Destination Denver
No matter your interests or the season, Denver has something interested to offer every traveler. From sporting events at Mile High Stadium to the Loveland Ski Area with its incredible snow, you’ll find an activity, event, exceptional meal, and excellent accommodations.
Plan ahead so that you don’t miss out on any of the things you want to do while you’re visiting the city.
During the summer, plan to visit the Denver Zoo, Denver Botanic Gardens, or Elitch Gardens amusement park.
There are wonderful cafés and cozy restaurants to grab a bite to eat.
If you’re the type that enjoys museums you can visit during any season and go to the Denver Art Museum or the Museum of the Americas.
From the Gumbo’s, with its fine seafood and Creole cuisine, to the Italian tastes of Primo Ristorante, there are plenty of opportunities for fine dining.
For the mystery buff, don’t forget to attend a performance at Adams Mystery Theater, Denver’s original mystery dinner theater Or, reserve a table at Lumber Baron Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre, for a unique, cultural experience.
Those looking for some action in the nightlife, don’t have far to go either.
Among the dozens of Denver nightclubs are Coyote Ugly Saloon, Falling Rock Tap House, and Giggling Grizzly.
You can also take a Coors Brewery tour, complete with taste testing for those who are of legal age.
Remember to book your rooms well in advance, if you can. They fill up quickly, especially during special tourist seasons.
The City and County of Denver (pronounced /dnv/) is the capital and the most populous city of Colorado, in the United States.
Denver is located in the South Platte River Valley on the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Southern Rocky Mountains.
The Denver downtown district is located immediately east of the confluence of Cherry Creek with the South Platte River, approximately 15 miles (24 km) east of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
Denver is nicknamed the Mile-High City because its official elevation is exactly one mile (5280 feet or 1609.344 m) above sea level.
The United States Census Bureau estimates that, in 2006, the population of the City and County of Denver was 566,974, making it the 26th most populous U.S. city.
The Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area had an estimated 2006 population of 2,408,750 and ranked as the 21st most populous U.S. metropolitan statistical area, and the larger Denver-Aurora-Boulder Combined Statistical Area had an estimated 2006 population of 2,927,911 and ranked as the 17th most populous U.S. metropolitan area.
The city claims to have the 10th largest downtown in the United States.
History
Denver City was founded in November of 1858 as a mining town during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush in western Kansas Territory.
That summer, a group of gold prospectors from Lawrence, Kansas, arrived and established Montana City on the banks of the South Platte River. This was the first settlement in what was later to become the city of Denver.
The site faded quickly, however, and was abandoned in favor of Auraria (named after the gold-mining town of Auraria, Georgia) and St. Charles City by the summer of 1859.
The Montana City site is now Grant-Frontier Park and includes mining equipment and a log cabin replica.
On November 22, 1858, General William Larimer, a land speculator from eastern Kansas, placed cottonwood logs to stake a claim on the hill overlooking the confluence of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek, across the creek from the existing mining settlement of Auraria. Larimer named the town site Denver City to curry favor with Kansas Territorial Governor James W. Denver.
Larimer hoped that the town's name would help make it the county seat of Arapaho County, but ironically Governor Denver had already resigned from office.
The location was accessible to existing trails and was across the South Platte River from the site of seasonal encampments of the Cheyenne and Arapaho. The site of these first towns is now the site of Confluence Park in downtown Denver.
Larimer, along with associates in the St. Charles City Land Company, sold parcels in the town to merchants and miners, with the intention of creating a major city that would cater to new emigrants.
Denver City was a frontier town, with an economy based on servicing local miners with gambling, saloons, livestock and goods trading.
In the early years, land parcels were often traded for grubstakes or gambled away by miners in Auraria.
The Colorado Territory was created on February 28, 1861, Arapahoe County was formed on November 1, 1861, and Denver City was incorporated on November 7, 1861.
Denver City served as the Arapahoe County Seat from 1861 until consolidation in 1902.
In 1865, Denver City became the Territorial Capital. With its new-found importance, Denver City shortened its name to just Denver.
On August 1, 1876, Denver became the State Capital when Colorado was admitted to the Union.
Between 1880-1895 the city experienced a huge rise in city corruption, as crime bosses, such as Soapy Smith, worked side-by-side with elected officials and the police to control the elections, gambling, and the bunko gangs.
In 1887, the precursor to the international charity United Way was formed in Denver by local religious leaders who raised funds and coordinated various charities to help Denver's poor.
By 1890, Denver had grown to be the second largest city west of Omaha, but by 1900 it had dropped to third place behind San Francisco and Los Angeles.
