Denver, Colorado – Mile High City
Denver, Colorado, a vibrant metropolis nestled against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountain foothills, stands as the state’s capital and most populous city. Situated on the banks of the South Platte River, its strategic location has shaped its history and destiny. The city owes its name to James W. Denver, a governor of the Kansas Territory, a tribute reflecting its early ties to the region’s governance. But it is perhaps best known by its enduring moniker: the Mile High City. This nickname stems from Denver’s official elevation, a precise 5,280 feet (one mile) above sea level, a fact proudly displayed on the steps of the Colorado State Capitol.
Historically, Denver has also been recognized as the Queen City of the Plains and the Queen City of the West. These titles speak to its vital role in the agricultural industry that flourished across the High Plains region of eastern Colorado and along the Front Range. Today, Denver thrives as a major commercial, transportation, and cultural hub. The 2020 census recorded a population of 715,522 within the city limits, while the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood metropolitan statistical area boasts a population of 2,963,821, making it the most populated area in Colorado.
The City and County of Denver encompasses a significant area of 99,025 acres, including 1,057 acres of water. Geographically, it is surrounded by Adams County to the north and east, Arapahoe County to the south and east, and Jefferson County to the west, forming a cohesive urban landscape.
From Frontier Town to Queen City
Denver’s origins trace back to a rugged frontier town, its economy fueled by catering to the needs of local miners. Gambling dens, saloons, livestock trading, and the exchange of goods formed the backbone of its early commercial activity. In those nascent years, land parcels were often used as stakes in games of chance or bartered for essential supplies, reflecting the freewheeling spirit of the era.
Before the arrival of European settlers, the broader Denver area was home to various Native American tribes. The Apache, Ute, Cheyenne, Comanche, and Arapaho peoples roamed the land, their presence leaving an indelible mark on the region’s cultural heritage.
The early exploration of the area by white settlers began with Zebulon Pike’s expedition up the Arkansas River in 1806. Pike’s adventurous account of his journey from the Mississippi River to a fort he built on the Conejos River in the San Luis Valley offered a captivating glimpse into the region’s potential. He is often regarded as the American pioneer of the future Colorado, even though wandering trappers and hunters had preceded him.
In July 1820, Stephen Long’s expedition traversed the very ground where Denver now stands. While Long was an explorer, rather than a pioneer, he famously declared the land west of the Missouri River "uninhabitable by a people depending upon agriculture for their subsistence." Ironically, he saw the region’s value as a frontier, a barrier against westward expansion and potential enemies.
Following Long’s expedition, figures like William Sublette and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, along with the Santa Fe Trail, brought trappers and traders into the area, beginning around 1822. Captain Benjamin Bonneville vanished into the Northwest in 1832 for three years. Many others, including Bonneville’s historian Washington Irving, sought profit, adventure, or knowledge in this new land.
John C. Fremont, the Pathfinder, ventured near the site of Denver during his first expedition in 1842. Over the course of five expeditions, he even camped on the site of Denver, encountering 160 lodges of Arapaho Indians.
The 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie formally defined Cheyenne and Arapaho territory, encompassing lands from the North Platte River in present-day Wyoming and Nebraska southward to the Arkansas River in present-day Colorado and Kansas. Stephen Kearny’s military expedition to Santa Fe, New Mexico, during the Mexican-American War, Gunnison’s exploration for a railroad route to the Pacific in 1853, and Captain Randolph Marcy’s midwinter march from Fort Bridger in 1857 all contributed to the knowledge of the still-wild West.
The Lure of Gold and the Birth of a City
The summer of 1858 marked a turning point in the history of Denver. William Green Russell, a miner from Georgia, learned of gold in the Pike’s Peak region from Cherokee Indians. Russell and his men camped on June 24, 1858, along Cherry Creek where it empties into the South Platte River. They discovered gold at the base of the Rocky Mountains, sparking the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush.
A group of gold prospectors from Lawrence, Kansas, established Montana City as a mining town on the banks of the South Platte River. The Lawrence Party arrived only to find deposits along Dry Creek exhausted, so they moved their city to Cherry Creek, renaming it St. Charles. The location was accessible to existing trails and had previously been the site of seasonal encampments of the Cheyenne and Arapaho.
