%1 http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/ en Denver http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/denver <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Denver</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-article-image.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-article-image.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * 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--> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/denver-dmns"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Santomarco_Denver_DMNS_0.jpg?itok=ohZid4mJ" width="815" height="427" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/denver-dmns" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Denver from DMNS</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>View of the Denver skyline looking west from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME 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field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2016-08-03T15:33:26-06:00" title="Wednesday, August 3, 2016 - 15:33" class="datetime">Wed, 08/03/2016 - 15:33</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/denver" data-a2a-title="Denver"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fdenver&amp;title=Denver"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>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<strong> <a href="/article/rocky-mountains">Rocky Mountain</a></strong> foothills. Centered at the confluence of the <a href="/article/south-platte-river"><strong>South Platte River</strong></a> and <strong>Cherry Creek</strong>, the city and county of Denver together have a population of about 600,000. At an elevation of 5,280 feet, Denver has been nicknamed “The Mile High City.” <a href="/article/michael-hancock"><strong>Michael Hancock</strong></a> has served as mayor since 2011. More a conglomeration of suburbs than a single city, the Denver metropolitan area consists of Denver, <a href="/article/arapahoe-county"><strong>Arapahoe</strong></a>, <a href="/article/jefferson-county"><strong>Jefferson</strong></a>, <a href="/article/boulder-county"><strong>Boulder</strong></a> and <a href="/article/adams-county"><strong>Adams</strong></a> Counties and has a population of about 3.4 million. This area forms the cultural, economic, political, and social center of Colorado.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Indigenous Inhabitants</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Historically, Denver’s location at the intersection of the <a href="/article/colorado%E2%80%99s-great-plains"><strong>Great Plains</strong></a> and the <a href="/article/rocky-mountains"><strong>Rocky Mountains</strong></a> made it a place where people in the American West came together. Local prehistoric indigenous sites provide a record of cultural contact and mixing, featuring stone tool styles from sometimes hundreds or thousands of miles away. These early groups did not mark their boundaries on maps. Their territories were irregular and widespread, fluctuating with the ebb and flow of resources and political alliances. Nuche (<a href="/search/google/ute"><strong>Ute</strong></a>) and <strong>Apache</strong> peoples frequented the area of present-day Denver by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and by the nineteenth century, the site became a favorite winter campsite of the <strong>Cheyenne</strong> and <strong>Arapaho</strong>.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Golden Gamble</h2>&#13; &#13; <p><strong>William Green Russell</strong>, a veteran of both the Georgia and the California Gold Rushes, was one of many nineteenth-century Americans who surmised that the massive granite cordillera of the Rockies held mineral treasure. In July 1858, about eight miles above the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte, Russell’s prospecting party found a few ounces of gold. His find initiated the <a href="/article/colorado-gold-rush"><strong>Colorado Gold Rush</strong></a> (1858–59), which gave birth to Denver.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>On the west side of Cherry Creek, Russell and his party founded the first permanent settlement in what is now Metro Denver—<a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/auraria-west-denver"><strong>Auraria</strong></a>, from the Latin word for gold. On November 22, 1858, General <a href="/article/william-larimer-jr"><strong>William H. Larimer, Jr.</strong></a><strong>,</strong> jumped a claim across Cherry Creek from Auraria. He named his town Denver City, after Kansas Territorial Governor James Denver. Denver City became the seat of what was then <a href="/article/arapahoe-county"><strong>Arapahoe County</strong></a>, a huge swath of land stretching from the current Kansas border to the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/great-divide"><strong>Continental Divide</strong></a>. The <a href="/article/civil-war-colorado"><strong>Civil War</strong></a> soon swept Auraria’s Georgians away, and Yankee town builders took command, reorganizing the city as West Denver.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The gold rush prompted Congress to establish the <a href="/article/colorado-territory"><strong>Colorado Territory</strong></a> in 1861. That year the federal government also brokered the <a href="/article/treaty-fort-wise"><strong>Treaty of Fort Wise</strong></a>, reducing the territory of the Cheyenne and Arapaho people to a small reservation in eastern Colorado. Amidst rising tensions between whites and Native Americans, US troops under Col. <strong>John Chivington</strong> slaughtered more than 150 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho women, children, and elderly men at a camp on <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/sand-creek-massacre">Sand Creek</a> </strong>in November 1864. Enraged by the massacre, the Cheyenne and Arapaho, along with other Plains Indians, fought a protracted war against the US Army in Colorado until 1869, when the Cheyenne leader <strong>Tall Bull</strong> was defeated at <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/battle-summit-springs-0"><strong>Summit Springs</strong></a>. By that time, much of the remaining Cheyenne and Arapaho populations had been forced onto reservations in Wyoming and Oklahoma via the <a href="/article/medicine-lodge-treaties"><strong>Medicine Lodge Treaty</strong></a> of 1867. The next year the government brokered a <a href="/article/ute-treaty-1868"><strong>treaty</strong></a> with the Ute people that relocated most of them to a large reservation on the <a href="/article/western-slope"><strong>Western Slope</strong></a>.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>“The Great Braggart City”</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Denver City was a long shot, since most gold rush “cities” became ghost towns. But while other Coloradans <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/precious-metal-mining-colorado"><strong>mined gold</strong></a>, Denverites mined the miners, providing them with food, liquor, and entertainment in exchange for the wealth they found up in the hills. Denverites also bet on everything from dogfights to <a href="/article/snow"><strong>snowfall</strong></a>, gambling with mining stock, real estate, railroads, and bank notes. During the slow winter months, city fathers amused themselves with card games. Using town lots as poker chips, they won and lost whole blocks of downtown Denver in an evening.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Denver’s persistence puzzled visitors. The city had few visible means of support. It lacked the navigable waterways which usually helped cities thrive. Other towns, notably <a href="/article/golden"><strong>Golden</strong></a> and <a href="/article/boulder"><strong>Boulder</strong></a>, were closer to mines. <strong>Littleton</strong>, with its Rough and Ready Mill, had a solid agricultural base. Meanwhile, Denver faced the same problems—aridity and isolation—that left the prairies and mountains littered with ghost towns. It seemed that Denverites lived solely on excitement and speculation.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Beset by isolation and Indian conflicts, by drought and grasshoppers, the city owed its early survival to capable town builders and determined boosters. Chief among them were William Larimer and <a href="/article/william-n-byers"><strong>William N. Byers</strong></a>, founder and longtime editor and publisher of the <strong><em>Rocky Mountain News</em></strong>. Although stigmatized by some as the “Rocky Mountain Liar,” Byers and the <em>News</em> persisted in promoting Denver as the capital of Colorado. In early issues, Byers even puffed Denver as the steamboat hub of the rockies. It is not difficult to see why English traveler Isabella Bird called Denver “the Great Braggart City” when she visited in 1873.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>While steamboats never negotiated the South Platte River, railroads did arrive in 1870. This spiderweb of steel first enabled Denver to establish its metropolitan sway over Coloradans. Gold and silver ores mined in the mountains rode the rails into Denver’s smelters. The giant <strong>Argo</strong>, Globe, and Grant <strong>smelters</strong> became Denver’s biggest employers by the 1890s. Acrid, black smelter smoke hung over the city, signaling its emergence as an industrial center.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The city drew not only Colorado’s gold and silver, but also attracted the state’s mining magnates. Wealth and the wealthy from <a href="/article/central-city%E2%80%93black-hawk-historic-district"><strong>Central City</strong></a>, <a href="/article/leadville"><strong>Leadville</strong></a>, <a href="/article/aspen"><strong>Aspen</strong></a>, the <a href="/article/san-juan-mountains"><strong>San Juans</strong></a>, and <a href="/article/cripple-creek"><strong>Cripple Creek</strong></a> flowed into Denver.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>The Rush to Culture</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Colorado’s gold and silver rushes led to a culture rush, as Denver’s overnight millionaires hoped to impress the rest of the world—or at least other Coloradans—with their artistic and humanistic pursuits. Denver’s nouveaux riches found cultural trappings a way to separate themselves from less successful gold-grubbers. Peacocks in the front yard of mansions in <a href="/article/denver%E2%80%99s-capitol-hill"><strong>Capitol Hill</strong></a>, servants in the kitchen, and children off to Vassar and Yale helped the successful flaunt their new status. Inspired by both a sincere interest in culture as well as a means to defining an aristocracy, Denverites rushed to respectability. <a href="/article/horace-tabor"><strong>Horace Tabor</strong></a>, the “Silver King,” epitomized this trend, going from nouveau riche to a patron of the cultural arts.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Colorado did not produce any literary giants to immortalize the frontier era, no Willa Cather or <a href="/article/mari-sandoz"><strong>Mari Sandoz</strong></a>. Travelers such as Isabella Bird, Richard Townsend and Louis Simonin left lively, literary accounts, but not until the twentieth century would Coloradans such as <strong>Hal Borland</strong>, <strong>Marshall Sprague,</strong> and <strong>Frank Waters </strong>do literary justice to the white settlement of mountain and plain.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Historians have been luckier. <strong>Robert Athearn</strong>, Leroy Hafen, Frank Hall, Jerome C. Smiley, and Wilbur Fisk Stone all published state histories. Nearly every town and county compiled at least a booster booklet. The first generation of Coloradans were conscious of both history and culture. They prided themselves on being the first white Americans to see, to name, to settle, and to build.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>As early as 1872, Denver and other towns held pioneer picnics for their founding mothers and fathers. In 1879 the State Historical and Natural History Society (now <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/history-colorado-colorado-historical-society"><strong>History Colorado</strong></a>) was created. The state legislature gave the society $500 to collect, preserve, and exhibit Colorado’s heritage.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Denverites emphasized the edifying, ignoring the fact that their city and territorial governments had been conceived in saloon halls. Saloons also housed the first theaters, art exhibits, dance music, theater, and even libraries. By 1910 Denver had 410 saloons, offering a side variety of goods, services, arts, and amusements, as well as nickel beers and free lunches.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Bar art attested to early cultural aspirations. Today, original art is often confined to museums, corporate board rooms, and the homes of the wealthy, but in nineteenth-century Denver, much original saloon art was public art. Charles Stobie, a now celebrated western artist, lived above the Gallup &amp; Stanbury Saloon (which still stands at 1445 <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/larimer-square"><strong>Larimer Street</strong></a>) and exhibited his work downstairs in the bar. Byers of the <em>Rocky Mountain News</em> appraised Stobie’s work as “the most excellent and beautiful work in oil painting we have seen executed in this country.” Stobie’s works, like the paintings Charles Russell once swapped for drinks in the Mint Saloon, now command five- and six-digit prices. Most of Denver’s bar art perished under the reckless demolition of nineteenth-century buildings. Two exceptions are the landscapes on the old high-back booths at the <strong>Punch Bowl Tavern</strong> (2052 Stout Street) and the Windsor Hotel bar mural in the <strong>Oxford Hotel</strong> dining room.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Colorado artists and art lovers organized the Artists Club in 1893 to promote the visual arts. During the 1920s, this club was reorganized as the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/denver-art-museum"><strong>Denver Art Museum</strong></a>. Anne Evans, a leading benefactor and an artist herself, helped to establish what is still the Denver Art Museum’s strongest collection: its American Indian materials. In their rush to culture, many in the pioneer generation overlooked the treasures of earlier Indian cultures that are now showcased in public and private collections. Ironically, Anne was the daughter of territorial governor <a href="/article/john-evans"><strong>John Evans</strong></a>, who was removed from office for his role in the <u><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/sand-creek-massacre">Sand Creek Massacre</a></u>.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Colorado’s performing arts were also born in barrooms. Apollo Hall on Denver’s Larimer Street staged Colorado’s first theatrical performances in 1859, and the Occidental Hall on Blake Street featured Colorado’s “favorite balladist” to “delight all with operatic and sentimental, as well as comic songs.” At other times, this Blake Street bar advertised a reading room with the latest newspapers and free stationery, offering readers a haven two decades before the <a href="/article/denver-public-library"><strong>Denver Public Library</strong></a> was founded in 1886.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Such astonishing artistic efforts helped make Denver a cultural as well as a commercial capital for Colorado. Farmers from the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado’s-great-plains"><strong>eastern plains</strong></a>, ranchers from the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/san-luis-valley"><strong>San Luis Valley</strong></a> and the Western Slope, and mountain miners have long relied on Denver as an entertainment center.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Economic Diversity</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Flush times ended abruptly for Coloradans with the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/panic-1893"><strong>Panic of 1893</strong></a>. The price of silver—then the state’s chief product—tumbled from over one dollar an ounce to under sixty cents. In response, Denver diversified its economy. The city had previously relied on supplying and smelting for the mining industry, but now it shifted to other endeavors, including tourism and agricultural processing.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1894 Denverites launched the Festival of Mountain and Plain to promote tourism, boost local spirits, and advertise the region’s industrial diversity. A prominient example of the latter was <strong>Charles Gates</strong>, an out-of-work mining engineer, and his brother John. They invented the world’s first rubber v-belt, which, unlike earlier flat belts, did not slip off machinery wheels and helped improve machinery performance. The Gates hired Buffalo Bill to promote their belts, tires, and hoses. Gates rode his rubber accessories for horseless carriages into prominence and wealth with the auto age. As they built factories, sugar mills, barley elevators, train depots, and gas stations, Gates and other enterprising Denverites transformed not only the city but also the rest of the state.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Many of these entrepreneurs were immigrants. <a href="/article/adolph-coors"><strong>Adolph Coors</strong></a>, a teenage orphan from Germany, transformed long-stagnant Golden into a thriving brewery town. <strong>John Kernan Mullen</strong>, a young Irish immigrant, skipped school to work in a flour mill and wound up with a multi-million-dollar milling empire. Mullen’s <strong>Colorado Grain Elevator</strong> and Hungarian Flour empires owned wheat fields, grain elevators, and flour mills throughout the state. Rather than sink his money into mining, <strong>Charles Boettcher</strong>, a German immigrant, concentrated on hardware and mining supplies, then fathered the Great Western Sugar Company, the Ideal Cement Company, Capitol Life Insurance, the National Fuse and Powder Company, and the Bighorn Rand in North Park.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Racial and Ethnic Diversity</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Following the area’s long history as a gathering place, Denver has drawn people of many different races and ethnicities. Yet, as in other American cities, those who were considered white—a definition that has changed over time—had held most of the economic and political power since the mid-nineteenth century. Beginning then, relations between the various groups that have called Denver home were often fraught with tension.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Many of the city’s first white residents held ambivalent views toward Native Americans. Some even argued for their extermination through violence or other means. In 1866 the <em>Rocky Mountain News</em> declared that “savage tribes must give way to the western advance of empire,” suggesting that in lieu of extermination “by the sword … the remedy then consists in feeding them, and they will gorge themselves to death.”