Over the course of eleven decades, the Denver Dry Goods and its predecessor, McNamara Dry Goods, proudly served Coloradoans, who knew they could 'shop with confidence' for the best quality at the fairest prices. Much more than the goods it sold, the store was a major institution that touched the lives of nearly every Denverite. Festive chandeliers adorned the four-hundred-foot-long main aisle during the holidays, and longtime salesclerks knew customers by name. The doors closed in 1987 and this fascinating history explores the cherished memories of Denver's most beloved department store.
The Bad Old Days of Colorado celebrates the state’s glorious and rowdy past. Many people born and bred here relish just how “bad” things used to be: the terrain, the inhabitants and especially the quality of whiskey. It almost goes without saying that Colorado had all the characteristic Wild West elements—and in abundance! The chapters focus on the infamous and notorious rather than the law-abiding and civic-minded settlers. These pages, like the state, recount the tales of people who came West seeking, if not their fortune, at least opportunity. It is no secret that Colorado was settled by the adventurous willing to brave the harsh conditions and to prevail. Whether on the right or the wrong side of the law, all settlers and pioneers made unique contributions to the state’s complex culture. Certainly, in the nineteenth century, Colorado was not for the faint of heart.
Find out more about June and Day in this never-before-seen glimpse into their daily lives before they met in Marie Lu’s New York Times bestselling LEGEND series. As twelve-year-olds struggling to survive in two very different worlds within the Republic’s stronghold, June was starting her first day of school at Drake University as the youngest cadet ever admitted, and Day was fighting for food on the streets of the Lake sector. LIFE BEFORE LEGEND contains two original stories written by Marie Lu that give readers a sneak peek into the lives of their favorite characters in a thrilling new context.
By the 1870s, the word was out about Colorado. East coast and Midwest prospectors, European immigrants, and African Americans newly freed from slavery, rushed to Denver to find work and their fortune in silver and gold. Captured here in almost 200 vintage images is the story of the African Americans who escaped the oppression and racism of the post Civil War South, and created a city within a city: the Five Points neighborhood of Denver. Named in 1881 for a bustling five-way intersection, the Five Points area became the commercial and social sector for African American churches, businesses, clubs, and homes, and the heart of Denver's black community. Showcased here are the photographs of once thriving Five Points businesses in the Welton Street business district, such as Otha Rice's Tap Room and Oven and the Rossonian Hotel, as well as the familiar faces of the Cosmopolitan Club, Madame CJ Walker, and Dr. Justina Ford, Denver's first African-American female doctor.
Nestled between the Rocky Mountains to the west and the High Plains to the east, Denver, Colorado, is nicknamed the Mile High City because its official elevation is exactly one mile above sea level. Over the past ten years, it has also been one of the country's fastest-growing metropolitan areas. In Denver's early days, its geographic proximity to the mineral-rich mountains attracted miners, and gold and silver booms and busts played a large role in its economic success. Today, its central location—between the west and east coasts and between major cities of the Midwest—makes it a key node for the distribution of goods and services as well as an optimal site for federal agencies and telecommunications companies. In Metropolitan Denver, Andrew R. Goetz and E. Eric Boschmann show how the city evolved from its origins as a mining town into a cosmopolitan metropolis. They chart the foundations of Denver's recent economic development—from mining and agriculture to energy, defense, and technology—and examine the challenges engendered by a postwar population explosion that led to increasing income inequality and rapid growth in the number of Latino residents. Highlighting the risks and rewards of regional collaboration in municipal governance, Goetz and Boschmann recount public works projects such as the construction of the Denver International Airport and explore the smart growth movement that shifted development from postwar low-density, automobile-based, suburban and exurban sprawl to higher-density, mixed use, transit-oriented urban centers. Because of its proximity to the mountains and generally sunny weather, Denver has a reputation as a very active, outdoor-oriented city and a desirable place to live and work. Metropolitan Denver reveals the purposeful civic decisions made regarding tourism, downtown urban revitalization, and cultural-led economic development that make the city a destination.
George Bent, the son of William Bent, one of the founders of Bent's Fort on the Arkansas near present La Junta, Colorado, and Owl Woman, a Cheyenne, began exchanging letters in 1905 with George E. Hyde of Omaha concerning life at the fort, his experiences with his Cheyenne kinsmen, and the events which finally led to the military suppression of the Indians on the southern Great Plains. This correspondence, which continued to the eve of Bent's death in 1918, is the source of the narrative here published, the narrator being Bent himself. Almost ninety years have elapsed since the day in 1930 when Mr. Hyde found it impossible to market the finished manuscript of the Bent life down to 1866. (The Depression had set in some months before.) He accordingly sold that portion of the manuscript to the Denver Public Library, retaining his working copy, which carries down to 1875. The account therefore embraces the most stirring period, not only of Bent's own life, but of life on the Plains and into the Rockies. It has never before been published. It is not often that an eyewitness of great events in the West tells his own story. But Bent's narrative, aside from the extent of its chronology (1826 to 1875), has very special significance as an inside view of Cheyenne life and action after the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, which cost so many of the lives of Bent's friends and relatives. It is hardly probable that we shall achieve a more authentic view of what happened, as the Cheyennes, Arapahos, and Sioux saw it.