William Russell and Sam Bates discovered a small placer deposit near the mouth of Little Dry Creek in the present-day suburb of Englewood in July 1858. This yielded about 20 troy ounces of gold, the first significant gold discovery in the Rocky Mountain region. News spread rapidly; hundreds of men worked along the South Platte River by autumn. In October 1858, Russell and his men established Auraria on the opposite bank of Cherry Creek. A short time later, a third town, called Highland, was founded on the west side of the South Platte River.
Tents, tepees, wagons, lean-tos, and log cabins sprang up along the South Platte River as prospectors and fortune-seekers poured into the area. Pikes Peak served as both a landmark and a rallying cry for weary travelers. The "Pikes Peak or Bust!" gold rush was in full swing.
General William Larimer and Captain Jonathan Cox, land speculators from Leavenworth, Kansas, staked a claim on the bluff overlooking the confluence of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek. In November 1858, Larimer and his associates founded Denver City on the site of St. Charles. Denver City was named in honor of Kansas Territory’s governor, James William Denver, a move Larimer made to garner support for his claims. Larimer and associates sold parcels in the town to merchants and miners to create a major city catering to new immigrants.
Early Governance and Community
An election was held in Auraria on November 6, 1858. H.J. Graham was elected a delegate to Congress, and A.J. Smith was made representative to the Kansas legislature. Two days later, Graham embarked on his journey to the national capital. He was instructed to get the Pike’s Peak region set apart as an independent Territory to be called "Jefferson." However, Congress refused to consider its proposed permanent settlement scheme. He would later have the honor of being Colorado’s first representative in Congress, and he paid his own expenses.
Richens L. Wooton and his family arrived in Auraria on Christmas day, 1858. Wooton brought a large stock of merchandise, primarily contained in barrels. He knocked on the head of a barrel and invited his callers to help themselves with tin cups. News of the unusual liquid refreshments spread like wildfire through the city of Denver, and the inhabitants of that town exhibited their characteristic energy by a lively dash across Cherry Creek. Before the night closed down, Richens Wooton was "Uncle Dick" to every man in both towns.
Wooton soon began the erection of his famous business block. This was the most imposing and pretentious building in the town. It was a story and a half high, roofed with clapboards. The upper floor was made of boards sawed by hand with a whip-saw and was the first board floor laid in the country.
By the end of 1858, population estimates ranged as high as 2,000 in the new mining camps. Colorado territorial officials pressured federal authorities to redefine and reduce the extent of Indian treaty lands.
The Pike’s Peak Gold Rush and Community Growth
It was not until 1859 that a full-scale gold rush finally took place. A financial panic in 1857 developed into a full-scale depression by 1858. To revive their sagging businesses, merchants in the Missouri River towns like Leavenworth, Kansas, or St. Joseph, Missouri, took the news of gold discoveries and embellished it.
A post office was opened in Auraria in January 1859, serving the 50 constructed cabins. By spring 1859, teams of thousands of gold seekers arrived, and the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush was underway. About 100,000 gold seekers flocked to the region in the following two years.
Auraria and Denver began to compete for businesses that could cater to the new immigrants and for domination of the area. Auraria began to take an early lead with the first saloon, smithery, and carpentry shop. William N. Byers arrived on April 21, 1859, with a printing outfit and issued the first number of the Rocky Mountain News on April 23.
In May 1859, Denver City donated 53 lots to the Leavenworth and Pike’s Peak Express Company to secure the region’s first overland wagon route. Offering daily service for “passengers, mail, freight, and gold,” the Express reached Denver on a trail that trimmed westward travel time from 12 days to six. With supplies being delivered to the Denver side of Cherry Creek, businesses began to move there as well.
By mid-summer 1859, a movement back to the States took place. William Byers attempted to stem the tide, and then he rationalized that those leaving were undesirable and did not have what it took to build a new empire of the Rockies. Horace Greeley crossed the plains in July 1859, looked over the ground carefully, reported favorably on the country in the Tribune, and "gave Denver the best advertisement she ever had." The Apollo Hall theater opened in 1859, followed by notables such as the Denver Theatre and the Broadway Theatre.
Before Colorado became a territory, there was no functioning court system, and the public did justice. These early lawmen had to deal with the Vigilance Committee. Between 1859 and 1860, 14 men were accused of murder and were brought before a jury of 12 men and at least one judge presiding. Six of the 14 men were sentenced to death.
