Denver POI

The American Guides Project

1. The OLD COURTHOUSE PLAZA, 16th St., between Court Pl. and Tremont St., and extending to 15th St., is a block-square area of terraced lawns, flower beds, and lily pools, in the heart of the downtown district. The plaza, inclosed within a low stone curbing and bordered with large elms and maples, occupies the site of the former courthouse, demolished in 1934.

2. The UNITED STATES CUSTOMHOUSE, 19th and Stout Sts., a five-story Colorado marble structure of Italian Renaissance design, built in 1930, is the largest of Denver's Federal buildings. It houses the field, state, and regional offices of various Federal departments and agencies.

3. The POST OFFICE, 18th and Stout Sts., completed in 1916 at a cost of $2,000,000, contains other Federal departments, including the United States Circuit and District Courts, and the regional offices of the Forest Service. Designed by Tracy and Swartwout of New York City, with Robert Willison of Denver as associate architect, the four-story building of white Colorado marble has massive Ionic columns on the Stout Street facade. Contrasting with this classic detail are the stone mountain sheep, by Gladys Caldwell Fisher of Denver, which flanks the steps at the Eighteenth Street entrance. The interior is distinguished by fine hand-carved woodwork and by H. F. Schlademundt's Mining, a fine mural at the Nineteenth Street entrance.

4. In HOP ALLEY, from 20th to 21st Sts., between Blake and Market, live the few Chinese in Denver; at one time 3,000 resided in the city, the first coming in 1870 as railroad laborers. The majority lived near Thirteenth and Market Streets; many removed to Hop Alley as the result of a long split. In 1880 the Chinese labor issue was injected into a local political campaign, and feeling against the race ran high. One man was killed, others were beaten, and twenty-three houses burned by a mob that was finally dispersed by armed white men, among them a notorious gambler.

5. The JAPANESE BUDDHIST CHURCH (open daily on application), 1942 Market St., the only church of that faith between Salt Lake City and New York City, serves 2,000 communicants scattered throughout Colorado and adjoining States. Up to 1912 the two-story gray sandstone building was one of Denver's gayest drinking, gambling, and bawdy houses, with the celebrated "Mattie" Silks as hostess; some of its former elegance appears in the curly birch finish of the front room and in its heavy beveled mirror panels. Visitors are not permitted to view the sacred Buddha at the rear of the platform upon which the altar stands. The church is used largely for school purposes.

6. The WINDSOR HOTEL, 1815 Larimer St., a landmark of early Denver when bonanza and cattle kings were spending sudden riches with a lavish hand, is a six-story stone building vaguely reminiscent of a French chateau, modeled on a hotel of the same name at Montreal, Canada. Built in 1880 by Denver Mansions, Ltd., an English syndicate, it was the city's social center for many years. The Colorado Senate once held its boisterous sessions here, frequently breaking the strain of deliberation by pleasant sorties to the far-famed Windsor bar. Here H. A. W. Tabor (see Leadville) died in 1899, broken and impoverished after a meteoric rise and fall. On the second floor is the TABOR Room (open 9 a.m. to midnight daily; guides), furnished with the intricately carved walnut furniture that was the pride of the mining king. Around the walls of two large public rooms on this floor are portraits of early western characters, by Herndon Davis; in one room is a frieze of Colorado cattle brands.

7. The DANIELS AND FISHER TOWER (open 9-6 weekdays; adm. 10¢), 16th and Arapahoe Sts., modeled on the Campanile of St. Mark's in Venice, is the city's tallest structure, rising 375 feet. From the observation tower is an excellent view of the city and surrounding country.

8. The TABOR GRAND OPERA HOUSE, 1014 16th St., a five-story red brick structure with white stone trim, Romanesque in design, was one of the most lavishly appointed playhouses in the country (see The Arts) at the time of its completion in 1881. The $1,000,000 building was described by Eugene Field, then managing editor and dramatic critic of the Denver Tribune, as "modified Egyptian Moresque," and by others as "an oddity of architectural originality." It was finished in cherry wood from Japan, marble and tapestries from Italy, silk fabrics from France. W. J. Edbrooke of Denver was the architect, but H. A. W. Tabor had incorporated many of his own ideas and at the opening on September 5, 1881, remarked in a speech to the audience: "I said, 'If Denver was to have an opera house, it should have one worthy of the city.' Here is the opera house. I shall leave it to your judgment if I have done my duty in this respect."