</p>&#13; &#13; <p>White Denverites also looked upon their Chinese neighbors with disdain, even though Chinese residents helped build the nation’s railroads and operated nearly all of the city’s laundering businesses, a critical part of the local service industry. By the late nineteenth century, Chinese residents in Denver had built a thriving community along present-day Wazee Street. Anti-Chinese sentiment came to head in the <strong>Anti-Chinese Riot of 1880</strong>. A white mob descended upon <a href="/article/denver%E2%80%99s-chinatown"><strong>Denver’s Chinatown</strong></a>, destroying property and beating dozens of Chinese residents, killing one. Denver’s Chinatown endured the assault and remained an integral part of the city until the 1940s.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>During the late nineteenth century, black railroad workers began moving their families to the<a href="/article/five-points"> <strong>Five Points</strong></a> neighborhood north of downtown, as it was closer to the tracks along the South Platte. By the 1920s Five Points had become majority black and was known as the “Harlem of the West,” attracting Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and other great musicians of the day. White Denverites enacted discriminatory housing practices, including racially restrictive covenants, to keep blacks in Five Points. Such agreements effectively barred black Denverites from new housing developments until the state supreme court outlawed racially restrictive covenants in 1957.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>While black businesses and culture were thriving in north Denver during the 1920s, the city’s Latino population grew in the Auraria neighborhood on the west side of Cherry Creek. By 1940 the city’s Spanish-speaking population had expanded to other neighborhoods northeast and southwest of downtown. Like blacks, Latinos faced discrimination in housing, education, law enforcement, and employment, but because they were relative newcomers, their plight was often worse. A survey conducted by the Denver Area Welfare Council in 1950, for instance, found that Spanish-speaking residents were twice as likely to live in substandard housing as black residents, and blacks’ per capita income was double that of Latinos.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>With the resurgence of the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/ku-klux-klan-colorado"><strong>Ku Klux Klan</strong></a> in the early 1920s, race relations had reached a nadir. The KKK numbered in the hundreds of thousands and eventually achieved de facto political control over the entire state. Members included Denver mayor <strong>Benjamin F. Stapleton</strong>, Denver police chief William J. Candlish, at least twenty Denver police officers, a state supreme court justice, and even the governor, <strong>Clarence J. Morley</strong>. Klan members threatened the local chapter of the NAACP, held well-attended cross-burnings, boycotted Catholic businesses, hurled insults while driving through Jewish neighborhoods, and chased blacks out of new white neighborhoods. By 1925, corruption and political ineptitude doomed the Klan in Colorado, as Klan policemen’s ties to vice trades were exposed and the Colorado Grand Dragon was investigated for tax evasion. Stapleton, however, remained Denver’s ineffective yet immovable mayor until 1947.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Social Struggles and Civil Rights Campaigns</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, as they did in other American cities, black and Latino Denverites took part in social movements that sought to change long-entrenched patterns of discrimination. De facto <strong>segregation</strong> and discrimination continued in Denver, despite the state supreme court’s 1957 ban on restrictive housing covenants and the election of Denver’s first black city council member, <a href="/article/elvin-r-caldwell"><strong>Elvin Caldwell</strong></a>, in 1955. In the 1960s black Denverites organized boycotts of discriminatory businesses such as Denver Dry Goods and staged sympathy sit-ins to demonstrate their solidarity with other black sit-ins across the country. In the late 1960s the local chapter of the Black Panther Party found traction, sponsoring free breakfasts for black school children while loudly criticizing racist policies and actions by Denver officials and police.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1965 <a href="/article/rodolfo-%E2%80%9Ccorky%E2%80%9D-gonzales"><strong>Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales</strong></a> organized "La Crusada para La Justicia," the Crusade for Justice, which became part of the broader Chicano Movement that gained traction in Denver and across the country in the 1960s. Gonzales’s crusade advocated for Latino self-determination through control of local schools and ethnic solidarity, while also calling for an end to employment and police discrimination against Denver’s Latino population. While the candidate for his Chicano political party,  La Raza Unida, garnered just 2 percent of the vote in the gubernatorial election of 1970, Gonzales’s campaign nonetheless demonstrated the political power of Latinos in the Mile High City.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>As Gonzales was unifying Denver’s Latinos, the city’s Native American population was growing. It began to increase in the 1950s, when the federal government encouraged members of western tribes to move to western cities. Many of the city’s new Native American residents were poorer than either blacks or Latinos, and several intertribal support agencies—such as the White Buffalo Council and the <strong>Denver Indian Center</strong> of Denver Native Americans United—provided social support and services to members of the Navajo, Lakota, and other tribes.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Economic Decline and Renewal</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>In the early 1980s, Denver’s economic fortunes again crashed alongside the price of a major Colorado commodity. This time it was not silver but oil. In the 1970s Colorado had enjoyed an energy boom thanks to development of oil shale deposits on the Western Slope. But in 1983 the price of crude oil plummeted from $42 a barrel to $10, and unemployment and office vacancy rates soared. The oil bust retaught lessons of the Silver Panic of 1893. Led by Governor <strong>Roy Romer </strong>and Denver mayor <strong>Federico Peña</strong>, Denverites explored new economic possibilities, such as high-tech, computer-age enterprises. Meanwhile, Coloradans could take some comfort in economic mainstays such as tourism and recreation. Additionally, in 1988 the city designated the portion of Lower Downtown Denver between Twentieth Street, Larimer Street, Cherry Creek, and Wynkoop Street—locally known as “<a href="/article/lodo-lower-downtown-denver"><strong>LoDo</strong></a>”—as a historic district. In 1991 Denverites elected the development-minded <strong>Wellington Webb </strong>to the mayor’s office. Webb, the city’s first black mayor, served for twelve years and oversaw the completion of a new airport, the arrival of new sports teams, and the expansion of the city’s parks and art museum.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The successful redevelopment of LoDo brought Major League Baseball’s <strong><a href="/article/colorado-rockies">Colorado Rockies</a> </strong>to Denver in 1995. The franchise built its stadium, <strong>Coors Field</strong>, on the northeast edge of the Historic District at Twentieth and Blake Streets. Architects incorporated elements of the surrounding buildings into the stadium’s design, adding red brick and stone trim. Just across Cherry Creek, the Pepsi Center (now <strong>Ball Arena</strong>) opened in 2000 as home for the National Basketball Association’s <a href="/article/denver-nuggets"><strong>Denver Nuggets</strong></a> and the National Hockey League’s <a href="/article/colorado-avalanche"><strong>Colorado Avalanche</strong></a>. These two giant venues, along with the addition of <strong>Dick’s Sporting Goods Park</strong> in Commerce City in 2006, made the Denver Metro Area into a sports fan’s paradise. Of course, Mile High Stadium, the home of the <a href="/article/denver-broncos"><strong>Denver Broncos</strong></a> on the west bank of the South Platte, had already been a national sports landmark for decades.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Metro Denver Today</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Denver is different from other large American cities in several ways. First, its population is generally well educated, with the second-highest per capita education level in the country. Second, most are residents by choice rather than birth—the city, and especially the suburbs, are filled with immigrants from across the nation and world who are more likely to be “United in Orange” (as Broncos fans) than by a common ancestry. In recent years, Denver residents have also continued the city’s long tradition of political activism, organizing protests against Wall Street, police brutality, the federal government and Internal Revenue Service, and the city’s treatment of the homeless.