Denver is a new city — only 150 years old. Yet its history is a mystery to many locals, not to mention visitors.
It began as a Native American camp amid the cottonwood trees and wild choke cherries at the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River. In 1857, Mexicans discovered gold in the South Platte (near the present day Florida Avenue bridge) and established Mexican Diggings.
Whites found gold a year later and jumped everyone else’s claims to found Denver City. “Bummers” ran wild in the town until Judge Lynch and his vigilantes began stringing up bad guys from the Larimer Street bridge and cottonwood trees.
Along with the cottonwoods and choke cherries, most evidence of Denver’s early Native American, Hispanic and gold rush history has vanished. You can find clues, along with monuments in the city’s subsequent development, on this mystery tour. You don’t need a car or gas — just comfortable shoes and RTD’s free mall shuttle.
A tour through Colorado History
1. Colorado History Museum, 1300 Broadway
Down in the basement, check out the giant diorama of Denver in 1860. Based on photographs and intensive research, this extremely accurate model shows the Arapaho teepees on the site which Chief Little Raven shared with pale-faced prospectors.
2. State Capitol, East Colfax Avenue and Sherman Street
White conquest and settlement is epitomized by the commanding State Capitol two blocks northeast of the Colorado History Museum. Henry Brown homesteaded Capitol Hill and gave land for the Capitol hoping to enhance his surrounding residential development. The recently restored dome area contains a fabulous exhibit, Mr. Brown’s Attic.
3. Brown Palace Hotel, 17th and Broadway
Once you’ve seen Mr. Brown’s Attic, head three blocks north on Broadway to see his hotel. Despite Denver’s many ups and downs, the Brown Palace has been open every single day since Aug. 12, 1892. In the awesome, nine-story-high, stained- glass, skylighted atrium, note the huge onyx fireplace that is now the entrance to the Brown Palace Spa. Don’t dally for a drink in the Ship Tavern, or your tour may end early. Head one block down Tremont to jump on the 16th Street Shuttle and head for Wazee Street.
4. Oxford Hotel, 17th and Wazee
Architect Frank Edbrooke, who designed the Brown Palace as his masterpiece two years later, practiced on this 1890 hotel, now Denver’s oldest. Ask for the free history brochure at the front desk and start looking for the ghosts. In the Oxford’s Art Deco dream, the Cruise Room, you will find Denver’s best martinis and wall panels soaked in history. Note the Native Americans “Here’s How” and “Bottoms Up” and Russia’s Joseph Stalin. When the Cruise Room was created in 1930 to celebrate the repeal of Prohibition, Denver artist Alley Henson handcarved these toasts to the world’s leading national characters.
5. Union Station/Welcome Arch, 17th and Wynkoop
On July 4, 1906, Mayor Robert W. Speer dedicated the giant welcome arch in front of Union Station. He promised it would stand there forever to greet travelers, investors and conventioneers. “Forever” is not long in Denver, where Mayor Richard Begole junked the arch in 1931, calling it “an impediment to the automobile.” Today some hope to recreate the park that once fronted the station and restore the Welcome arch as “an impediment to the automobile.”
6. Hop Alley/China Town, alley between Market and Blake from 17th to 21st
On Halloween of 1880, a mob ransacked Hop Alley, beating up Chinese and burning their businesses. The rioters claimed they were saving Denver from the “dirty, filthy Chinese.” Market Street’s “soiled doves” were the only ones to come to the rescue of the Asians, who provided them with clean sheets and opium (hence the term “Hop Alley”).
7. House of Mirrors, 1942 Market St.
Martha Ready, aka Mattie Silks, flirted her way to the top, becoming the monarch of Colorado madams. When her great rival, Jennie Rogers, built this fabulous House of Mirrors as Denver’s finest sex shop, Mattie fumed. She determined to buy the building, which she ultimately added to her string of Market Street cat houses. This stone-faced landmark is now restored as a bar, restaurant and museum of whoredom.
8. Sakura Square/Old Japan Town, 19th to 20th between Larimer and Lawrence Streets
Like the Chinese confined to Hop Alley, the Japanese were restricted by prejudice to Japan Town. When the Denver Urban Renewal Authority ordered them out to bulldoze the area, Japanese interests bought the block and renewed it themselves. They managed to save the exquisite Buddhist temple, wrapping it in a new building at 1947 Lawrence St. Tamai Towers, various Japanese shops and restaurants and lovely gardens make this one of the most intriguing nooks of downtown.
9. Auraria Campus
Head southwest on Larimer Street across Cherry Creek to Auraria. At the bridge, pause at Creekfront Park to ponder the site. Cottonwoods once here and the old wooden Larimer Street bridge were used by Judge Lynch to do his grisly work. The judge left the bodies dangling as a warning — hoping to calm a lower downtown area plagued by saloon hall bummers, mayhem and gunfire.
On the southwest side of the creek is old Auraria, the original gold rush camp that evolved into today’s Denver. Auraria was urban-renewed in the 1970s to construct the Auraria Campus shared by Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State College of Denver, and the University of Colorado at Denver. Don’t miss the preserved churches and synagogue, and the reincarnated Tivoli Brewery. Ninth Street Historic Park is the best preserved block of the old 19th-century city, complete with the corner grocery store.
On the west edge of Auraria lie the South Platte River bottoms and Mexican Diggings. No marker or trace survives of this Spanish-speaking 1857 gold camp once frequented by both Native and Hispanic Americans. Yet they first discovered the promised land, this paradise on the Platte that we call Denver. The South Platte & Cherry Creek pedestrian/bicycle paths provide an alternative return route to downtown.
Happy Trails.
Tom “Dr. Colorado” Noel conducts tours for his University of Colorado Denver history classes, the Colorado Historical Society and the Smithsonian Institution. His Guide to 606 Colorado Historic Places is a finalist for the 2008 Colorado Books Awards.