Tabor, so the story goes, noted a portrait of Shakespeare in the lobby on this occasion, and ordered it removed and his own likeness substituted. "What has Shakespeare ever done for Colorado?" he demanded. The opening of the opera house, with the Emma Abbott English Grand Opera Company presenting Maritana, a major event in Denver's social history, was given pages of space in the newspapers. Subsequently Modjeska, Nilsson, Wilde, Booth, Drew, Mansfield, and others appeared here. Later the theater was converted into a motion picture house, and the interior greatly altered. But the old curtain, renowned throughout the West, remains and is occasionally shown; below the painting of a Roman city in ruins appear Kingsley's lines, so descriptive of Tabor's own fortunes:

9. The PALACE THEATER BUILDING, 1451 Blake St., a two-story red brick building with high-arched windows, for many years one of the most notorious gambling and drinking houses in the city, is now a junk shop; its bar, stage, tables, and other trappings have long since been carted away. Opened in 1873, ostensibly as a theater, it was better known for the great sums won and lost across the tables. Burlesque and variety acts held the boards, with wine girls leaving their duties to perform in the chorus. Performances continued from 9 p.m. until 4 a.m., when dilatory drinkers were promptly ejected. In curtained upstairs rooms with a view of the stage, richer patrons were privately served by obliging wine girls. Although denounced as a "death-trap to young men, a foul den of vice and corruption," it never lacked patronage.

10. The SITE OF THE ELEPHANT CORRAL, Blake St., between 14th and 15th Sts., and extending to Wazee St., is indicated by a marker at the Blake Street bridge across Cherry Creek. Named for its size, the corral began as an unfloored log hotel; known in 1859 as the Denver House, "the Astor House of the Gold Fields," it became the major rendezvous and camp-ground of pioneers. The windows and roof at the hotel were covered with canvas; cotton sheeting served as partitions between rooms. Here Greeley stopped on his way to the gold fields in 1859 and found that "every guest is allowed as good a bed as his own blankets will make for him." Its saloon was filled with gamblers ready to fleece the unwary. Occasionally a woman gambler arrived to be the center of attraction for days. Killings were not uncommon, and victims were buried at the expense of the house by an undertaker who owned a cemetery up the Platte; there he buried many a corpse but never a coffin, so it was said, using the same box for thirty customers, finally being buried in it himself. During the Indian troubles of the early 1860's the corral was surrounded by an eight-foot wall pierced by loopholes; fire destroyed the corral in 1863. On this site also stood the first cabin in the short-lived St. Charles township. Charles Nichols erected a small roofless log structure here in 1858; later, it was the home of General William Larimer for a short time and then became a blacksmith shop.

11. The OLD CITY HALL, 14th and Larimer Sts., a dingy three-story stone building erected in 1883, is the former headquarters of the Denver police and fire departments. In the tower is the oldest steeple clock in the city. Loaded cannon were trained upon the City Hall in Denver's closest approach to civil war on March 15, 1894, when Governor Davis H. Waite ordered the militia to remove D. J. Martin and Jackson Orr, commissioners of the Fire and Police Boards, from office. At the time the governor had the power to appoint the boards, and the quarrel resulted from the alleged refusal of Martin and Orr to stop gambling in the city. For three days the building was besieged, with thousands of expectant onlookers standing by. Finally a group of businessmen intervened and the governor recalled the troops. The officials were eventually removed by the courts, but the incident increased Denver's ultimately successful demand for home rule.

12. The MUNICIPAL AUDITORIUM, 14th St., between Curtis and Champa Sts., a gray brick structure with low rounded towers at each corner, designed by Robert Willison of Denver, opened with the Democratic National Convention of 1908. By means of movable walls the interior can be changed within a few hours from an auditorium seating 12,000 to a theater seating 3,000. The $80,000 organ is one of the finest in the country; on the wall opposite the organ hangs the painting, Burning of the Temple, by Georges Rochgrass.