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Denverites are also unusually mobile, both in vehicles and with their legs. The American Fitness Index ranks Denver as the third-fittest city in the nation, ahead of both Seattle and Portland. Denverites also own about 1.5 vehicles per household, ranking in the top 25 percent among American cities; the emissions from so many vehicles often creates a visible layer of smog above the city. <a href="/article/union-station-0"><strong>Union Station</strong></a> once made Denver a hub for state and regional travel, but since 1995 <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/denver-international-airport"><strong>Denver International Airport</strong></a> (DIA) has taken up that mantle. DIA is the sixth-busiest airport in the United States and the largest by land area, covering more than 33,500 acres. The <strong>Regional Transportation District</strong>, meanwhile, supplies Metro Denver residents with bus and light rail service, including to DIA.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Perhaps the greatest asset of this automobile metropolis is easy escape to the wide open spaces. Within an hour’s drive to the east lie prairie ghost towns and the exquisite solitude of the Great Plains. An hour’s drive to the west takes Denverites to <a href="/article/denver-mountain-parks"><strong>Denver’s Mountain Parks</strong></a> system and the campgrounds, hiking trails, and <a href="/article/ski-industry"><strong>ski</strong></a> areas of the Continental Divide. Long after the founding generations of Denver extolled the beauty of the Front Range, the easy escape to Colorado’s other attractive regions remains one of the Mile High City’s best attributes.</p>&#13; &#13; <p><em>This article is an abbreviated and updated version of the author’s essay “Denver: Mile High Metropolis and Capitol of the Five States of Colorado,” distributed in 2006 as part of <strong>Colorado Humanities</strong>’ “Five States of Colorado” educational resource kit.</em></p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/noel-thomas-j" hreflang="und">Noel, Thomas J.</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/denver-museum-nature-and-science" hreflang="en">denver museum of nature and science</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/lodo" hreflang="en">lodo</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/city-beautiful-movement" hreflang="en">city beautiful movement</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/mayor-denver" hreflang="en">mayor of denver</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/denver-mountain-parks" hreflang="en">denver mountain parks</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/denver-history" hreflang="en">denver history</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/tom-noel" hreflang="en">tom noel</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/metro-denver" hreflang="en">metro denver</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/denver" hreflang="en">Denver</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/william-larimer" hreflang="en">william larimer</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/jr" hreflang="en">Jr.</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/colorado-gold-rush" hreflang="en">Colorado Gold Rush</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/mile-high-city" hreflang="en">mile high city</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/queen-city" hreflang="en">queen city</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/lower-downtown-denver" hreflang="en">lower downtown denver</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/coors-field" hreflang="en">coors field</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/five-points" hreflang="en">Five Points</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/capitol-hill" hreflang="en">capitol hill</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/aurora" hreflang="en">aurora</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/arvada" hreflang="en">arvada</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/commerce-city" hreflang="en">commerce city</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/thornton" hreflang="en">Thornton</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/brighton" hreflang="en">brighton</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/lakewood" hreflang="en">lakewood</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/auraria" hreflang="en">auraria</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/cherry-creek" hreflang="en">Cherry Creek</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/south-platte-river" hreflang="en">south platte river</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/regional-transportation-district" hreflang="en">Regional Transportation District</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/front-range" hreflang="en">front range</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/denver-broncos" hreflang="en">Denver Broncos</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/colorado-rockies" hreflang="en">Colorado Rockies</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/interstate-25" hreflang="en">Interstate 25</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/interstate-70" hreflang="en">interstate 70</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/tourism" hreflang="en">tourism</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/rossonian-hotel" hreflang="en">rossonian hotel</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/robert-s-roeschlaub" hreflang="en">robert s. roeschlaub</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/barney-ford" hreflang="en">Barney Ford</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/washington-park" hreflang="en">Washington Park</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/city-park" hreflang="en">City Park</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/city-hall" hreflang="en">city hall</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>Carl Abbott, Stephen Leonard, and David McComb, <em>Colorado: A History of the Centennial State</em>, 5th ed. (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2013).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Air Traffic Activity System, “<a href="https://aspm.faa.gov/">Airport Operations: Ranking Report</a>,” Federal Aviation Administration, 2016.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>American Fitness Index, “<a href="https://acsmsoftware.com/afi/rankings/">2016 AFI Report</a>.”</p>&#13; &#13; <p>“<a href="https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/cgi-bin/colorado?a=d&amp;d=RMD18660706.2.2&amp;srpos=48&amp;e=-------en-20-RMD-41">Among the Mountains</a>,” <em>Rocky Mountain News</em>, July 6, 1866.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Isabella Bird, <a href="https://www.mckinley.k12.hi.us/ebooks/pdf/llirm10.pdf"><em>A Lady’s Life in the Rockies</em></a> (1879).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Summer Burke, “<a href="https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&amp;amp;httpsredir=1&amp;amp;article=1017&amp;amp;context=psi_sigma_siren">Community Control: Civil Rights Resistance in the Mile High City</a>,” <em>Psi Sigma Siren </em>7, no. 1 (January 2012).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>“<a href="https://voicesofthecivilrightsmovement.com/Video-Collection/2015/12/04/denvers-sit-in-movement/">Denver’s Sit-In Movement</a>,” Voices of the Civil Rights Movement, December 4, 2015.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Governing.com, “<a href="https://www.governing.com/archive/car-ownership-numbers-of-vehicles-by-city-map.html">Car Ownership in US Cities</a>,” 2010-13.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>John Ingold, “<a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2009/04/15/5000-attend-tax-day-tea-party-at-capitol/">5,000 attend tax-day ‘tea party’ at Capitol</a>,” <em>The Denver Post</em>, April 15, 2009.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>“Invisible Government,” <em>Denver Express</em>, March 27, 1924.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Sarah M. Nelson, K. Lynn Berry, Richard F. Carrillo, Bonnie L. Clark, Lori E. Rhodes, and Dean Saitta, <em>Denver: An Archaeological History</em> (Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 2008).</p>&#13; &#13; <p> Thomas J. Noel, <em>The City and the Saloon, Denver, 1858–1916 </em>(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Thomas J. Noel, <em>Showtime: Denver’s Performing Arts, Convention Centers &amp; Theatre District </em>(Denver: Denver’s Division of Theatres &amp; Arenas, 2008).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Thomas J. Noel, “<a href="https://history.denverlibrary.org/news/when-kkk-ruled-colorado-not-so-long-ago">When the KKK Ruled Colorado: Not So Long Ago</a>,” Denver Public Library Western History and Geneaology, June 19, 2013.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Kristin Leigh Painter, “<a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2012/05/01/occupy-denver-joins-occupy-wall-street-in-may-day-protest/">Occupy Denver joins Occupy Wall Street in May Day protest</a>,” <em>The Denver Post</em>, May 1, 2012.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Thomas H. Simmons, R. Laurie Simmons, and Dawn Bunyak, “Historic Residential Subdivisions of Metropolitan Denver, 1940–1965,” US Department of the Interior, National Park Serivice form 10-900 (Denver: History Colorado, 2010).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Virginia McConnell Simmons, <em>The Ute Indians of Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico </em>(Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2000).