In 1901 the Colorado General Assembly voted to split Arapahoe County into three parts: a new consolidated City and County of Denver, a new Adams County, and the remainder of the Arapahoe County to be renamed South Arapahoe County.
A ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court, subsequent legislation, and a referendum delayed the creation of the City and County of Denver until 1902-11-15.
Denver hosted the 1908 Democratic National Convention to promote the city's status on the national political and socio-economic stage. Beat icon Neal Cassady was raised on Larimer Street in Denver, and a portion of Jack Kerouac's beat masterpiece On the Road takes place in the city, and is based on the beat's actual experiences in Denver during a road trip. Beat poet Allen Ginsberg lived for a time in a basement apartment on Grant Street (no longer standing), and Kerouac briefly owned a home in the Denver suburb of Lakewood in the late spring and summer of 1949.
In addition, Ginsberg helped found the "Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa," in nearby Boulder at the Buddhist college Naropa University, then Naropa Institute.
Denver was selected to host the 1976 Winter Olympics to coincide with Colorado's centennial celebration, but Colorado voters struck down ballot initiatives allocating public funds to pay for the high costs of the games, so the games were moved to Innsbruck, Austria.
The notoriety of becoming the only city ever to decline to host an Olympiad after being selected has made subsequent bids difficult.
The movement against hosting the games was based largely on environmental issues and was led by then State Representative Richard Lamm.
Lamm was subsequently elected as Colorado governor in 1974. Denver has also been known historically as the Queen City of the Plains because of its important role in the agricultural industry of the plains regions along the foothills of the Colorado Front Range. Several US Navy ships have been named USS Denver in honor of the city.
Climate
Denver has a semi-arid climate with four distinct seasons.
While Denver is located on the Great Plains, the weather of the city and surrounding area is heavily influenced by the proximity of the Rocky Mountains to the west.
The climate, while generally mild compared to the mountains to the west and the plains further east, can be very unpredictable. Measurable amounts of snow have fallen in Denver as late as May and as early as September.
The average temperature in Denver is 50.1 °F (10.1 °C), and the average yearly precipitation is 15.81 inches (40.2 cm).
The season's first snowfall generally occurs around October 19, and the last snowfall is about April 27, averaging 54.9 inches (156 cm) of seasonal accumulation.
Although Denver's Convention and Visitor Bureau claims Denver receives over 300 sunny days a year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration places that figure at slightly above 250 days of sunshine a year.
Denver's winters can vary from mild to cold, and although large amounts of snow can fall on the mountains just west of the city, the effects of orographic lift dry out the air passing over the Front Range, shadowing the city from precipitation for much of the season.
Additionally, warm chinook winds occasionally occur as air passing over the mountains heats as it descends, quickly melting snow accumulations and making Denver's winters milder than areas without this effect.
The coldest temperature ever recorded in Denver was recorded on January 9, 1875 at -29 °F (-34 °C), though the last time Denver recorded a temperature below -20 °F (-29 °C) was in 1990.
Spring brings with it significant changes as Denver can be affected by air masses on all sides. Arctic air from the north can occasionally combine with Pacific storm fronts bringing snow to the city.
In fact, March is Denver's snowiest month, averaging 11.7 inches (29.7 cm) of snow. Additionally, warm air from the Gulf of Mexico can bring the first thunderstorms of the season, and continental warm air can bring summer-like warm and dry conditions.
Starting in mid-July, the monsoon brings tropical moisture into the city and with it come frequent short (and occasionally severe) late-afternoon thunderstorms.
However, despite this tropical moisture, humidity levels during the day generally remain low.
The average high during the summer is 88 °F (31 °C) and the average low is 59 °F (15 °C).
The hottest temperature ever recorded in Denver is 112°F. In the autumn, the tropical monsoon flow dies down and as Arctic air begins to approach, it can combine with moisture from the Pacific Northwest to bring significant snowfall to the city – November is Denver's second snowiest month, and Denver's greatest recorded snowfall from a single storm, 45.7 inches (116 cm), fell in late autumn from December 1 to December 6, 1913.
Parks and recreation
When Denver was founded in 1858, the city was little more than a dusty collection of buildings on a long, grassy plain with a few contorted cottonwood and willow trees on riverbanks.
As of 2006, Denver has over 200 parks, from small mini-parks all over the city to the giant 314 acre (1.3 km²) City Park.
Denver also has 29 recreation centers providing places and programming for resident's recreation and relaxation.
