Denver City was a long shot. Many other Gold Rush towns hoped to become the county seat, the territorial capital, the regional metropolis.
One early visitor, Rose Kingsley, marveled at “one of the most successful of all the new cities of the West.” She noted that Denver looked precarious and isolated. It lacked the major river, seaport or other advantages that usually determine where cities thrive.
The baby town, she wrote, “looked just as if it had been dropped out of the clouds accidentally by someone who meant to carry it farther but got tired, and let it fall anywhere.”
Denver triumphed over Auraria, Golden, Boulder, Cañon City, Colorado City, Pueblo and many other rivals because of its determined builders and boosters.
Chief among them was William Byers, founding editor of the Rocky Mountain News. In constantly promoting Denver, Byers even ran a column announcing steamboat arrivals and departures. This creative journalism aimed to convince naive Easterners that Denver would be the new St. Louis, the transportation hub of the newly settled Rocky Mountain region. Visit Denver, the official agency boosting the city ever since 1909, has worn seven different names in the process. Until becoming Visit Denver last year, it was long known as the Denver Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau, but officially started out as the Denver Convention League.
After becoming a rail hub in the 1870s, Denver puffed itself as the Queen City of the Mountains and Plains. Denver’s tireless boosters subsequently decided that “The Queen City” was old hat. Furthermore, the nickname was shared with such “Queen Cities” as Buffalo, Cincinnati and Seattle. Boosters mulled over other possibilities: The Best All Around City in the World. Denver: Better by a Mile. Distinctive Denver. Garden City of the Plains. City of Sunshine. City of Lights. Front Door of the West. City of Homes. The City of Hospitality. City Beautiful.
The Chamber, the Convention League, and other city boosters eventually decided on a unique, site-specific nickname: The Mile High City. Of course, naysayers found fault, pointing out that Denver’s elevation, depending on where you are, ranged from 5,110 feet to 5,600 feet above sea level.
Ignoring such quibbling, the state of Colorado in 1909 placed a bronze “One Mile Above Sea Level” plaque on the west steps of the State Capitol. The city also began putting up Mile High signs, though they, like the bronze markers in the Capitol steps, proved irresistible to souvenir swipers. After the fourth “Mile High” bronze marker disappeared from the steps of the Capitol, longtime Capitol Superintendent James Merrick had “One Mile Above Sea Level” chiseled into one step in 1947.
When engineering students from Colorado State University discovered that this inscription was off by a few inches, yet another marker was added three steps higher. Despite ongoing attempts to figure out exactly where the city is precisely 5,280 feet high, Denver remains “The Mile High City.”
Don’t miss “Imagine a Great City” at the Colorado History Museum, which is sponsoring a symposium Feb. 27-28, “Denver Inside and Out.” Twenty leading scholars will explore the Mile High City’s past and Ed Quillen and Tom Noel will debate “What Good is Denver?” To register, call 303-688-4648 or go to .