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>“<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/tea-party-activists-rally-at-denver-irs-office/">Tea Party Activists Rally At Denver’s IRS Office</a>,” <em>CBS Denver</em>, May 21, 2013.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Chris Walker, “<a href="https://www.westword.com/news/homeless-sweeps-protests-planned-at-rockies-opener-denver-art-museum-7784003">Homeless Sweeps: Protests Planned at Rockies Opener, Denver Art Museum</a>,” <em>Westword</em>, April 8, 2016.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Elliott West, <em>The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado </em>(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998).</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p><a href="https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&amp;d=RMW18591214&amp;e=-------en-20--1-byDA-img-txIN%7ctxCO%7ctxTA-">Denver City Charter, 1859</a>.</p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="https://digital.denverlibrary.org/">Denver Public Library, Western History &amp; Geneaology Digital Collections</a></p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="https://www.denverwater.org/">Denver Water</a></p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="https://www.englewoodco.gov/">Englewood</a></p>&#13; &#13; <p>Steve Grinstead, ed., <em>Denver Inside and Out</em>,<em> Colorado History </em>16 (2011).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Stephen J. Leonard and Thomas J. Noel, <em>Denver: Mining Camp to Metropolis </em>(Niwot: University of Colorado Press, 1990).</p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="https://lodo.org/">Lower Downtown Denver</a></p>&#13; &#13; <p>Thomas J. Noel, <em>Mile High City: An Illustrated History of Denver </em>(Encinitas, CA: Heritage Media, 1997).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Rocky Mountain PBS, <a href="https://video.rmpbs.org/video/2365603226/">"Speer &amp; the City,"</a> <em>Colorado Experience</em>, November 5, 2015.</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Wed, 03 Aug 2016 21:33:26 +0000 yongli 1575 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org William Larimer, Jr. http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/william-larimer-jr <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">William Larimer, Jr.</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2016-05-18T15:35:45-06:00" title="Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - 15:35" class="datetime">Wed, 05/18/2016 - 15:35</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/william-larimer-jr" data-a2a-title="William Larimer, Jr."><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fwilliam-larimer-jr&amp;title=William%20Larimer%2C%20Jr."></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>General William Larimer, Jr. (1809–75), was a prominent nineteenth-century town promoter, prospector, and legislator in the Kansas and <a href="/article/colorado-territory"><strong>Colorado</strong></a> Territories. He is known for establishing the city of <a href="/article/denver"><strong>Denver</strong></a>. Larimer’s life serves as an example of the pitfalls of conducting business in the American West. He is the namesake of <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/larimer-square"><strong>Larimer Street</strong></a> in Denver and <a href="/article/larimer-county"><strong>Larimer County</strong></a> in northern Colorado.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Larimer’s ancestors emigrated from Scotland to what became Adams County, Pennsylvania, around 1700. He was born on October 24, 1809, in Circleville, Pennsylvania, and grew up on his family’s <a href="/article/homestead"><strong>homestead</strong></a>. As a young adult, Larimer embarked on many different business ventures: he acquired stone for the Philadelphia Turnpike, managed a Conestoga wagon line, organized a profitable coal company, and established a wholesale grocery store. He also worked as an innkeeper and a banker in Pittsburgh and founded two railroads in the area: the Pittsburgh and Connellsville and the Remington Coal Railroad.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Between 1833 and 1855, Larimer served in the Pennsylvania Militia, eventually obtaining the rank of major general. Never one for modesty, he used the title <em>General </em>for the rest of his life. Politics also drew Larimer’s attention. A Presbyterian and abolitionist, Larimer associated himself with the Whig Party from 1844 to 1852 and then became a Republican. In 1835 he married Rachel McMasters, and by 1854 the couple had nine children.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Moving Westward</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>An economic depression in 1854 destroyed the modest fortune Larimer had amassed. The next year he left his family in the east and traveled alone to the area of Council Bluffs, Nebraska. In February 1855 Larimer and Nebraska Governor T. B. Cumming, Colonel R. Hogoboom, and Colonel B. P. Rankin formed the La Platte (Nebraska) Town Company and laid out a site at the junction of the Platte and Missouri Rivers. Although Larimer did not invest any of his own money into the La Platte venture, he borrowed the necessary funds and therefore owned the town and its surrounding lands.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>La Platte was only one of Larimer’s town ventures in Nebraska. In the summer of 1857 he filed for the site of Larimer City, describing himself as president of the Larimer City Town Company. He began a sales campaign for Larimer City, or “Larimer,” and sent circulars to potential settlers in the east. The town of Larimer survived only briefly; so fleeting was its existence that deed records today do not even specify its location.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Larimer served in the Nebraska Territorial Legislature in 1855–56 and supported the abolitionist agenda as he had in Pennsylvania. After being defeated in an election by his former development partners, Cumming and Rankin, in 1858 Larimer moved his family to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, a key staging point for treks westward. Always recognizing transportation as a keystone of opening the frontier, Larimer organized a freighting company in Fort Leavenworth, and on at least one occasion he addressed a meeting urging railroads into the region. Involved in his favorite pursuit—boosterism—Larimer prospered in Kansas while working for the formation of the Kansas Republican Party, and he was elected president of its first organizational meeting.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Colorado Territory</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1858 Larimer’s two oldest sons wanted to go to Colorado to participate in the <a href="/article/colorado-gold-rush"><strong>Gold Rush</strong></a> following the discovery of gold in Cherry Creek. On October 1, 1858, Larimer, his son William Henry Harrison, and four other men—the so-called Leavenworth Party—set out for Colorado. The party traveled from Easton, Kansas, to Topeka, Council Grove, Diamond Springs, and along the <a href="/article/santa-f%C3%A9-trail-0"><strong>Santa Fé Trail</strong></a> to <strong><a href="/article/bents-forts">Bent’s Fort</a> </strong>in southeast Colorado. Larimer’s group reached the headwaters of <strong>Cherry Creek</strong>, east of present-day Denver, on November 12, 1858.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Four days later, the men moved their camp to the west side of the junction of the <a href="/article/south-platte-river"><strong>South</strong> <strong>Platte River</strong></a> and Cherry Creek. A virtually unimproved townsite called St. Charles already stood at the site, so the Leavenworth Party jumped the claim and made it their own. Charles Nichols of the St. Charles Town Company, who had made a trip back east for supplies, returned and found his townsite occupied by Larimer’s group. Larimer argued that Nichols’s group did not have a binding claim to the site, and threatened to have him hung if he caused more trouble. On November 22, 1858, Larimer helped organize the Denver City Town Company. For the first day, the hamlet was named “<a href="/article/golden"><strong>Golden</strong></a> City,” but soon changed its name to “Denver City,” after Kansas territorial governor James Denver. Forty-one shares were issued in the original Denver City Company, and the site encompassed 2,200 acres.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Denver</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Larimer began buying and selling real estate in Denver City from the outset. Records of land transactions in the Denver Clerk and Recorder’s Office show him as receiving property eleven times and disposing of land seven times during the 1859 fiscal year. Between 1859 and 1875, he is recorded fifteen times as land grantee and twenty times as grantor, with prices ranging from $1 to $1,000. Larimer was listed in the <em>Denver City Directory </em>of 1859 as a real estate agent from Leavenworth.