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 Its
skyscrapers marking the final transition between the Great
Plains and the American West, DENVER stands at the threshold
of the Rocky Mountains . Despite being known as the "
Mile High City ," and serving as the obvious point of
arrival for travelers heading into the mountains, it is itself
uniformly flat. The majestic peaks are clearly visible, but
they only begin to rise roughly fifteen miles west of downtown,
and Denver has, during the last century, had plenty of room
to spread out.
Mineral wealth has always been at the heart of the city's
prosperity, with all the fluctuations of fortune that this
entails. Though local resources have been progressively
exhausted, Denver has managed to hang on to its role as
the most important commercial and transportation nexus in
the state. Its original "foundation" in 1858 was
by pure chance; this was the first spot where small quantities
of gold were discovered in Colorado. There was no significant
river, let alone a road, but prospectors came streaming
in, regardless of prior claims to the land - least of all
those of the Arapahoe , who had supposedly been confirmed
in their ownership of the area by the Fort Laramie Treaty
of 1851. Various communities had their own names for the
settlement; with the judicious distribution of whiskey,
one faction persuaded the rest to agree to "Denver"
in 1859. The hope was to ingratiate themselves with the
governor of the Kansas Territory, James Denver, but it turned
out he had already resigned. The newspaperman Horace Greeley
passed through in the early days, and described the place
as a "log city of 150 dwellings, not three-fourths
completed nor two-thirds inhabited, nor one-third fit to
be." |
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Welcome to Denver Discounts