13. The EMILY GRIFFITH OPPORTUNITY SCHOOL (open 9-3 weekdays; 7:15-9:30 p.m. Mon. Thurs.), housed in two plain brick buildings at Thirteenth and Welton Sts., is one of Denver's most significant contributions to education. Conceived and founded in 1916 by Emily Griffith, who was for many years its principal, this unit of the Denver Public School System aims to provide those deprived of schooling with the fundamentals of education and a working knowledge of the several trades and industrial skills, to help those engaged in mechanical and industrial pursuits to become more efficient workers, to give another chance to children who have not done well in the public schools, and to assist the foreign-born in preparation for citizenship. More than 7,000 were enrolled in 1939-40. There are no tuition fees and no entrance requirements. Students are permitted to enter the school at any time and take as many day or evening classes as desired; any group of fifteen may arrange for special instruction. Ages of students range upward from fourteen; the oldest enrollee to date was 95.

14. The UNITED STATES MINT (not open), W. Colfax Ave., between Cherokee and Delaware Sts., a massive two-story granite building, one of three coinage plants in the United States, is also one of the two chief Federal gold repositories, the other being at Fort Knox, Ky. The exact amount of gold deposited here has not been disclosed, but more than $2,500,000,000 was transported from San Francisco in 1934, which required twenty-five trains of ninety-seven mail cars; carrying charges amounted to $547,000. A total of $3,171,000,-000 was stored here during that year, said to have been a record at the time.

In 1863 the Federal Government purchased the private mint of Clark, Gruber & Company, 16th and Market Streets, which had been coining $5, $10, and $20 gold pieces since 1860. The Denver Mint, which began operating in 1869, confined itself at first to melting, refining, assaying, and stamping bullion ; no coining was done until 1906, two years after the completion of the present plant, in which some zoo men are employed in coining pennies and silver pieces; the last gold coins were minted in 1931.

The mint was the scene of a bold and well-executed robbery on December 18, 1922. As a Federal Reserve truck in charge of four guards was being loaded with $200,000 in $5 bank notes, a sedan pulled up alongside and three men leaped out, covered the guards, seized the currency, and tossed it into their car. The bandits opened fire with shotguns loaded with buckshot; guards in the building returned the fire as the car raced off. One bandit was later found dead in the bullet-riddled car parked in a private garage near by. The others, and the money, have never been found.

15. The CITY AND COUNTY BUILDING, Bannock St., between W. Colfax and W. 14th Ave., completed in 1932, represents the joint design of thirty-five leading Denver architects. Its simple classical lines stand in striking contrast with those of the State Capitol facing it across Civic Center.. The four-story granite building, with its concave facade of Doric columns, has a large central portico surmounted with a slender clock tower housing the Speer memorial chimes. The Corinthian caps on the portico columns were carved from 26-ton granite blocks, and the bronze entrance doors are among the largest ever cast. The interior paneling and monolithic columns in the lobby are of Colorado travertine.

On the fourth floor of the building is the DENVER ART MUSEUM (open 10-5 weekdays), with twelve galleries of permanent exhibits and an art reference library maintained by the Denver Public Library. Canvases include those of contemporary American artists and representative paintings by Corot, Millet, Jongkind, Sisley, Pissaro, Monet, and Courbet; the Helen Dill Memorial Collection of nineteenth and twentieth century American and French works; and the Junius Flagg Brown Memorial Collection of nineteenth century American, French, and Dutch paintings in the manner of the Barbizon School. Outstanding is a Piedmontese religious painting of the sixteenth century by Defendente Ferrari.

The Indian collection contains several thousand examples of pottery, weaving, basketry, and other work. The Walter C. Mead Collection includes Chinese and Japanese porcelains and bronzes, Georgian furniture, paintings, and prints; the Oriental collection of Dr. Alfred Mann is on exhibit, as well as collections of Colonial china and textiles.

16. The CIVIC CENTER, W. Colfax Ave., between Bannock St. and Broadway, and extending to W. 14th Ave., is a formal expanse of lawns, trees, graveled walks, and esplanades. At the western boundary is the gleaming white crescent of the City and County Building. Plans for the Civic Center were projected in 1904 by Mayor Robert Speer, and work was begun in 1919 in accord with the designs of Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., of Brookline, Massachusetts; E. H. Bennett, city planner of Chicago, acted as consultant.