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Denver quickly became the seat of <a href="/article/arapahoe-county"><strong>Arapahoe County</strong></a>, Kansas Territory, but the city’s promoters sought more. Ever the booster, Larimer outlined other prospects for the city’s continued growth, including agricultural and mining developments, as early as the winter of 1858–59. A firm believer in <strong>Manifest Destiny</strong>, Larimer also emphasized the prospects for rail transportation, which he said would arrive in 1870. On May 7, 1859, Larimer attracted the Leavenworth and Pike’s Peak Stage Line to Denver. That spring, Larimer and William Clancy laid out a graveyard on the later site of <a href="/article/cheesman-park"><strong>Cheesman Park</strong></a>, naming it Mount Prospect Cemetery. On April 5, 1860, Larimer’s tireless campaigning saw the consolidation of the nearby settlement of <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/auraria-west-denver"><strong>Auraria</strong></a> and Denver City; the new town dropped <em>city </em>from its name and became simply Denver.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Bid for Governor</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>A week after Abraham Lincoln was elected president on November 6, 1860, Larimer helped to assemble and organize Denver’s Republicans. He was selected as a local party secretary, and made two speeches: one in support of the Republican Party in general, and one specifically backing President Lincoln. On December 5 Larimer left Denver for Washington, DC to lobby for the creation of the Colorado Territory and to see about a political appointment for himself. Colorado became a territory on February 28, 1861, and on March 5 the Colorado delegation and Larimer met with the newly inaugurated President Lincoln. Despite Larimer’s high hopes that he might fill the office of territorial governor, Lincoln selected <a href="/article/william-gilpin"><strong>William Gilpin</strong></a>, who had the backing of Missouri, a slave state that Lincoln hoped would remain in the Union during the ongoing secession crisis. Gilpin also had more experience in territorial government, having helped set up the government of the Oregon Territory. Larimer, meanwhile, was haunted by his earlier failures in Nebraska and was considered by the president to be little more than a local dreamer with no great accomplishments.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Larimer returned to Denver in May 1861, his popularity and energy apparently unaffected by his failure to become the first territorial governor. Larimer remained active in city and territorial governments, but the Civil War, mining slowdowns, and conflicts with local Native American bands led to a downturn in Colorado’s economy, diminishing his real estate holdings. On January 18, 1862, Larimer and his two oldest sons returned to Leavenworth. After a short and unsuccessful trip to Denver to recruit for the Union Army the following August, on December 6, 1862, Larimer received commission as second lieutenant in Company A, 14th Kansas Cavalry. Larimer spent the remainder of the war in Kansas and Arkansas before being discharged as a captain.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>From 1867 to 1870, Larimer served in the Kansas Senate. His name was occasionally mentioned for both Kansas governor and US senator, but neither campaign materialized. During the 1872 presidential election, Larimer worked for the election of his old acquaintance and fellow Colorado colonizer <strong>Horace Greeley</strong>. Before he could realize his next plan for organizing a bank in Carson City, Nevada, Larimer died May 16 on his farm near Leavenworth at the age of sixty-five.</p>&#13; &#13; <p><strong>Adapted from Joan Ostrom Beasley, “Unrealized Dreams: General William Larimer, Jr.,” <em>Colorado Heritage Magazine</em> 16, no. 3 (1996).</strong></p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/encyclopedia-staff" hreflang="und">Encyclopedia Staff</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/general" hreflang="en">General</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/william" hreflang="en">William</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/larimer" hreflang="en">Larimer</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/jr" hreflang="en">Jr.</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/general-william-larimer-jr" hreflang="en">General William Larimer Jr.</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p>Josh Dinar and Jeffrey Steen, <em>Denver: Then and Now </em>(London: Pavilion Books, 2014).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Lyle W. Dorsett, <em>The Queen City: A History of Denver</em> (Boulder, CO: Pruett, 1977).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>William Larimer, Jr., William Henry Harrison, and Herman Stearns Davis, <em>Reminiscences of General William Larimer and of His Son William H.H. Larimer, Two of the Founders of Denver City</em> (Lancaster, PA: Press of the New Era, 1918).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Stephen J. Leonard and Thomas J. Noel, <em>Denver: Mining Camp to Metropolis </em>(Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 1991).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Elliot West, <em>The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado </em>(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998).</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-4th-grade--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-4th-grade.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-4th-grade.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-4th-grade field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-field-4th-grade"><p>General William Larimer, Jr. (1809–75), was a nineteenth-century town promoter. He was also a legislator in the Kansas and Colorado Territories. He is known for establishing the city of Denver. Larimer Street in Denver and Larimer County in northern Colorado are named for him.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Larimer was born on October 24, 1809, in Circleville, Pennsylvania. He grew up on his family’s homestead. Larimer had many different business ventures. He acquired stone for the Philadelphia Turnpike. He managed a wagon line. Larimer organized a profitable coal company. He also established a grocery store. Larimer also worked as an innkeeper and a banker in Pittsburgh. He founded two railroads in the area.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Between 1833 and 1855, Larimer served in the Pennsylvania Militia. He obtained the rank of major general. He used the title General for the rest of his life. Politics also drew Larimer’s attention. He became a Republican. In 1835 he married Rachel McMasters. By 1854 the couple had nine children.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Moving Westward</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>An economic depression in 1854 destroyed Larimer's modest fortune. The next year he left his family in the east. Larimer traveled to the area of Council Bluffs, Nebraska. In February 1855 Larimer and others formed the La Platte (Nebraska) Town Company. They laid out a site at the junction of the Platte and Missouri Rivers. Larimer owned the town and its surrounding lands.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>La Platte was only one of Larimer’s town ventures in Nebraska. In the summer of 1857 he filed for the site of Larimer City. He began a sales campaign for Larimer City, or “Larimer.” He sent circulars to potential settlers. The town of Larimer didn't survive long. It was so short-lived that records do not even specify its location.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Larimer served in the Nebraska Territorial Legislature in 1855–56. He was defeated in an election by his former development partners.  In 1858 Larimer moved his family to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The town was a staging point for treks westward. Larimer recognized transportation was key to opening the frontier. He organized a freighting company in Fort Leavenworth. On at least one occasion he addressed a meeting urging railroads into the region. Larimer prospered in Kansas. He worked for the formation of the Kansas Republican Party.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Colorado Territory</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1858 Larimer’s two oldest sons wanted to go to Colorado to participate in the Gold Rush. On October 1, 1858, Larimer, his son, and four other men set out for Colorado. Larimer’s group reached the headwaters of Cherry Creek, east of present-day Denver, on November 12, 1858.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Four days later, the men moved their camp. They went to the west side of the junction of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek. An unimproved townsite called St. Charles stood at the site. The Leavenworth Party made it their own. Charles Nichols of the St. Charles Town Company had made a trip back east for supplies. When he returned, he found his townsite occupied by Larimer’s group. Larimer threatened to have Nichols hung if he caused trouble. On November 22, 1858, Larimer helped organize the Denver City Town Company. For the first day, the site was named “Golden City.” The name was changed to “Denver City,” after Kansas territorial governor James Denver. The site encompassed 2,200 acres.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Denver</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Larimer began buying and selling real estate in Denver City. Records show him receiving property eleven times. He disposed of land seven times during 1859. Larimer was listed in the Denver City Directory of 1859 as a real estate agent from Leavenworth.