Denver County

Alan Berg (1934–84) was an outspoken Denver radio broadcaster in the 1970s and 1980s known for his unapologetic attacks on the far right, religious extremism, and white supremacy. At the time of his assassination by the white supremacist group The Order in 1984, Berg was one of Denver ’s most...

In 1863 the black pioneer Barney L. Ford built the People’s Restaurant at 1514 Blake Street in Denver . The success of the restaurant helped make Ford into one of the the state’s most influential black business and civic leaders. Although the building has undergone extensive alterations since Ford’...

Financed by and named after the early Denver developer Henry C. Brown , the Brown Palace Hotel opened on Broadway in 1892 in an elegant triangular building that was the tallest in the city at the time. For much of the twentieth century the hotel was owned by the Boettcher family , which expanded it...

Caroline Bancroft (1900–85) was a prominent author, journalist, organizer, and socialite in twentieth-century Denver. Bancroft’s extensive writings on Colorado’s local history established the importance of the genre and served as an example for generations of historians who followed in her...

One of the jewels of Denver’s park and parkway system , Cheesman Park (1601 Race St, Denver, CO 80206) sits on land that originally served as the city’s first cemetery. In 1890 the cemetery was closed, many—but not all—graves were relocated, and a park designed by Denver’s first landscape architect...

Established in 1882, City Park is Denver ’s largest urban park, occupying nearly 320 acres between East Seventeenth and East Twenty-Third Avenues from York Street to Colorado Boulevard. Designed primarily by civil engineers Henry Meryweather and Walter Graves in the 1880s and by Reinhard Schuetze...

The Colorado Avalanche, based in Denver , is the only National Hockey League (NHL) team in Colorado, competing in the Central Division of the league’s Western Conference. Formerly the Quebec Nordiques, the team arrived in Denver in 1995 and won the Stanley Cup—the NHL title—in its first season as...

Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) is the state agency that manages wildlife and oversees outdoor recreation in Colorado. The agency operates the state park system, administers hunting and fishing licenses, conducts research on chronic wasting disease and other subjects related to maintaining...

The Croke-Patterson-Campbell Mansion at 420 E. Eleventh Avenue in Denver is one of the oldest still-standing residences in the city. It was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the castle-like mansion’s...

Denver is the capital of Colorado and the twenty-first largest city in the United States, sprawling over six counties and 3,497 square miles of the High Plains and the Rocky Mountain foothills. Centered at the confluence of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek , the city and county of Denver...

Established by Congress in 1862, the Denver Mint operated for more than four decades as an assay office, determining the quality of bullion but not producing any coins. In 1895 Congress authorized the mint to produce coins and also provided for a new building, which opened in 1904 at the corner of...

The Denver Nuggets, Colorado’s professional basketball team, compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as part of the Northwest Division in the association’s Western Conference. While an amateur-league team named the Denver Nuggets competed in the 1930s and 1940s, the current Nuggets...

The Denver Tramway Strike of 1920 typified the active militancy of many labor unions during the early 1900s. The strike brought the conversation surrounding labor relations to the forefront of Denver politics and would influence the larger labor landscape for decades to come. Today the strike is...

For economic reasons, as well as to protect themselves from an Anglo-American culture that mostly viewed them with contempt, Denver ’s Chinese residents established an ethnic enclave in the city around 1870. The neighborhood endured decades of racially motivated violence and other forms of abuse,...

One of the preeminent medical and scientific minds of the early twentieth century, Dr. Florence Rena Sabin (1871–1953) was a public servant devoted to improving public health. As the first woman to receive a full professorship at Johns Hopkins University, Sabin was also a successful woman in the...

Located at what was once the corner of Tenth and Lawrence Streets in the middle of the Auraria Higher Education Center , Emmanuel Shearith Israel Chapel is the oldest surviving religious building in Denver . Built in 1876–77 as the Emmanuel Episcopal Church, the building was sold in 1903 to the...

Fort Logan National Cemetery is located at the intersection of South Sheridan Boulevard and West Kenyon Avenue in southwest Denver . It started in 1889 as the small post cemetery at Fort Logan . The fort was closed after World War II , but in 1950 the cemetery became the seed of a newly designated...

Frank Marugg (1887–1973) was an inventor who developed the “Denver Boot,” a device that immobilizes a vehicle for ticketing purposes. Despite a lifetime of pursuits in various other industries, the boot remains the most notable achievement of Marugg’s professional career. Still, his life story...