Before 1861, Denver was technically part of Arapahoe County, Kansas. William Hepworth Dixon, an English traveler, once noted of Denver: "A man’s life is of no more worth than a dog’s," but in its people, he saw "perseverance, generosity, and enterprise."
Though Denver surpassed most other cities in Colorado at the time and was transforming itself, it was still considered a frontier town. Churches often held their services in public halls or saloons, and children attended paid schools led by teachers of questionable ability. Gold mining declined, and many people left Colorado.
Territorial Status, Civil War, and Fires
On February 18, 1861, six chiefs of the Southern Cheyenne and four of the Arapaho signed the Treaty of Fort Wise (Fort Lyon) with the United States at Bent’s Fort near present-day Lamar, Colorado. They ceded more than 90% of the lands designated for them by the Fort Laramie Treaty, including the area of modern Denver.
Ten days later, on February 28, 1861, outgoing U.S. President James Buchanan signed an Act of Congress organizing the free Territory of Colorado. President Abraham Lincoln appointed William Gilpin of Missouri as the first governor of the Territory of Colorado, and he arrived in Denver City on May 29, 1861. Afterward, courts were set up, judges were appointed, and laws were created, but mob justice was still common.
Arapahoe County was formed on November 1, 1861. Denver City was incorporated on November 7, 1861, and served as the Arapahoe County Seat from 1861 until It was split. Denver County was created on November 15, 1902.
The same year Colorado became a territory, the Civil War broke out, and Colorado was not spared. Most of the people were from the North, and their support for the Union drove many Southerners from town, including Denver’s first mayor, John C. Moore.
In 1862, the United States Congress passed the Pacific Railway Act. Coloradans were excited at the prospect of the railroad crossing the Rocky Mountains through Colorado. When the Union Pacific Railroad chose to go north through Cheyenne, Wyoming, many at the time expected that Cheyenne would blossom into the major population center of the region.
William Gilpin organized Colorado’s volunteer militia and sent them south in February 1862 to fight Confederate Texans at the Battle of Glorieta Pass in New Mexico. With resources tied up in the war, there was little left over for mines, farms, and infrastructure, and Denver stagnated.
On July 15, 1862, citizens organized a volunteer Fire Department. On April 19, 1863, a fire broke out in the center of downtown Denver. High winds fed the sparks, and in a few hours, most of the wooden buildings in the heart of Denver were destroyed. Western Union furthered Denver’s regional dominance that year by choosing the city for its regional terminus.
Denver’s new buildings were built with brick. As the rebuilding progressed, Denver began to look like a town rather than a temporary campground.
On May 19, 1864, the spring melt combined with heavy rains caused severe flooding on Cherry Creek. The flooding severely affected the low-lying Auraria, destroying the Rocky Mountain News building, the Methodist Church, City Hall, and numerous offices, warehouses, and outbuildings. Afterward, the water was severely contaminated and threatened a significant epidemic.
By the mid-1860s, the Civil War was over, and Denver had survived many tragedies. The city began to grow again and ended the decade with a population of 4,759.
Conflict with Native Americans and Railway Expansion
The disagreement on the validity of the Treaty of Fort Wise escalated to bring about the Colorado War of 1864 and 1865, during which the brutal Sand Creek Massacre against Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples occurred. The aftermath of the Indian War was the dissolution of the reservation in Eastern Colorado and the signing of the Medicine Lodge Treaty in 1867.
Afterward, grasshoppers swarmed through the area, stripping away all the vegetation. Denver’s population shrank from 4,749 in 1860 to only about 3,500 in 1866.
In 1867, Denver City became the Territorial Capital.
That year, Colorado Territorial Governor John Evans and other local business leaders partnered with East Coast investors to form a railroad company that would link Denver and the Colorado Territory with the national rail network. The company was incorporated on November 19, 1867, as the “Denver Pacific Railway and Telegraph Company.”
Racing to beat the Golden investors, the company broke ground on its Cheyenne line on May 18, 1868, and took approximately two years to complete. The first train from Cheyenne arrived in Denver on June 24, 1870. Two months later, in August 1870, the Kansas Pacific Railroad completed its line to Denver, and the first train arrived from Kansas.