Many of Denver's parks were acquired from state lands in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
This coincided with the City Beautiful movement, and legendary Denver mayor Robert Speer (1904-12 and 1916-18) set out to expand and beautify the city's parks.
Reinhard Schuetze was the city's first landscape architect, and he brought his German-educated landscaping genius to Washington Park, Cheesman Park, and City Park among others.
Speer used Schuetze as well as other landscape architects such as Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and Saco Rienk DeBoer to design not only parks such as Civic Center Park, but many city parkways and tree-lawns. All of this greenery was fed with South Platte River water diverted through the city ditch.
In addition to the parks within Denver itself, the city acquired land for mountain parks starting in the 1910s. Over the years, Denver has acquired, built and maintained around 14,000 acres (56 km²) of mountain parks, including Red Rocks Park, which is known for its scenery and musical history revolving around the unique Red Rocks Amphitheatre.
Denver also owns the hill on which the Winter Park Resort ski area is operated in Grand County, 67 miles (110 km) west of Denver.
City parks are important places for the both Denverites and visitors inciting controversy with every change.
Denver continues to grow its park system with the development of many new parks along the Platte River through the city and in the Stapleton neighborhood redevelopment.
All of these parks are important gathering places for residents and allow what was once a dry plain to be lush, active, and green.
Demographics
The United States Census Bureau estimates that, in 2006, the population of the City and County of Denver was 566,974, making it the 27th most populous U.S. city.
The Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area had an estimated 2006 population of 2,408,750 and ranked as the 21st most populous U.S. metropolitan statistical area, and the larger Denver-Aurora-Boulder Combined Statistical Area had an estimated 2006 population of 2,927,911 and ranked as the 17th most populous U.S. metropolitan area.
Denver is the most populous city within a radius of 550 miles (885 kilometers).
Residents of the city and county of Denver are known as Denverites. According to census estimates, the City and County of Denver contains approximately 566,974 people (2006) and 239,235 households (2000).
The population density is 3,698/sq mi (1,428/km²). There are 268,540 housing units (2005) at an average density of 1,751/sq mi (676/km²).
The racial make up of the city, as of 2005, is 50.3% White, 10.6% Black, 3.1% Asian American, 1.4% Native American, 0.2% Pacific Islander, and 1.9% from two or more races.
34.7% of the population is Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There are 250,906 households, out of which 23.2% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 34.7% are married couples living together, 10.8% have a female householder with no husband present, and 50.1% are non-families. 39.3% of all households are made up of individuals and 9.4% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.27 and the average family size is 3.14.
In the city, the population is spread out with 22.0% under the age of 18, 10.7% from 18 to 24, 36.1% from 25 to 44, 20.0% from 45 to 64, and 11.3% who are 65 years of age or older.
The median age is 33 years. For every 100 females there are 102.1 males. The median income for a household in the city is $39,500, and the median income for a family is $48,195.
Males have a median income of $34,232 versus $30,768 for females. The per capita income for the city is $24,101. 14.3% of the population and 10.6% of families are below the poverty line.
Out of the total population, 20.3% of those under the age of 18 and 9.7% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line. Denver's west-central geographic location in the Mountain Time Zone (UTC -7) also benefits the telecommunications industry by allowing communication with both North American coasts, South America, Europe, and Asia in the same business day.
Denver's location on the 105th meridian at over 1-mile (1.6 km) in elevation also enables it to be the largest city in the U.S. to offer a 'one-bounce' real-time satellite uplink to six continents in the same business day.
Qwest Communications, Dish Network Corporation, Starz-Encore, and Comcast are just a few of the telecommunications companies with operations in the Denver area.
These and other high-tech companies had a boom in Denver in the mid to late 1990s, but the technology bust in the new millennium caused Denver to lose many of those technology jobs. The unemployment rate has since improved with an unemployment rate in the Denver metropolitan area of 3.8 percent as of October 2007.
The Downtown region has seen increased real estate investment with the construction of new skyscrapers.
Media
The Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Area is served by a variety of media outlets in print, radio, television, and the Internet.
Denver is the #18 market in the country for television, according to the Nielsen DMA's. Some stations, such as KWGN and KRMA, are broadcast regionally to areas that do not have their own network affiliations.
KWGN 2, the CW affiliate, is owned and operated by Tribune Media of Chicago. KWGN is the direct sister station to WGN Chicago.
KCNC 4 is the CBS owned and operated station. KRMA 6 serves as a holding company (Rocky Mountain PBS) and broadcasts signals to a variety of affiliates, including Colorado Springs (KTSC), Grand Junction (KRMJ) and other stations in New Mexico, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Kansas.
