Denver, Colorado

Denver, Colorado, has a population of 554,636 for the core city and county, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. Another 1.7 million reside in the metro area's suburban counties (Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, and Jefferson).

[Page 215]Denver was founded November 22, 1858 after a gold discovery at the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River. Founder William H. Larimer Jr. named the city for James W. Denver, governor of Kansas Territory, of which east central Colorado was then a part.

Numerous other gold discoveries sparked a mass migration of some 100,000 in 1859 to 1961, leading the federal government to establish Colorado Territory in 1861. Denver was incorporated on November 7, 1861 by a special act of the first session of the Legislative Assembly of Colorado Territory. In 1867, Denver became the capital of Colorado Territory and remained the capital after Colorado became a state on August 1, 1876. Denver has emerged as the cultural, distribution, entertainment, financial, service, and transportation hub of not only Colorado but also much of the Rocky Mountain region.

Denver became a city and county with home rule when Article XX was added to the Colorado Constitution in 1902. Under the City Charter enacted May 29, 1904, Denver has a strong mayor and city council government overseen by an independent, elected city auditor. Denver is located on at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains in north central Colorado. With an elevation of 5,280 feet, the “Mile High City” has a cool, dry, sunny climate that makes it a magnet for health seekers and those enjoying outdoor recreation year-round.

Denver's aggressive leadership, spearheaded by William N. Byers, founding editor of the Rocky Mountain News, and Territorial Governor John Evans, built the Denver Pacific Railway (1870) to Cheyenne, Wyoming and the Union Pacific mainline. In the isolated, sparsely populated Rocky Mountain West, these transportation connections enabled Denver to emerge as the trading center. While Denver captured the commercial and territorial capital, its onetime rival, Boulder, settled for the state university. Another rival, Golden, received the Colorado School of Mines. Denver became the urban hub for Colorado and neighboring states by constructing a spiderweb of rail lines. The largest and longest lived of these local lines was the narrowgauge Denver & Rio Grande.

Between 1870 and 1890, Denver grew from 4,759 to 106,713, becoming the second most populous metropolis in the West, behind only San Francisco. Mining fueled this growth; Colorado led the country in silver production during the 1880s and in gold during the 1890s. Denver's railroads carried many of the hinterland's ores to Denver's smelters, the city's single largest 19th-century industry.

The Depression of 1893 and Repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act abruptly ended Denver's first boom. Civic leaders began promoting economic diversity—farming of wheat and sugar beets, ranching and the Denver Livestock Exchange, manufacturing, tourism, and service industries. Denver began growing again after 1900, but at a slower rate.

Stockyards, brickyards, canneries, flour mills, leather, and rubber goods nourished the city during the early 1900s. Of many breweries, Coors has emerged as one of the three national giants. Regional or national headquarters of many oil and gas firms in the Mile High City fueled much of Denver's post–World War I growth and an eruption of 40- and 50-story high-rises downtown.

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