Finally linked to the rest of the nation, Denver prospered as a service and supply center. The young city grew during these years, attracting millionaires with their mansions and a mixture of crime and poverty of a rapidly growing city.
Statehood, Corruption, and Growth
The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad’s first rails were laid in 1871. The railroad lines tackled the mountain barrier and opened the interior for settlement and commerce, and Denver became the natural distribution point for the region’s industries and agricultural products.
On August 1, 1876, Colorado was admitted to the Union.
The Denver Pacific Railroad’s rival, the Colorado Central line from Golden, was not completed until 1877. Denver had established its supremacy over its rival as the population center and capital city of the newly admitted State of Colorado. Denver’s population soared from 4,759 in 1870 to over 35,000 by 1880.
Between 1880 and 1895, the city underwent a massive rise in corruption as crime bosses worked side by side with city officials and police to profit from gambling and other criminal enterprises.
In 1881, Denver City was chosen as the permanent state capital by a statewide ballot. Denver City shortened its name to Denver. That year, the Leadville mining millionaire Horace Tabor built a business block at 16th and Larimer and the elegant Tabor Grand Opera House.
The United Way of America has roots in Denver; in 1887, when church leaders began the Charity Organization Society, which coordinated services and fundraising for 22 agencies.
Around the same time, Colorado gained the nickname “The World’s Sanatorium” for its dry climate, which was considered favorable for curing respiratory diseases, particularly tuberculosis.
The city’s economy gained a more stable base rooted in railroads, wholesale trade, manufacturing, food processing, and servicing the growing agricultural and ranching lands. Between 1870 and 1890, manufacturing output soared from $600,000 to $40 million, and the population grew by 20 times to 107,000.
After an expenditure of $1.6 million, the ten-story Brown Palace Hotel was completed in 1892. Splendid homes for millionaires, such as the Croke, Patterson, Campbell Mansion at 11th and Pennsylvania and the now-demolished Moffat Mansion at 8th and Grant, soon followed.
Economic Depression and Recovery
The Silver Crash of 1893 unsettled political, social, and economic balances, and Denver suffered a depression.
Denver was already suffering economically due to several successive years of droughts and harsh winters that had hurt the agricultural industry. As Denver banks closed, real estate values dropped, smelters stopped working, and Denver Tramway had trouble getting people to ride and pay their fares.
Women’s suffrage came early, in 1893, led by married middle-class women who organized first for Prohibition and then for voting.
As the silver mines began to close, unemployed miners flooded into Denver, hoping to find work. Because of the city’s inability to care for the jobless, some train companies began offering reduced or free fares for people wanting to travel from Denver. Denver’s population dropped from 106,000 in 1890 to 90,000 in 1895.
The Colorado State Capitol Building was completed in 1894. Designed by Elijah E. Myers, it is intentionally reminiscent of the United States Capitol.
The U.S. economy began to recover in 1897, and while jobs slowly began to trickle back into Denver, real estate prices remained depressed through 1900. Denver gained back the population it had lost during the depression and ended the century with a population of more than 133,000.
20th Century: Growth, War, and Social Change
In 1904, Robert W. Speer was elected mayor and initiated several projects that added new landmarks, updated existing facilities, or improved the city’s landscape.
In 1914, Emily Griffith, a Denver school teacher, opened the Opportunity School.
At this time, Denver’s park system was expanded, and mountain land was acquired for a future mountain park system. In 1906, the first National Western Stock Show was held, which quickly became the preeminent livestock show in the region.
On the brink of World War I, residents wanted Denver to stay neutral. However, once America entered the war in 1917, Denver contributed what it could to the war effort.
With the United States fighting the Germans in Europe in 1917-1918, anti-German sentiment in Denver was at an all-time high. Believing all evil began with the drink, prohibitionists cracked down on “un-American” activity, and in 1916, alcohol was banned in the state.
During this time, a revival of the Ku Klux Klan attracted white, native-born Americans who were anxious about the many changes in society.
The Ku Klux Klan had become a powerful group in Colorado by the 1920s, helping to elect Ku Klux Klan members Benjamin F. Stapleton, mayor of Denver, in 1923 and Clarence Morley, Governor of Colorado, in 1925. Colorado voters suspended the state’s Prohibition laws on July 1, 1933.
