The Daniels and Fisher (D&F) Tower is a distinctive Denver, Colorado landmark. Built as part of the Daniels & Fisher department store in 1910, it was the tallest between the Mississippi and California at the time of construction, at a height of 325 feet.
At this location on April 23, 1865, Cavalry officer Silas Soule was killed by an unknown assassin. Soule's death is believed to be an act of retaliation against Captain Soule-both for his refusal to follow orders to fire on a peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho village, and for his later testimony that revealed the extent of the now-infamous Sand Creek Massacre. An estimated 70-160 Native Americans were killed when a force of six hundred soldiers surrounded the village. Knowing that this was a village affiliated with Cheyenne chief Black Kettle who was working to negotiate a peace, Soule disobeyed orders and ordered his men to hold their fire. Other officers followed the order to destroy the village and kill its inhabitants, despite discovering that two thirds of the victims were women and children.
Located within the Denver branch of the Federal Reserve Bank, the Denver Money Museum utilizes interactive and interpretive displays to impart knowledge to visitors about the Federal Reserve System, its history, economics and monetary policies. This modest museum offers both self-guided audio tours and guided tours for groups of the 5th-grade level and above with a reservation. Walk-ins are welcome and admission is free. However, adults 18 and older are required to show a valid state or national ID to gain admittance.
In 1870 Otto Paul Baur founded the O.P. Baur Confectionery Company. He partnered with James Colwell and the duo became successful caterers. Eventually Baur became the sole owner. By the 1890s his candies and confections were known around the world. It was an 1891 that he opened the location at 1512 Curtis Street.
Architect Emmett Anthony designed this Late Victorian-Commercial Style building, which was completed in 1899 by the city's first lodge of the Odd Fellows, an international fraternal organization that had millions of members in the United States at the turn of the century. The members of the lodge dubbed this building "Union Lodge" to emphasize that their founding members had all been loyal to the Union during the Civil War.
Erected in 1910, the 10-story Denver Gas & Electric Building (also known as the Public Service Company Building) once served as a single vast advertisement for the wonders of electricity, thanks to the 13,000 lightbulbs embedded in its white terra cotta façade. The bulbs went dark for a time after World War II but were rewired in the 1990s, and the building once again lights up Denver’s central business district each night. Designed by local firm of Frank E. Edbrooke & Company, the building is an example of the early skyscraper style pioneered by Louis J. Sullivan of Chicago. The geometric patterns created by the bulbs, along with dramatic details such as the arched tenth-floor windows, ensure that the building is a striking sight by daylight as well.
The Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Building stands at 931 14th St, across the street from the Denver Center for the Performing Arts in Denver’s central business district. The ten-story Art Deco building was the tallest in Denver until the 1950s. It opened in 1929, shortly before the catastrophic stock market crash that ushered in the Great Depression. The building’s style was described as Modern American Perpendicular Gothic, a modernist reinterpretation of English Gothic forms. Its exterior lobbies feature mural cycles by Denver artist Alan True, whose work appears in the state capitol building and elsewhere in Denver.
America's largest non-profit theatre organization and the largest performing arts complex under one roof, the Denver Performing Arts Complex is owned by the City and County of Denver's Arts and Venues division and managed by the Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA). The complex has four resident companies: the Colorado Ballet, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Opera Colorado, and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts repertory company [1; 2]. The ten-theatre complex consists of 12 acres on four blocks, all connected by The Galleria, an 80-foot-high glass roof. Its three largest theatres are the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, Boettcher Concert Hall, and the Temple Hoyne Buell Theatre, but the complex is also home to a cabaret at Garner Galleria Theatre, the Conservatory Theatre, the Helen Bonfils Theatre Complex (comprising the Stage, Space, Ricketson, and Jones Theatres), and the Seawell Grand Ballroom [2].
This eight-story building was completed in 1911 for the Denver Tramway Company. Now home to a boutique hotel, the building once stood in the center of one of Colorado's most significant labor conflicts. The building still bears the scars of that conflict in the form of bullet holes fired by participants and police in the 1920 Tramway Strike.
Completed in 1883, Denver's City Hall was located between Larimer and Lawrence streets until it was razed in around 1940. A small marker that includes the bell from the building's tower is all that is left of the former building, which became the center of an armed conflict between the governor and city officials in 1894. Like many other cities during the "Gilded Age," Denver's city government was under the influence of political machines that profited from lax enforcement of laws against operators of brothels and gambling houses and purveyors of narcotics. In 1889, con-man turned organized crime leader Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith's influence in securing the election of mayor Wolf Londoner became so obvious that Londoner was forced to step down. Smith fled the city for a time but soon returned and regained his influence within city hall. In 1894, a new reform-minded governor challenged the city's political machine by attempting to replace some of the city's commissioners. City officials refused to accept the governor's authority and promised to fight, prompting the governor to deploy the state militia. For several days, residents of the city watched as the power struggle between the governor and the city nearly resulted in a war on the streets of Denver.