Denver’s history is full of innovation and success associated with the emergence of air travel, but perhaps just as many ventures failed. Though Gray Goose Airways was ultimately unsuccessful, founder Jonathan Edward Caldwell was doggedly persistent in its development and displayed an unwavering...

As a pioneering woman in a field dominated by men, Hannah Marie Wormington (1914–94) carved a scholarly niche for herself on the frontiers of American archaeology. She was a larger-than-life figure whose impact went far beyond the dozens of publications she produced to include mentorship for many...

Harry Tuft (1935–) is a Denver businessman, music promoter, educator, and proprietor of the long-standing Denver Folklore Center . As one of Denver’s enterprising musicians in the 1960s and 1970s, Tuft brought the genre of folk music and its culture to Denver and was responsible for some of Red...

Located at 1900 California Street in Denver , Holy Ghost Catholic Church is known for its long tradition of ministering to downtown Denver’s poor and homeless, as well as for its Renaissance-style church building designed in 1923 by Jules Jacques Benois Benedict . For nearly twenty years, however,...

Built in 1890 at 2335 Arapahoe Street in Denver , the Justina Ford House served for forty years as the home and office of Colorado’s first black woman physician. In 1984 the house was moved to save it from demolition, and after renovations it opened at 3091 California Street as the new home of the...

Officially known as the Union Station neighborhood until The Denver Post’ s Dick Kreck first referred to it as LoDo (as in Manhattan’s SoHo) in a 1983 column, Lower Downtown Denver has become a national model of how a decaying core city neighborhood can be converted to a thriving residential,...

Minnie Reynolds Scalabrino (1865–1936) was a newspaperwoman, candidate for political office, and lifelong suffragette in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth. She played an important role in the women’s suffrage movement in Colorado and worked tirelessly in other states to secure the...

Rita Brady Kiefer has published two full-length poetry collections— Nesting Doll, finalist for the Colorado Book Award, and Crossing Borders —and three chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Face to Face (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux), Hunger...

Robert Roeschlaub (1843–1923) was Colorado’s first officially licensed architect, working in Denver during the early settlement era. Roeschlaub played a central role in defining the city’s building code, which has affected the development of Denver’s built environment through the present. Today,...

Ruth Underhill (1883–1984) was a prominent anthropologist in the mid- to-late twentieth century, and one of the first female anthropologists to reach the stature regularly enjoyed by male colleagues. As a professor at the University of Denver later in life, Underhill published dozens of works on...

The South Platte River flows from its headwaters in the Mosquito Range west of South Park across Colorado’s northeastern plains . From downtown Fairplay to the Nebraska border at Julesburg , its course through Colorado is approximately 380.3 miles. Today, water administrators and water...

St. Luke’s Hospital was a Denver fixture for over a century, serving the community as one of several hospitals in the capitol. St. Luke’s role in training several generations of doctors and nurses garners historical significance for the building complex. Today, only one of the hospital’s buildings...

The Square Dance was adopted as the official state folk dance on March 16, 1992 by an act of the General Assembly. Square dancing is the American folk dance which traces its ancestry to the English country dance and the French ballroom dance, and which is called, cued, or prompted to the dancers...

The Denver Woman’s Press Club is an organization for women newspaper writers and authors founded in 1898. At the time of its founding, the club demonstrated the new social and political power of women through its involvement in a range of causes, including the women’s suffrage movement in the early...

In 1951, a B-29 Superfortress taking off from Lowry Air Force Base crashed in Denver ’s Hilltop neighborhood. As the smoke cleared, the deadly crash illustrated the need for better safety procedures at military bases near residential areas and the necessity of regulating the expansion of military...

The Tremont House Hotel was established in the fall of 1859 near Cherry Creek in Auraria (later West Denver) and soon became one of Denver ’s top hotels. In the 1880s, the hotel declined as flood-prone West Denver became home to immigrants and industry while wealthy residents moved to new...

Developed in the 1890s and early 1900s, Washington Park is a scenic recreational area occupying about 160 acres southeast of downtown Denver . Designed around a portion of City Ditch by landscape architects Reinhard Schuetze and Saco DeBoer , the park features two lakes and a large meadow and has a...

Based in Denver , Wonderbound was established in 2002 and has quickly grown into the second-largest professional dance company in Colorado. Originally called Ballet Nouveau Colorado and affiliated with a Broomfield -based dance school of the same name, in 2012–13 the company split with the dance...