Denver

“ There are none of the lovely lawns and gardens of Los Angeles and Tacoma in Denver, nor can there ever be. Roses do not bloom all the winter through, nor in Denver does the turf grow thick and velvety green as in Seattle, nor can they ever do so—only a few weakly roses in the summer-time and grass—only grass when you water each blade with a hose three times a day. And then, too, men do not go to Denver to make homes; they go there the rather to make fortunes, and, if successful, then to hurry away and live in a more congenial clime. ”

“ The brakemen out on their box-cars, the miners up in their diggings, the lonely homesteaders in the sand hills of Yucca and Kit Carson Counties, begin to think of Denver, muffled in snow, full of food and drink and good cheer, and to yearn for her with that admiration which makes her, more than other American cities, an object of sentiment. ”

“ Citizens of Denver, I cannot close without expressing the great satisfaction and surprise with which I have witnessed this morning the magnificent commercial developments which have been made here. These streets, these towering, substantial, and stately houses in which your commerce is transacted, place you in the front rank of enterprise. I do not think any city so young can claim so high a place. [Cheers.] I thank you very sincerely for a demonstration which I cannot accept as personal—all this is too great for any man—but as a spontaneous tribute to our free institutions. ”

“ Yet this very up-to-dateness of Denver robs it of a certain charm. You might just as well be at home as be in Denver. The people look the same, they dress the same, they walk the same, they talk the same. ”

“ The little city is a beauty that need not fear the day. One gets such an agreeable impression of Denver from the very first. The great Union Station is attractive, and when one leaves it for home or hotel, one is greeted by a garden of living green, and by trees and shrubs in flourishing verdure. ”

“ As an instance of modern aesthetic town construction one might cite Denver, a western Yankee metropolis of ultrarefined men and women from down Boston way, breathing a nomenclature never so freely used before among mid-continent mountains, streets, schoolhouses, parks, and gardens—all alive with the names of New England poets, philosophers, and statesmen. Scarcely yet turned the half century in age, few such charming cities as Denver have been made with fewer mistakes. ”

“ These parks have an area almost as great as that of the whole city, and are connected with the Denver boulevards by fine roads, so that some of the most spectacular motor trips in the country are within easy range of the "Queen City of the Plains."
But though the mountains give Denver her individuality, and though she has made the most of them, they have not proved an unmixed blessing. The riches which she has extracted from them, and the splendid setting that they give her, is the silver lining to her commercial cloud. ”

“ Darwin, who regarded "climate and the affections" as the only absolute necessities of terrestrial existence, should have lived in Denver, for of all the beautiful climates is that in which revels the capital of Colorado. The air is all liquid gold from sunrise till sunset; the mountains swim in a sea of azure blue; the ground is bare and dry in winter, affording the best of walking, and there are few cities where the general municipal management exceeds or is, perhaps, even as good as that of Denver. ”

“ Denver was then, as it is now, a beautiful city, built on a slope, between the prairies and mountains, always sunny, cool, and clear-skyed with the very sparkle of happiness in its air; and on the crown of its hill, facing the romantic prospect of the Rockies, the State Capitol raised its dome—as proud as the ambition of a liberty-loving people—the symbol of an aspiration and the expression of its power. ”

“ We spent a week in Denver, fraught with interest, for while it is a city destitute of the charm of historical associations and musty memories, which add so much interest to most foreign cities and many American localities, it so abounds in youthful life with its warm and bounding currents, its vim and vigor, that it teems with varying attractions. ”

“ Yet the impartial and disinterested New York or Boston man who visits either of these cities speedily admits that he frequently finds it difficult to believe that he is not in his own much loved city, so close is the resemblance in many respects between the business houses and the method of doing business. Denver is looked upon by the average Easterner almost in the light of a frontier city, away out in the Rockies, surrounded by awe-inspiring scenery, no doubt, but also by grizzly bears and ferocious Indians. ”

“ In Denver they will find regular and well-laid streets, numerous and magnificent public buildings, imposing rows of business blocks, numerous and flourishing banks, stately churches, and, above all, comfortable and wealthy homes. A personal investigation will convince any one that Denver is the finest, cleanest, most healthful, and by far the most imposing, of any of the so-called new cities in the United States. It is a false impression that leads any one to think that affairs are crude in Colorado. ”

“ From Denver the Mountains as a whole seemed grander than ever; and the view of them at sunset from our hotel windows could scarcely be finer, as the snowy range and the heaven-kissing peaks one by one faded away, through orange, crimson and purple into night. The majesty and grandeur of the general range impress one more there at Denver, I think, than elsewhere; and then, there is always something new about these mighty Mountains—they never seem the same for an hour together. A difference of clouds, or of atmosphere, or of your own point of vision, makes all the difference in the world ”

“ Gradually a stream outlined itself in living topography upon a map which seemed as large as the world itself. Denver, fifteen miles away, came into view, its streets showing like seams in a well-sewn garment, the sun, even at this distance, striking a sheen from the golden dome of the capitol building. Higher! The chortling truck gasped at the curves and tugged on the straightaway, but Robert Fairchild had ceased to hear. ”

“ Denver is the center of the line, singularly situated as the gateway to all that lies to the westward.
It is useless to attempt to occupy attention with a description of this beautiful and well-known city. It is in reality of the plains, though standing at an elevation of over five thousand feet. To it all roads lead, and from it all go out toward the nooks and corners of an intricate mountain system. The foothills of the real mountains rise behind it, as high as the average Alleghanies. ”

“ THE City of Denver probably does more to keep the Eastern man who is mining or ranching from returning once a year to his own people, and from spending his earnings at home, than any other city in the West. It lays its charm upon him, and stops him half-way, and he decides that the journey home is rather long, and puts it off until the next year, and again until the next, until at last he buys a lot and builds a house, and only returns to the East on his wedding journey. ”

“ I had intended to leave Birdie at Denver, but Governor Hunt and Mr. Byers of the Rocky Mountain News both advised me to travel on horseback rather than by train and stage, telling me that I should be quite safe, and Governor Hunt drew out a route for me and gave me a circular letter to the settlers along it.
Denver is no longer the Denver of Hepworth Dixon. A shooting affray in the street is as rare as in Liverpool, and one no longer sees men dangling to the lamp-posts when one looks out in the morning! ”

“ From May till October pleasure tourists throng this marvellous route through the Royal Gorge, through mysterious cañons and across the Divide. For it must always be remembered that Denver is a great city for tourists and season visitors, and the floating population exceeds a hundred thousand annually. Beautiful as it is in the winter, Denver is also essentially a summer city. ”

“ It thus happens that Denver shows, in a wonderful measure, the amenities of intellectual culture that make life so attractive in the old-established centers of civilization, where selected society, thoughtful study, and the riches of art, have ripened to maturity through long time and under gracious traditions. There is an abundance here, therefore, to please the eye and touch the heart as well as fill the pockets, and year by year the city is becoming more and more a desirable place in which to dwell as well as to do business. ”

“ But I can vouch for the fact that it was just eight hours from Denver to happiness. If dissatisfied humanity demands a country better adapted to its wants than Colorado, it will have to die to find it.
Upon a former occasion several years ago, I took upon myself to say publicly through the columns of a Denver daily, that I thought Coates Kinney’s “Rain on the Roof” a satire. But the night before I had lain in a pool of water on the banks of the Blue with nothing between me and the angry heavens except my prayers for daylight; they, of course, were thin but earnest. ”

“ To say that the Plains are visible for miles on miles—north, south, east—is but a feeble description of the wonderful panorama, that there unfolds before you. To the south appeared Castle Rock and its sister buttes, that we had passed three weeks before, looking now like mole-hills beneath us. Issuing from the Mountains at our feet, we could trace the South Platte and Cherry Creek to where they unite near Denver, and then follow the Platte on and on to the east, till lost in the far horizon. Denver lay like a toy-city, seemingly at the base of the Mountains, though really twenty miles away. ”

“ The things that build up a city's wealth and population are 'round about Denver in prodigal quantities. If Denver had only the state of Colorado from which to draw, her future would be absolutely assured. But consider the vast territory that is tributary to this city. It stretches away to the east, west, north, and south, an area quite one-third of the whole country, and quite the richest in all natural resources. Denver is the geographical hub of this territory. ”

“ You will find that the people of a city always pride themselves on something which the visitor within their gates would fail to notice. They have become familiar with those features which first appeal to him, have outgrown them, and have passed on to admire something else. The citizen of Denver takes a modest pride in the public schools, the private houses, and the great mountains, which seem but an hour’s walk distant and are twenty miles away; but he is proudest before all of two things—of his celery and his cable-cars. ”

“ Such, then, in broadest outline, is the background of Denver's history. It is almost depressing to consider how little the outline holds of that recognition element which makes "historic" for us a country, a scene, a person, an event. Here is a wide and wonderful country; here have been done great deeds by brave and true men. Coronado, Escalante, Pike, Lewis and Clark, among explorers; Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, the Bents, Jim Baker, among scouts, trappers, and traders; the names could be multiplied many times. Their deeds are fit to provoke emulation or national pride. ”

“ Denver is the great city of the Rockies, whose snow-capped summits are seen to the westward in a magnificent and unbroken line, extending in view for one hundred and seventy miles from Pike's Peak north to Long's Peak, with many intervening summits, most of them rising over fourteen thousand feet. Denver stands on a high plateau, through which the South Platte River flows, and it is at nearly fifty-three hundred feet elevation. ”

“ Denver thus becomes to all Colorado what Paris is to France. Through all the enormous area, from Wyoming far into New Mexico, and westward to Utah, she has had no formidable rival until South Pueblo rose to contest the trade of all the southern half of this commercial territory. That she advances with the rapidly thickening population of the State and its increasing needs, is apparent to every one who has noted the gigantic strides with which Denver has grown, and the ease with which she wears her imperial honors. ”

“ As before stated, all of the seven members of this party, on their arrival in Denver, became residents and actively identified in the various departments of life and business, and to each and every one there is no spot on the face of this globe that is quite so good, so grand, and so dear as the Centennial State, of which Denver is the center of their love. ”

“ With this zeal for the great achievements,—carrying railroads through the mountains, opening the inexhaustible treasures of mines, bringing the snow of mountain peaks to irrigate the arid plains, establishing electric transit for fifty miles about, and telephonic connection that brings an area of hundreds of miles into instant speaking range with Denver,—with all the zeal for these executive accomplishments, the spirit of Denver is focussed on that social progress which is aided and fostered by all modern mechanical facilities. ”

“ Denver society is cosmopolitan. Famous and brilliant persons are constantly appearing from all quarters of the globe. Five hundred people a day, it is said, enter Colorado, and nine-tenths of this multitude pass through Denver. Nowadays, “the tour” of the United States is incomplete if this mountain city is omitted. ”