The VOORHIES MEMORIAL, designed by William E. and Arthur A. Fisher of Denver, a graceful arch of buff-colored sandstone with curved wings supported by Ionic columns, constitutes the north entrance to the Civic Center. Funds for its construction were bequeathed by John H. P. Voorhies, pioneer mining man. Decorating the upper walls are several murals of Western animal life by Allen True, Denver artist. The twin statues of children astride sea lions in the shallow fountain pool within the curve of the arch are the work of Robert Garrison.

The COLONNADE OF CIVIC BENEFACTORS, S. end of the Center, built in 1919, forms the stage of an open-air Greek theater. The colonnade, designed by Marean and Norton of Denver in the Ionic order of the Erechtheum at Athens, commemorates benefactors of the city whose names appear on the brass plate on the outer eastern wall. At either end of the stage are murals by Allen True depicting early mining and trapping scenes.

The bronze statues, Bucking Broncho and On the War Path, at the middle of the Center, both by A. Phimister Proctor, were presented to the city by J. K. Mullen and Stephen Knight.

17. The DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY (open 9-9 weekdays; 2-9 Sun.), NW. corner of the Civic Center, a two-story structure of Turkey Creek sandstone, neo-classic in design, is the main unit of the city's library system, an outgrowth of the Denver City and Auraria Reading Room and Library Association established in 1859. The system has twelve branches and more than 400,000 volumes. The building, of which Albert Randolph Ross was architect, was completed in 1907. On the main stairway are two mural paintings of Hopi Indians by Allen True.

In the WESTERN HISTORY DIVISION (open 9-5 Wed., Thurs., 9-9 other weekdays), on the second floor, are 30,000 western American photographs, among the largest and most complete collections of its kind. It includes eight priceless albums of early photographers of the West, dating from 1870, by W. H. Jackson, one of the greatest of American photographers; the Horace S. Poley collection, dealing with Southwestern Indians; Edward S. Curtis' books and albums, comprising twenty volumes and portfolios on North American Indians; and 700 photographs of Sioux Indians by D. F. Barry. Rare volumes in this department include: Zebulon Pike's Journal, printed in 1810; the narrative of Dr. Edwin James, historian of Major Stephen Long's expedition, printed in 1823; guides to the Colorado gold fields, 1859; and the laws of the extra-legal Jefferson Territory.

The technical division of the library, adjoining on the second floor, contains works on mining and geology, and lists of locations, production, and ownership of the principal mines of the Rocky Mountain region.

18. The PIONEER MONUMENT, on a triangular landscaped plot, NW. corner Broadway and W. Colfax Ave., marks the terminus of the old Smoky Hill Trail over which thousands of gold seekers reached the Cherry Creek settlements in 1859-60. Designed by Frederick MacMonnies, the $75,000 fountain was unveiled in 1911. A bronze equestrian figure of Kit Carson surmounts the memorial; around the rim of the fountain are three reclining bronze figures, The Hunter, The Prospector, and The Pioneer Mother.

In the original design the sculptor had placed a defiant Sioux at the top of the monument, but pioneers rose in wrath, held indignation meetings, and created so much furor that MacMonnies made a special trip from Paris to confer with them. The pioneers were pacified when the figure of the noted scout was substituted. Later, however, criticism was directed at the modeling of the figures. Kit Carson was said to resemble a "rococo cowboy upon a pony of the same extraction"; Julian Street on a visit in 1914 remarked that the scout "looked like something that might have been modeled by a Frenchman whose acquaintance with this country had been limited to the reading of a bad translation of Fenimore Cooper." The entire fountain, he added, "might have been intended for a mantle decoration in Dresden China, which, through some confusion, had gotten itself enlarged and cast in bronze."

19. The STATE CAPITOL (open 9-5 daily), on rising ground at the eastern side of a 15-acre landscaped tract on Broadway between E. Colfax and E. 14th Ave., extending to Grant St., dominates the city from its commanding eminence. The cornerstone was laid July 4, 1890, on land donated by Henry C. Brown, and the building was completed in 1896 at a cost of $2,800,000. E. E. Myers of Detroit, designer of the Michigan and Texas State capitols, was the architect. Insisting that "the grotesque and fanciful styles of architecture resorted to so extensively at the present day [1888] should be shunned as unbefitting to a structure where dignity of appearance is demanded by its uses," Myers made a "free" adaptation of the National Capitol.

The granite building, rising three stories above the high basement, is dominated by the high gilded dome, floodlighted at night. The style is neo-classic, massive and severe. Corinthian porticoes front each of the four entrances; on the pediment of the western, or main, portico, is a statuary group by an unknown artist symbolizing the progress of the State and its resources. On the steps of this portico is a brass plate with the inscription: "One Mile Above Sea Level."

Some $4,000 of gold leaf was used to cover the dome, being laid on a lead base weighing seven and one half tons. Originally it was intended that a piece of statuary should top the dome, but the Board of Capitol Managers chose instead a 1,440 candle-power incandescent globe. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever," was their enigmatic reply to the protests of enraged artists who had hoped to submit their work. The floor plan of the building is in the form of a Greek cross. Broad corridors lead from each of the four entrances to the rotunda where the central staircase winds upward to the second floor. The lower portions of interior walls are paneled with Colorado onyx, an agate-like stone; richly carved colonnades complete the classic decoration.

On the first floor are the Executive Chambers of the Governor and the offices of the elected officials of the State. The Chambers of the Senate and House of Representatives (gallery entrances on third floor), the Supreme Court and its library, occupy the second floor. The third floor offices are used by various State departments. The dome (open 9-4 daily) is reached by narrow spiral stairs from the third floor. From the outside balcony is a fine view of the city and mountain ranges. A "mountain finder," an instrument to aid in identifying peaks in the Rocky Mountains, is set on the balcony rim.

Canvases in the Executive Chambers are almost solely portraits of former governors. The only piece of statuary, a bust of former Chief Justice Henry Thatcher by Preston Powers, is in the Supreme Court. Symbolic panels by Earl Morris on the brass doors of the elevators depict various periods in the development of the State. Portraits of many leading figures in Colorado's history appear in the stained glass windows of the Senate Chamber and the dome.

The SOLDIERS MONUMENT, a bronze figure of a Union soldier flanked with two Civil War brass cannon, at the western entrance to the Capitol, is the work of Captain John D. Howland, a Civil War veteran. John Preston Powers' bronze Indian figure, The Closing Era, on the east lawn, was named by John Greenleaf Whittier when displayed at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.

20. The STATE MUSEUM BUILDING (open 9-5 weekdays; 11-4 Sun.), SE. corner Sherman St. and E. 14th Ave., headquarters of the State Historical Society, is a three-story granite structure of neoclassic design, built in 1915.

In the east room on the main floor is one of the most complete collections of artifacts of the Pueblo culture in the United States; it includes skeletons, weapons, implements, pottery, baskets, ceremonial objects, and children's toys. Several Cliff Dweller cadavers are shown as they were buried. Sharing the room is the overflow from the Indian Collection, which is grouped mainly in the central room. Featuring this collection are several small-scale reconstructions of Indian life, historically accurate in detail, made by the society with the assistance of the W.P.A. The scenes picture a buffalo hunt of the Pawnee, a Comanche raid on a Ute village, the Sun Dance of the Arapaho, the Scalp Dance of the Ute, and the cutting and drying of meat by Arapaho women. The sword of Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, a prized possession, hangs here.

The minting equipment of Clark, Gruber & Company, which coined gold pieces in 1860, and other objects associated with early days in Colorado are in the Pioneer Collection in the northwest room. Here are models depicting the evolution of transportation in the West, mining activities, and the town of Denver as it appeared in 1860, also prepared with the assistance of the W.P.A. South of this room is the Western Historical Library of 10,000 volumes, 2,000 manuscripts, and 10,000 pamphlets; its newspaper files date from 1859.

The second floor, occupied largely by the mineralogical and geological divisions, has 300 cases of specimens of every type of ore found in the West. The Tabor Collection on the third floor includes many personal articles owned by members of the family of H. A. W. Tabor. In the basement are relics of the Civil, Spanish-American, and World Wars.

