February 10, 1868 Emily Griffith was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. When she was 13 she moved with her family to a farm in Kansas. She went to a one room school and when her teacher left to get married Emily became the teacher. She was only 13! In 1882 at age 14 she passed the test and became the official teacher.

In 1895 the family moved to Denver. Emily became a substitute teacher and she went to the Denver Normal School to learn about being a teacher. She taught sixth through eighth graders. She encouraged the kids and told them, "You can do it."

In 1904 she became appointed state deputy superintendent of schools and she had an office in the capital building. She liked the job but she missed her students so in 1908 she went back to teaching.

Emily got to know the parents of her students. She thought if the parents had an education her students would learn more and become well educated. So she opened a new kind of school in 1916 for all ages. She called it The Opportunity School. The school was open in the day and the evening and Miss Griffith was the principal. Adults learned shoe repair, cosmetology, auto mechanics, mathematics, and English. Her school was a big success. She thought only 200 would come but 2,389 students signed up by the end of the first semester.

Emily retired in 1933. She and her sister moved to a cabin up in the mountains in Pinecliffe. In June 1947 she died. She was shot in the back of the head. The police never found out who did it. Emily Griffith was voted a member of the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame.

We got our information from
Women of Consequence by Jeanne Varnell
Hiking Through Colorado History by Vickie Leigh Krudwig
and from this web site.