The Miller Building at 1401 Larimer, once was home to Gahan’s Saloon. Gahan's Saloon was a legendary watering hole and poker hall for politicians, policemen and city hall reporters. In 1916, when Colorado passed prohibition, Gahan’s became Gahan’s “Soft Drink Parlor.” The name was a cover for the speakeasy operating out of the basement. Now, it is the location for Ted's Montana Grill. The Montana restaurant chain is a for-profit endeavor that allocates funds to prevent the extinction of bison.
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Constructed in 1873 through the efforts of George Kettle, this indoor space connected two existing buildings and used the neighboring structures as side-wall support. Kettle constructed only front and rear walls for the arcade itself. In the 1980s, the building was decorated with a mural featuring key figures from Denver’s early history, including William Larimer, Chief Little Raven, sharpshooter Annie Oakley, con man Soapy Smith and Denver Mayor Robert Speer.
Larimer Square was designated Denver's first historic district in 1971 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, and includes two half-blocks of seventeen buildings and two open spaces on 1400 Larimer Street. The site of original downtown Denver, established in 1858, Larimer Street suffered fire and floods in the 1860s, and its first log cabin structures were replaced in the ensuing two decades with the Italianate, Victorian Gothic, Renaissance, and Classical style brick structures which stand today [1]. Once again, Larimer Square is a busy street, home to independent retail stores, restaurants, clubs, and bars, and host to events including live music and comedy, the Denver Chalk Art Festival, charity fundraisers, and al fresco dining and craft beer festivals [2].
After two previous attempts at statehood failed, delegates from throughout Colorado met here at the original location of the First National Bank of Denver in the winter of 1875. The delegates met throughout the winter, producing a state constitution that led to the admission of Colorado as the thirty-sixth state. Following the approval of Colorado voters and Congress, Colorado was admitted to the Union by President Grant on August 1, 1876. The residents of Colorado approved the new constitution by a wide margin, with 15,433 in favor and 4,062 opposed. The building was destroyed by a fire in 1977, although a marker was erected on the southwest side of a nearby building to commemorate the history of the convention and the building that once stood at this location.
This building was purchased by Barney L Ford, a businessman, civic leader, politician, and influential figure in Denver's African American community. Ford became active in the abolitionist movement after he escaped from a South Carolina Plantation at the age of seventeen when he traveled the Underground Railroad to Chicago. Ford traveled to Colorado in search of gold but faced discrimination in the goldfields which led him to Denver where he built a significant business empire serving the needs of the Black community. The building is currently home to a sushi restaurant on the first level.
This historical marker pays tribute to the first banking firm in the Denver area. The Clark and Gruber Mint produced gold coins from raw metal in the 1860s, an era when mining was he cornerstone of the local economy and gold was coming to the city from the many mines around the area. Consequently, the Clark, Gruber & Co. firm was one of the few banks in U.S. history that simultaneously conducted commercial banking and gold minting operations. In 1863, the U.S. Congress prohibited the private minting of coins. At that time Clark and Gruber became the Denver Branch of the U.S. Mint. In its three years of operation as a private firm, Clark and Gruber purchased 77,000 troy ounces of raw gold and minted $594,305 worth of coins. In 1906, the U.S. Mint moved from this place to its current location on Colfax Avenue.
Denver's Tivoli Club was a famous gaming hall and saloon operated by the infamous Soapy Smith. The Tivoli Club operated from 1885 to 1895 by Smith, a con artist who rose to lead a crime syndicate that controlled much of the city Denver. The Tivoli Club was Smith's headquarters and home to his gang of disbarred lawyers and political bosses as well as petty criminals. It was known around town that visitors would lose money here, but the biggest crime came for Smith's fake stock exchange, lottery shops, and fake diamond auctions.
Once a symbol of Denver, the Windsor Hotel was demolished in 1960. One of the first hotels in the city to offer electricity, the Windsor featured gambling rooms, ornate spaces for banquests, a bathhouse, and a ballroom with what may have been the first floating dance floor in the U.S. Many celebrities and statesmen stayed here, including four presidents and "Calamity Jane."
Also known as the Sheridan Heritage Building, the Denver City Railway Company Building of Lower Downtown was constructed in 1883. Located directly opposite Union Station, the building served as the headquarters and terminus of the city’s first public mass transit system, operated by the Railway Company from 1883 to 1892.
This Tour is a Walking Tour.
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This quick walking tour starts at the iconic Daniels & Fisher Tower and winds through the heart of downtown with stops at some of the most interesting historical markers and buildings in the city.
