Local lore has long said that the owner of one of the world’s most famous diamonds had lived in The Broadmoor area. No, not the famed Elizabeth Taylor gifts from Richard Burton (33.19 carats and 69.42 carats), but this one a breathtaking and rare blue stone, the Hope Diamond.

What made it even more intriguing was that this diamond always carried oft-repeated rumors that it would be a curse for owners and their families.

An amazing diamond with this most unusual history, the Hope Diamond, originally 112 carats, dates back to the 1600s. Believed to be from the Kollur mine in India, it was sold to King Louis XVI of France in 1668 and cut into a 67 1/8-carat stone known as the “Blue Diamond of the Crown,” which he wore during special occasions. It symbolized the problems of that time as royalty lived lives of extreme extravagance, while it was the complete opposite for starving and dying French countrymen, historians point out.

When the king and Marie Antoinette tried to escape France because of their part in the French Revolution, a tribunal ruled them guilty, and they were both executed publicly by guillotine in 1793. Their massive royal crown jewel collection had been looted and the Blue Diamond stolen, according to historians.

The beheadings were apparently the beginning of the history of folktales about all the adversity that would most definitely follow connections to Hope Diamond.

After a time, a London jeweler was reported to have a recut, smaller version of the stolen stone, and then it went to King George IV of the United Kingdom, who died of a ruptured blood vessel in his stomach. The stone was sold after his death in 1830 to the gem collection of Henry Philip Hope and thus the diamond’s name.

Hope’s family members reluctantly inherited the blue stone and almost immediately sold it to pay off debts. It was bought and sold several times in several countries and then purchased by Pierre Cartier’s Cartier Jewelry of New York City in 1909.

This was when Cartier showed it to the extremely wealthy American Evalyn Walsh McLean at Cartier’s store in Paris.

Edward B. McLean, who was heir to a huge family publishing fortune, bought it for his wife, who had inherited a mining era fortune. The jewelry was described as “with the diamond mounted as a headpiece on a three-tiered circlet of large white diamonds,” and it later became the pendant on the more familiar diamond necklace in photos. It was worth the equivalent of $6,220,000 today.

She wore it until her death in 1947 and enjoyed wearing it all the time, from photo portrait sessions and formal events to working in her garden. It was reported that she delighted in the shock value of putting the pendant on her dog while people gasped.

Evalyn Walsh McLean, born in 1886 in Leadville, was the daughter of Thomas Walsh, a miner and prospector who hit it rich with the Camp Bird Mine in the San Juan Mountains near Ouray and Telluride. He and his wife also ran the Grand Central Hotel in Leadville.

Selling the mine in 1898, Walsh was an instant multimillionaire and whisked his family away to a mansion in Washington, D.C., where overnight, they became part of the high-society scene.

Daughter Evalyn, 14, chose a musical education in Paris, where she instead reportedly chose a wild lifestyle. She married Edward Beale McLean in 1908, and friends and society news reported a frantic and toxic relationship for years. Evalyn adapted and was happily the ultimate socialite, planning and attending events and charity galas. Years later, she wrote a book, “Father Struck It Rich,” about her early life. She told her story about her large jewelry collection in her book “Queen of Diamonds.”

Edward Beale McLean, born in 1889, inherited millions from the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Washington Post, where his father was publisher and part owner, and he became the Washington Post’s publisher and owner. He also owned a thoroughbred racehorse. His mother’s father was a well-known general.

Edward and Evalyn were large parts of the active Washington social scene and politically well-connected. However, they were hit with tragedy when their son Vinson was hit by a car and killed when he was 9. He had been called Vincent for his mother’s brother, who was killed in an auto accident as a teen. The McLeans’ daughter, Evie, a well-known Texas horsewoman and mother, died of a sleeping pill overdose at age 24. There were two other sons, John and Edward Beale McLean, Jr., both with multiple marriages.

Edward McLean died at age 52 in 1941. There had been reports of infidelity, alcoholism and erratic behavior that forced his sale of The Washington Post by trustees. A jury ruled him “insane,” and Evalyn had him hospitalized in 1933 until his death. Evalyn, who suffered from morphine addiction, died in Washington in 1947.

The family was chronicled extensively in news accounts and on Wikipedia. Their connection to the “cursed” Hope Diamond filled stories and was recounted in society books.

Son Edward Beale McLean Jr., born in 1918, is the Colorado Springs connection people might have heard about. He chose a Colorado lifestyle instead of the Washington social scene of his parents’ choice. A family estate was purchased near The Broadmoor hotel and was his home from which his career was managing his mother’s financial affairs.

An English Tudor mansion on Polo Drive, built in 1925 for R. Clifford Black of New York, was his choice in 1940. The acreage was landscaped by S.R. DeBoer, who designed the Denver Botanical Gardens. The home had more than 14,400 square feet with nine bedrooms and 10 bathrooms. An Otis elevator, leaded glass windows and a servant’s kitchen and butler’s pantry were among other outstanding touches. The home has been remodeled and changed several times by owners over the years, selling for several million dollars.

Edward Jr. had married Washington socialite Ann Carroll Meem in Washington in 1938. Their families were so socially elite that the engagement and wedding had been covered in the New York Times. They had a daughter and son and separated in 1943 when he remained in his Colorado home and she had already been living in Washington. Published real estate transactions listed him as owning several thousand acres of a huge and historic ranch near Larkspur for a time.

In 1943, McLean married actress Gloria Hatrick after they met at a party at The Broadmoor. They had two sons, one of whom was killed serving in Vietnam. The couple divorced in 1948, and in 1949, Gloria married actor Jimmy Stewart after the couple reportedly met and honeymooned at The Broadmoor.

McLean’s third wife was Manuela Mercedes “Mollie” Hudson, who had been married to Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt Jr. After a 1973 divorce, he married Patricia Dewey.

McLean died at age 68 in 1987. He was living in West Palm Beach, Fla.

The “curse” of the Hope Diamond so alarmed all parts of the family that all of the subsequent generations, including grandchildren, rejected inheriting the beautiful stone.

Evalyn’s extensive jewelry collection went into her estate and it was all purchased by the famous Harry Winston Inc. of New York City in 1949. The sale list included the Hope Diamond and “the 94.8-carat Star of the East diamond, the 15-carat Star of the South diamond, a 9-carat green diamond and a 31-carat diamond called the McLean diamond.”

Harry Winston Inc. showed the Hope Diamond at many events for 10 years, including galas raising money for exclusive charities. Then, in 1958 they donated it to the Smithsonian. In 1974 it was taken from its setting for cleaning and a new setting and was weighed at 45.52 carats. It has a special permanent display at the Smithsonian’s National Gem and Mineral Collection at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington.