Denver, the capital of Colorado, was established by a party of prospectors
on November 22, 1858, after a gold discovery at the confluence of Cherry
Creek and the South Platte River. Town founders named the dusty crossroads
for James W. Denver, Governor of Kansas Territory, of which eastern Colorado
was then a part. Other gold discoveries sparked a mass migration of some
100,000 in 1859-60, leading the federal government to establish Colorado
Territory in 1861.
Before the great Colorado gold rush, the Rocky Mountains offered little to
attract settlers, except "hairy bank notes," the beaver pelts prized by fur
trappers, traders and fashionably hatted gentlemen in Eastern America and
Europe. The gold rush changed that, as the rudely dispossessed Cheyenne and
Arapaho soon discovered.
The Mile High City’s aggressive leadership, spearheaded by William N. Byers,
founding editor of the Rocky Mountain News, and Territorial Governor John
Evans, insisted that the Indians must go. After dispossessing the natives,
Denverites built a network of railroads that made their town the banking,
minting, supply and processing center not only for Colorado, but for neighboring
states. Between 1870 when the first railroads arrived and 1890, Denver grew
from 4,759 to 106,713. In a single generation, it became the second most
populous city in the West, second only to San Francisco.
Although founded as the main supply town for Rocky Mountain mining camps,
Denver also emerged as a hub for high plains agriculture. Denver’s breweries,
bakeries, meat packing and other food-processing plants made it the regional
agricultural center, as well as a manufacturing hub for farm and ranch equipment,
barbed wire, windmills, seed, feed and harnesses.
The depression of 1893 and repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act abruptly
ended Denver’s first boom. Civic leaders began promoting economic diversity—growing
wheat and sugar beets, manufacturing, tourism and service industries. The
Denver Livestock Exchange and National Western Stock Show confirmed the city’s
role as the "cow town" of the Rockies. Denver began growing again after 1900,
but at a slower rate. Stockyards, brickyards, canneries, flour mills, leather
and rubber goods nourished the city. Of many Denver-area breweries, only
Coors has survived, becoming the nation’s third largest sudsmaker.
Regional or national headquarters of many oil and gas firms in the Mile High
City fueled much of Denver’s post-World War II growth and an eruption of
40- and 50-story high-rise buildings downtown, during the 1970s. Denver’s
economic base has come to include skiing and tourism, electronics, computers,
aviation and the nation’s largest telecommunications center. As the regional
center of a vast mountain and plain hinterland, Denver boasts more federal
employees than any city besides Washington, D. C. Since the 1940s, the large
federal center, augmented by state and local government jobs, has somewhat
stabilized the city’s boom-and-bust cycle.
Sited on high plains at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, Denver has
a sunny, cool, dry climate, averaging 13 inches of precipitation a year.
The sun shines 300 days a year, and the usually benign climate and nearby
Rocky Mountain playground have made tourism one of the Mile High City’s economic
mainstays. Warm chinook winds warm the winters between snowstorms.
Visually, Denver is notable for it predominance of single-family housing
and its brick buildings. Good brick clay underlies much of the area, while
local lumber is soft, scarce and inferior. Even in the poorest residential
neighborhoods, single-family, detached housing prevails, reflecting the Western
interest in "elbow room" and a spacious, relatively flat, high plains site,
where sprawling growth is unimpeded by any large body of water or geographic
obstacle.
Denver’s 1970s energy boom spurred a proliferation of suburban subdivisions,
shopping malls and a second office core in the suburban Denver Tech Center.
Denver’s traditional dependence on non-renewable natural resources returned
to haunt the city during the 1980s oil bust. When the price of crude oil
dropped from $39 to $9 a barrel, Denver sank into a depression, losing population
and experiencing the highest office vacancy rate in the nation.
Notable institutions include the Denver Museum of Natural History, the Denver
Public Library, the Colorado History Museum, the Denver Art Museum and the
Denver Center for the Performing Arts, as well as the U. S. Mint and major
league baseball, basketball, football, hockey and soccer teams. Gun violence
and crime, as well as smog, and traffic congestion are among the principal
problems.
As one of the most isolated major cities in the United States, Denver always
has been obsessed with transportation systems. Fear of being bypassed began
early when railroads and later, airlines, originally avoided Denver because
of the 14,000-foot-high Rocky Mountain barrier just west of town. To secure
Denver’s place on national transportation maps, the city opened a new $5
billion airport in 1995. The 55-square-mile Denver International Airport
is the nation’s largest in terms of area and capacity for growth, prompting
boosters to call it the world’s largest.
Denver is a sprawling city in a state of long distances and mountainous obstacles.
To tackle long distances and tough terrain, Coloradans have become auto-dependent.
Denver has one of the highest per-capita motor vehicle ownership rates in
the country—with an average of one licensed vehicle for every man, woman
and child. In the 1990s, Denver built an outer ring of freeways that immediately
became over-congested. Even after the Regional Transportation District began
building a light-rail system, highway congestion remained the number-one
complaint of many Denverites.
In 2000, the metro area reached a population of 2.1 million, three-fourths
of whom live in the suburban counties—Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Denver, Douglas
and Jefferson. Roughly 20 percent of the core city population is Spanish-surnamed,
13 percent African-American, two percent Asian and one percent Native American.
Denver has elected Hispanic (Federico Peña, 1983-91) and African-American
(Wellington Webb, 1991-2001) mayors in recent years and has enjoyed relatively
smooth race relations.
The Rocky Mountain metropolis boomed during the 1990s, as the eastern suburb
of Aurora became Colorado’s third-largest city and the western suburb of
Lakewood became the fourth-largest. Even the core City and County of Denver
gained population in the 1990s for the first time since the 1970s, climbing
once again beyond the 500,000 mark. Thanks to landmark districts preserving
venerable business and residential areas, as well as the 1990s opening in
the core South Platte River Valley of Coors Baseball Field, Elitch Gardens
Amusement Park, Ocean Journey Aquarium, Pepsi Athletic Center and many new
housing projects, downtown Denver is booming as well as its suburban fringe,
at the dawn of the 21st century.
DENVER: THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN METROPOLIS TIME LINE
1857: Mexican Diggings on the South Platte River
June 1858: William Green Russell party from Auraria, Georgia, discovers gold
in the South Platte near Cherry Creek.
November 22, 1858: Denver City Town Company founded by William H. Larimer
party from Leavenworth, Kansas Territory.
1861: Colorado Territory created.
1870: The Denver Pacific, Kansas Pacific and Colorado Central Railroads reach
Denver, ending the town’s isolation and stagnation.
1871: First Denver streetcar line built from Auraria to Five Points.
1876: Colorado becomes the 38th State.
1880s: Colorado’s first great boom, propelled by mining and railroads, takes
Denver’s populatiuon to 106,713 in 1890.
1893: Silver Crash sends Denver into depression.
1902: City and County of Denver carved out of Arapahoe County.
1904-1918: Mayor Robert W. Speer transforms Denver into a "City Beautiful."
1920s: Ku Klux Klan comes to power with the elections of klansmen Clarence
Morely as governor of Colorado and Ben Stapleton as mayor of Denver.
1929: Denver Municipal (Stapleton) Airport opens.
1930s: Denver Develops its mountain parks system, including Red Rocks Outdoor
Amphitheater and Winter Park Ski Area.
1947-1955: Mayor Quigg Newton modernizes Denver, installing Dr. Florence
Sabin as head of Health and Hospitals; Hank Barnes sets up one-way streets
and "The Barnes Dance" (diagonal pedestrian crossings downtown).
1976: Auraria Higher Education Center opens in Denver’s oldest neighborhood;
Denver celebrates Colorado Centennial and U. S. Bicentennial by opening its
Platte River Greenway at Confluence Park.
1981: Federico Peña becomes Denver’s first Spanish-surnamed mayor.
1982: Oil bust sends Denver into depression.
1991: Wellington Edward Webb becomes Denver’s first African-American mayor.
1994: Regional Transportation District opens first light-rail line from Auraria
to Five Points
1995: Denver International Airport opens; Denver builds a grand, new public
library, incorporating the original 1955 landmark building, and restores
historic branch libraries.