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Denver became the seat of Arapahoe County, Kansas Territory. The city’s promoters wanted more. Larimer had ideas for the city’s growth. These included farming and mining developments. Larimer also emphasized railroad prospects. On May 7, 1859, Larimer attracted the Leavenworth and Pike’s Peak Stage Line to Denver. Larimer and William Clancy laid out a graveyard on the later site of Cheesman Park. They named it Mount Prospect Cemetery.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>On April 5, 1860, the nearby settlement of Auraria and Denver City combined. The new town dropped city from its name and became Denver.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Bid for Governor</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Abraham Lincoln was elected president on November 6, 1860. A week after, Larimer helped to organize Denver’s Republicans. He was selected as a local party secretary. He made two speeches. One was in support of the Republican Party in general. The other backed President Lincoln. On December 5 Larimer left Denver for Washington, DC. He went to lobby for the creation of the Colorado Territory. Larimer also wanted to see about a political appointment for himself. Colorado became a territory on February 28, 1861. On March 5, the Colorado delegation met with President Lincoln. Larimer hoped that he might fill the office of territorial governor. However, Lincoln selected William Gilpin. Gilpin had the backing of Missouri. Missouri was a slave state. Lincoln wanted Missouri to remain in the Union during the Civil War. Gilpin also had more experience in territorial government. Gilpin had helped set up the government of the Oregon Territory. Larimer was haunted by his earlier failures in Nebraska.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Larimer returned to Denver in May 1861. He remained active in government. The Civil War and mining slowdowns led to a downturn in Colorado’s economy. This impacted Larimer's real estate holdings. On January 18, 1862, Larimer and his two oldest sons returned to Leavenworth. On December 6, 1862, Larimer received commission as second lieutenant in Company A, 14th Kansas Cavalry. Larimer spent the remainder of the war in Kansas and Arkansas. He was discharged as a captain.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>From 1867 to 1870, Larimer served in the Kansas Senate. His name was mentioned for both Kansas governor and US senator. Neither campaign happened. Before he could realize his next dream of organizing a bank in Carson City, Nevada, Larimer died. He was sixty-five.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-8th-grade--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-8th-grade.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-8th-grade.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-8th-grade field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-field-8th-grade"><p>General William Larimer, Jr. (1809–75), was a nineteenth-century town promoter and legislator in the Kansas and Colorado Territories. He is known for establishing the city of Denver. Larimer Street in Denver and Larimer County in northern Colorado are named for him.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Larimer’s ancestors emigrated from Scotland to Pennsylvania around 1700. He was born on October 24, 1809, in Circleville, Pennsylvania. He grew up on his family’s homestead. Larimer embarked on different business ventures. He acquired stone for the Philadelphia Turnpike. He managed a Conestoga wagon line. Larimer organized a profitable coal company. He also established a wholesale grocery store. Larimer also worked as an innkeeper and a banker in Pittsburgh. He founded two railroads in the area.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Between 1833 and 1855, Larimer served in the Pennsylvania Militia. He obtained the rank of major general. He used the title General for the rest of his life. Politics also drew Larimer’s attention. Larimer was a Presbyterian and abolitionist. He associated himself with the Whig Party from 1844 to 1852. Then he became a Republican. In 1835 he married Rachel McMasters. By 1854 the couple had nine children.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Moving Westward</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>An economic depression in 1854 destroyed Larimer's modest fortune. The next year he left his family in the east. Larimer traveled alone to the area of Council Bluffs, Nebraska. In February 1855 Larimer and others formed the La Platte (Nebraska) Town Company. They laid out a site at the junction of the Platte and Missouri Rivers. Larimer owned the town and its surrounding lands.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>La Platte was only one of Larimer’s town ventures in Nebraska. In the summer of 1857 he filed for the site of Larimer City. He began a sales campaign for Larimer City, or “Larimer,” and sent circulars to potential settlers. The town of Larimer didn't survive long. It was so short-lived that records do not even specify its location.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Larimer served in the Nebraska Territorial Legislature in 1855–56. He supported the abolitionist agenda. Larimer was defeated in an election by his former development partners.  In 1858 Larimer moved his family to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The town was a key staging point for treks westward. Larimer recognized transportation was key to opening the frontier. He organized a freighting company in Fort Leavenworth. On at least one occasion he addressed a meeting urging railroads into the region. Larimer prospered in Kansas. He worked for the formation of the Kansas Republican Party.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Colorado Territory</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1858 Larimer’s two oldest sons wanted to go to Colorado to participate in the Gold Rush. On October 1, 1858, Larimer, his son William Henry Harrison, and four other men set out for Colorado. Larimer’s group reached the headwaters of Cherry Creek, east of present-day Denver, on November 12, 1858.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Four days later, the men moved their camp. They went to the west side of the junction of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek. An unimproved townsite called St. Charles stood at the site. The Leavenworth Party jumped the claim and made it their own. Charles Nichols of the St. Charles Town Company had made a trip back east for supplies. When he returned, he found his townsite occupied by Larimer’s group. Larimer argued that Nichols’s group did not have a binding claim to the site. Larimer threatened to have Nichols hung if he caused more trouble. On November 22, 1858, Larimer helped organize the Denver City Town Company. For the first day, the hamlet was named “Golden City.” The name was changed to “Denver City,” after Kansas territorial governor James Denver. The site encompassed 2,200 acres.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Denver</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Larimer began buying and selling real estate in Denver City. Records show him receiving property eleven times. He disposed of land seven times during 1859. Larimer was listed in the Denver City Directory of 1859 as a real estate agent from Leavenworth.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Denver became the seat of Arapahoe County, Kansas Territory. The city’s promoters wanted more. Larimer outlined prospects for the city’s continued growth. These included farming and mining developments. Larimer also emphasized railroad prospects. On May 7, 1859, Larimer attracted the Leavenworth and Pike’s Peak Stage Line to Denver. Larimer and William Clancy laid out a graveyard on the later site of Cheesman Park. They named it Mount Prospect Cemetery.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>On April 5, 1860, the nearby settlement of Auraria and Denver City combined. The new town dropped city from its name and became Denver.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Bid for Governor</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Abraham Lincoln was elected president on November 6, 1860. A week after, Larimer helped to organize Denver’s Republicans. He was selected as a local party secretary. He made two speeches. One was in support of the Republican Party in general. The other backed President Lincoln. On December 5 Larimer left Denver for Washington, DC. He went to lobby for the creation of the Colorado Territory. Larimer also wanted to see about a political appointment for himself. Colorado became a territory on February 28, 1861. On March 5, the Colorado delegation met with President Lincoln. Larimer hoped that he might fill the office of territorial governor. However, Lincoln selected William Gilpin. Gilpin had the backing of Missouri. Missouri was a slave state. Lincoln hoped Missouri would remain in the Union during the ongoing secession crisis. Gilpin also had more experience in territorial government. Gilpin had helped set up the government of the Oregon Territory. Larimer was haunted by his earlier failures in Nebraska. The president considered Larimer to be a local dreamer with few accomplishments.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Larimer returned to Denver in May 1861. He remained active in government. The Civil War, mining slowdowns, and conflicts with local Native American bands led to a downturn in Colorado’s economy. This impacted Larimer's real estate holdings. On January 18, 1862, Larimer and his two oldest sons returned to Leavenworth. On December 6, 1862, Larimer received commission as second lieutenant in Company A, 14th Kansas Cavalry. Larimer spent the remainder of the war in Kansas and Arkansas. He was discharged as a captain.