Channel 6 generally serves those who cannot receive an over-the-air signal (such as a Superstation). KBDI 12 is another Denver PBS affiliate, making the Denver market one of only a few markets with 2 PBS stations. KMGH 7 is the ABC affiliate, owned and operated by McGraw-Hill.
KUSA 9 is the NBC affiliate, owned and operated by Gannett Communications. KDVR 31 is the Fox owned and operated station.
KTVD 20 was formerly the UPN affiliate, but when the CW was launched, KWGN won the affiliation and subsequently the MyNetworkTV affiliation was given to KTVD.
KCEC 50 is the Univision affiliate. Denver is also served by over 40 AM and FM radio stations, covering a wide variety of formats and styles. Denver radio is the #22 market in the United States, according to Arbitron. For a list of radio stations, see Radio Stations in Colorado After a continued rivalry between Denver's two main newspapers, the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News, the papers merged operations in 2001 under a Joint Operating Agreement which formed the Denver Newspaper Agency.
The new company runs all non-editorial operations of both papers, namely advertising and circulation.
The papers still publish separately (except during the weekends, when the Rocky Mountain News is published only on Saturday and the Denver Post on Sunday) and maintain their rivalry.
There are also several alternative or localized newspapers published in Denver, including Westword, Denver Daily News, The Onion, and Out Front Colorado. Denver's city magazine is 5280, which takes its name from the city's mile-high elevation.
Airports
Denver International Airport (IATA: DEN, ICAO: KDEN), commonly known as DIA, serves as the primary airport for a large region surrounding Denver.
DIA is located 18.6 miles (30 km) east-northeast of the Colorado State Capitol. DIA is the tenth busiest airport in the world and ranks fourth in the United States, with 47,324,844 passengers passing through it in 2006.
It covers more than 53 square miles (137 km²), making it the largest airport by land area in the United States and larger than the island of Manhattan.
Denver serves as a major hub for United Airlines and the headquarters for Frontier Airlines. Three general aviation airports serve the Denver area. Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (KBJC) is 13.7 miles (22 km) north-northwest, Centennial Airport (KAPA) is 13.7 miles (22 km) south-southeast, and Front Range Airport (KFTG) is located 23.7 miles (38 km) east of the state capitol.
In the past, Denver has been home to several other airports that are no longer operational.
Stapleton International Airport was closed in 1995 when it was replaced by DIA.
Lowry Air Force Base was a military flight training facility that ceased flight operations in 1966, with the base finally being closed in 1994. It is currently being used for residential purposes.
Culture and contemporary life
Apollo Hall opened quickly after the city's founding in 1859 and staged many plays for eager settlers.
In the 1880s Horace Tabor built Denver's first Opera House. After the turn of the century, city leaders embarked on a city beautification program that created many of the city's parks, parkways, museums, and the Municipal Auditorium, which was home to the 1908 Democratic National Convention and is now known as the Ellie Caulkins Opera House.
Denver and the metropolitan areas around it continued to support culture. In 1988, voters in the Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Area approved the Scientific and Cultural Facilities Tax (commonly known as SCFD), a .01 sales tax that contributes money to various cultural and scientific facilities and organizations throughout the Metro area.
The tax was renewed by voters in 1994 and 2004 and allows the SCFD to operate until 2018.
Now, Denver is home to many nationally recognized museums, including a new wing for the Denver Art Museum by world-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind, the second largest Performing arts center in the nation after Lincoln Center in New York City and bustling neighborhoods such as LoDo, filled with art galleries, restaurants, bars and clubs.
That is part of the reason why Denver was recently recognized for the third year in a row as the best city for singles.
Denver's neighborhoods also continue their influx of diverse people and businesses while the city's cultural institutions grow and prosper.
The city acquired the estate of abstract expressionist painter Clyfford Still in 2004 and plans to build a museum to exhibit his works near the Denver Art Museum by 2010.
While Denver may not be as recognized for historical musical prominence as some other American cities, it still manages to have a very active pop, jazz, jam, folk, and classical music scene, which has nurtured several artists and genres to regional, national, and even international attention. Of particular note is Denver's importance in the folk scene of the 1960s and 1970s.
Well-known folk artists such as Bob Dylan, Judy Collins and John Denver lived in Denver at various points during this time, and performed at local clubs.
Denver is also the setting for the The Bill Engvall Show, and the setting for the 18th season of MTV's The Real World.
From 1998 to 2002, the city's Alameda East Veterinary Hospital was home to the Animal Planet series Emergency Vets, which spun off three one-off documentary specials and the current Animal Planet series E-Vet Interns.
