during the regular season.
In early October, we also sponsor our Hunter Trials at Plum Creek Hollow Farm owned by Nancy Gooding, a member. In mid-October we host a Pair Pace Event at High Prairie Farms owned by Helen Kreible. We also host Point-to-Point races in mid-April at the Range. At the social level, we have a Huntsman’s Breakfast in November, a Christmas party, Men of the Hunt party, and St. Patrick’s Day party. Our formal dinner dance (“scarlet preferred”) is the Masters’ Dinner in late April.

The Hunt will mark its 75th anniversary during the 2003-2004 season. Celebrating this event, the Hunt will sponsor a “Hunt Week” from December 2 to 6, 2003, featuring four days of hunting and social events, including a hunt ball. Two hunts will be with our pack hunted by our Huntsman, Dr. Marvin Beeman, and two with Ben Hardaway’s Midland Fox Hounds from Columbus, Georgia, hunted by Mr. Mason Lampton.