Denver financed the Moffat Tunnel through the Rocky Mountains in the mid-1920s.
Air travel was advancing around the same period. When Mayor Benjamin F. Stapleton opened Denver Municipal Airport in 1929, it was derided as a taxpayer subsidy for the powerful elite who flew for sport.
In 1929, the national economy crashed, leading to the Great Depression. In 1930, the weather turned dry, beginning the most widespread and longest-lasting drought in Colorado history, a period later referred to as the “Dust Bowl.” Franklin D. Roosevelt won the 1932 presidential election; he promised a “New Deal” that brought funds and jobs to Colorado and Denver.
On August 3, 1933, Denver was struck by a major flood caused by Cherry Creek following the failure of the Castlewood Dam.
The Burlington Railroad introduced the Zephyr in 1934 with a record-breaking 13-hour and five-minute trip from Denver to Chicago.
Denver had been selected for a new training airbase, Lowry Air Force Base, which opened in 1938. In 1941, the Denver Ordnance Plant opened.
After the war, many facilities continued to be utilized or were converted to different uses; for example, the Denver Ordnance Plant was converted into the Denver Federal Center.
From 1953 to 1989, the Rocky Flats Plant, a Department of Energy nuclear weapon facility formerly located about 15 miles from Denver, produced fissile plutonium “pits” for nuclear warheads.
As Denver’s population expanded rapidly, many old buildings were torn down to make way for new housing projects. By 1950, middle-class families were moving away from the downtown area, seeking larger houses and better schools; the suburbs multiplied as more people moved out of the city.
In the 1960s, Victorian homes were considered old-fashioned and unpopular and were targeted for demolition.
The Family Dog Denver was a music venue opened in 1967 by Chet Helms, Bob Cohen, and Barry Fey. The conflict between the city and the venue led to numerous municipal and federal court cases. The ten months the Family Dog Denver was open is seen as a watershed episode when Denver was put on the national music map.
The late 20th Century
In 1974, the Regional Transportation District took over responsibility for Denver’s public transportation. During this period, a “brown cloud” began to form over the Front Range due to air pollution from the increasing number of cars and people in the area.
By the mid-1970s, many wealthy residents were leaving Denver. However, the city continued to expand with the combined spending of the energy companies and the federal government.
With the 1979 energy crisis, the price of oil rose to over $30 a barrel, but by the mid-1980s, the price had slid to under $10 a barrel. Thousands of oil and gas industry workers lost their jobs, and unemployment rates soared.
In 1983, Federico Pena became the city’s first Latino mayor. Under the leadership of Pena, voters approved a $3 billion airport, the $126 million Colorado Convention Center, a $242 million bond for infrastructure, a $200 million bond for Denver Public Schools, and a 0.1% sales tax to build a new baseball stadium for the Colorado Rockies.
By the mid-1980s, Stapleton International Airport had become the seventh-largest airport globally and the seventh-largest in the United States.
In 1989, unemployment dropped to 5%, down from a high of 9.7% in 1982. Pollution-control measures came into force, helping to eliminate the toxic “brown cloud” that had hung over the city. “Lower Downtown,” formerly a warehouse district, was renovated and became a focal point for new urban development.
By 1990, the city’s population had fallen to 467,610, the lowest level in over 30 years.
In 1999, Denver metro area voters approved two property-tax increases to help fund the Transportation Expansion (T-REX) project. Colorado’s population had expanded from 3.1 million at the beginning of the 1990s to over four million by the end, and Denver closed out the decade with more than 554,000 people.
The 21st Century: A Modern Metropolis
By the early 21st century, Denver had become the hub of area communities, from Fort Collins on the north to Pueblo on the south–a Front Range megalopolis.
Over the next decade, Denver and Colorado attracted new industries. This diversification of the economy helped cushion the city and state from the global recession of 2008-2010.
Today, Denver continues to be the economic and political heart of Colorado. It is home to the state’s major institutions of government and commerce, and its people and organizations have connected the state’s various regions and the wider world.
The Denver downtown district is located immediately east of the confluence of Cherry Creek with the South Platte River, approximately 12 miles east of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
Today, Denver, Colorado has solidified its place as a vital economic, cultural, and transportation hub, a testament to its resilient spirit and enduring appeal.