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>From 1867 to 1870, Larimer served in the Kansas Senate. His name was mentioned for both Kansas governor and US senator. Neither campaign happened. Before he could realize his next dream of organizing a bank in Carson City, Nevada, Larimer died. He was sixty-five.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-10th-grade--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-10th-grade.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-10th-grade.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-10th-grade field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-field-10th-grade"><p>General William Larimer, Jr. (1809–75), was a nineteenth-century town promoter, prospector, and legislator in the Kansas and Colorado Territories. He is known for establishing the city of Denver. Larimer’s life serves as an example of the pitfalls of conducting business in the American West. Larimer Street in Denver and Larimer County in northern Colorado are named for him.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Larimer’s ancestors emigrated from Scotland to Pennsylvania around 1700. He was born on October 24, 1809, in Circleville, Pennsylvania. He grew up on his family’s homestead. Larimer embarked on different business ventures. He acquired stone for the Philadelphia Turnpike. He managed a Conestoga wagon line. Larimer organized a profitable coal company. He also established a wholesale grocery store. Larimer also worked as an innkeeper and a banker in Pittsburgh. He founded two railroads in the area. They were the Pittsburgh and Connellsville and the Remington Coal Railroad.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Between 1833 and 1855, Larimer served in the Pennsylvania Militia. He obtained the rank of major general. He used the title General for the rest of his life. Politics also drew Larimer’s attention. Larimer was a Presbyterian and abolitionist. He associated himself with the Whig Party from 1844 to 1852. Then he became a Republican. In 1835 he married Rachel McMasters. By 1854 the couple had nine children.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Moving Westward</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>An economic depression in 1854 destroyed Larimer's modest fortune. The next year he left his family in the east. Larimer traveled alone to the area of Council Bluffs, Nebraska. In February 1855 Larimer and Nebraska Governor T. B. Cumming and others formed the La Platte (Nebraska) Town Company. They laid out a site at the junction of the Platte and Missouri Rivers. Larimer owned the town and its surrounding lands.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>La Platte was only one of Larimer’s town ventures in Nebraska. In the summer of 1857 he filed for the site of Larimer City. Larimer described himself as president of the Larimer City Town Company. He began a sales campaign for Larimer City, or “Larimer,” and sent circulars to potential settlers. The town of Larimer didn't survive long. Its existence was so fleeting that deed records do not even specify its location.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Larimer served in the Nebraska Territorial Legislature in 1855–56. He supported the abolitionist agenda. Larimer was defeated in an election by his former development partners.  In 1858 Larimer moved his family to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The town was a key staging point for treks westward. Larimer recognized transportation key to opening the frontier. He organized a freighting company in Fort Leavenworth. On at least one occasion he addressed a meeting urging railroads into the region. Larimer prospered in Kansas while working for the formation of the Kansas Republican Party. He was elected president of its first organizational meeting.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Colorado Territory</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1858 Larimer’s two oldest sons wanted to go to Colorado to participate in the Gold Rush. On October 1, 1858, Larimer, his son William Henry Harrison, and four other men—the so-called Leavenworth Party—set out for Colorado. The party traveled from Easton, Kansas, to Topeka, Council Grove, Diamond Springs, and along the Santa Fé Trail to Bent’s Fort in southeast Colorado. Larimer’s group reached the headwaters of Cherry Creek, east of present-day Denver, on November 12, 1858.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Four days later, the men moved their camp to the west side of the junction of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek. A virtually unimproved townsite called St. Charles already stood at the site. The Leavenworth Party jumped the claim and made it their own. Charles Nichols of the St. Charles Town Company, who had made a trip back east for supplies, returned and found his townsite occupied by Larimer’s group. Larimer argued that Nichols’s group did not have a binding claim to the site. Larimer threatened to have Nichols hung if he caused more trouble. On November 22, 1858, Larimer helped organize the Denver City Town Company. For the first day, the hamlet was named “Golden City.” The name was changed to “Denver City,” after Kansas territorial governor James Denver. Forty-one shares were issued in the original Denver City Company. The site encompassed 2,200 acres.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Denver</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Larimer began buying and selling real estate in Denver City from the outset. Records show him as receiving property eleven times. He disposed of land seven times during the 1859 fiscal year. Between 1859 and 1875, he is recorded fifteen times as land grantee and twenty times as grantor, with prices ranging from $1 to $1,000. Larimer was listed in the Denver City Directory of 1859 as a real estate agent from Leavenworth.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Denver quickly became the seat of Arapahoe County, Kansas Territory, but the city’s promoters sought more. Ever the booster, Larimer outlined other prospects for the city’s continued growth, including agricultural and mining developments, as early as the winter of 1858–59. A firm believer in Manifest Destiny, Larimer also emphasized the prospects for rail transportation, which he said would arrive in 1870. On May 7, 1859, Larimer attracted the Leavenworth and Pike’s Peak Stage Line to Denver. That spring, Larimer and William Clancy laid out a graveyard on the later site of Cheesman Park, naming it Mount Prospect Cemetery. On April 5, 1860, Larimer’s tireless campaigning saw the consolidation of the nearby settlement of Auraria and Denver City; the new town dropped city from its name and simply became Denver.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Bid for Governor</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>A week after Abraham Lincoln was elected president on November 6, 1860, Larimer helped to assemble and organize Denver’s Republicans. He was selected as a local party secretary, and made two speeches: one in support of the Republican Party in general, and one specifically backing President Lincoln. On December 5 Larimer left Denver for Washington, DC to lobby for the creation of the Colorado Territory and to see about a political appointment for himself. Colorado became a territory on February 28, 1861, and on March 5 the Colorado delegation and Larimer met with the newly inaugurated President Lincoln. Despite Larimer’s high hopes that he might fill the office of territorial governor, Lincoln selected William Gilpin, who had the backing of Missouri, a slave state that Lincoln hoped would remain in the Union during the ongoing secession crisis. Gilpin also had more experience in territorial government, having helped set up the government of the Oregon Territory. Larimer, meanwhile, was haunted by his earlier failures in Nebraska and was considered by the president to be little more than a local dreamer with no great accomplishments.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Larimer returned to Denver in May 1861, his popularity and energy apparently unaffected by his failure to become the first territorial governor. Larimer remained active in city and territorial governments, but the Civil War, mining slowdowns, and conflicts with local Native American bands led to a downturn in Colorado’s economy, diminishing his real estate holdings. On January 18, 1862, Larimer and his two oldest sons returned to Leavenworth. After a short and unsuccessful trip to Denver to recruit for the Union Army the following August, on December 6, 1862, Larimer received commission as second lieutenant in Company A, 14th Kansas Cavalry. Larimer spent the remainder of the war in Kansas and Arkansas before being discharged as a captain.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>From 1867 to 1870, Larimer served in the Kansas Senate. His name was occasionally mentioned for both Kansas governor and US senator, but neither campaign materialized. During the 1872 presidential election, Larimer worked for the election of his old acquaintance and fellow Colorado colonizer Horace Greeley. Before he could realize his next plan for organizing a bank in Carson City, Nevada, Larimer died May 16 on his farm near Leavenworth at the age of sixty-five.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Wed, 18 May 2016 21:35:45 +0000 yongli 1411 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org