21. CHAPPELL HOUSE (open 10-10 weekdays; 2-5 Sun.), 1300 Logan St., now a branch of the Denver Art Museum, typifies the more luxurious houses built in Denver during the latter part of the nineteenth century. This massive two-story red sandstone house has the lines of a Normandy castle; it was conceived by its builder, Horace Bennett, when he was a schoolboy in Michigan; the designs were worked out for him in 1893 by Charles Quale, a young Denver architect. Bennett spared no cost in its construction, sinking the foundations thirty feet to bedrock. The first house in Denver to be furnished with period pieces, it was purchased in 1906 by Delos Allen Chappell, whose children, Delos Chappell and Mrs. George Cranmer, presented it to the Denver Art Association in 1922. It is used by the University of Denver Art School for lectures and for traveling art exhibits of the Denver Art Museum.

22. The CATHEDRAL OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION (Roman Catholic), NE. corner E. Colfax Ave. and Logan Sts., French Gothic in design, has lofty twin spires encrusted with leafy crockets. The Indiana limestone building, designed by Leon Coquard of Detroit, was completed in 1912. Notable interior decorations include a white Carrara marble Gothic altar, thirty feet high, and the twenty-two stained glass windows depicting Biblical scenes, designed at the Royal Bavarian Institute of Painted Glass. The Bishop's Throne, also of Carrara marble, is carved with delicate tracery. The chimes in the east tower were presented by John F. Campion, Leadville mine owner, and his family.

23. The TEMPLE EMANUEL (Reformed Hebrew), 1596 Pearl St., a brown brick structure built in 1899, is one of few examples of Moorish architecture in the city; the Saracenic motif is carried out in the interior with interlacing geometrical designs.

24. The CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN'S IN THE WILDERNESS (Protestant Episcopal), E. 14th Ave. between Washington and Clarkson Sts., designed in fifteenth century Gothic style by Tracy, Swartwout, and Lichfield of New York City, is an Indiana limestone structure with two square towers flanking the main entrance. Its tower chimes were cast in Westphalia, Germany; the hand-carved lead porch lanterns were designed by Burnham Hoyt of Denver. The cathedral contains some of the finest examples of stained glass in the city, including two windows by Chorees J. Connick of Boston, and one by the Willett Studios of Philadelphia. The windows above the altar, the work of Edward Frampton of England, are from the original St. John's Cathedral, 14th and Arapahoe Streets, destroyed by fire in 1903. This edifice, which replaced a log cabin built in the early 1860's, bore on its door the information, "700 miles to the nearest church." The wooden figures of the reredos were carved at Oberammergau, Germany, by Joseph Mayr, for many years the Christus in the Passion Play.

In St. Martin's Chapel, within the Tudor Gothic parish house at the rear of the Cathedral, is Arnold Ronnebeck's finely modeled wooden statue of The Madonna and Attending Angels. The chapel's medallion window, portraying as its central theme St. Martin of Tours sharing his coat with the beggar, is by Nicolo D'Ascenzo of Philadelphia.

25. CHEESMAN PARK, E. 8th Ave. between Franklin and Race Sts., and extending to E. 13th Ave., is a rolling eighty-acre landscaped tract. Formerly a pioneer cemetery, it was acquired by the city in 1890 and named Congress Park. It was renamed in honor of Walter Scott Cheesman, who played a major part in the development of the Denver water supply system. The CHEESMAN MEMORIAL, a neoclassic structure of Colorado marble, designed by A. J. Norton, stands on an eminence overlooking a reflecting pool near the eastern side of the park. A few yards to the west a "finder" enables those unfamiliar with the Front Range to identify the higher peaks by name.

26. The SULLIVAN GATEWAY to the Esplanade, opening N. on E. Colfax Ave. between Columbine and Elizabeth Sts., of semi-glazed terra cotta brick, a gift of Dennis Sullivan, banker, was designed by Robert Willison of Denver. The statuary groups of pioneer figures that top the free-standing Doric columns on each side of the entrance are by Leo Lentelli of New York City.

27. The EAST DENVER HIGH SCHOOL, NE. corner E. Colfax Ave. and the Esplanade, built in 1925, is the largest of the city's high schools. The three-story red brick structure was designed by George Williamson on English Jacobean lines; the lobbies are finished in gray Ozark marble.

28. CITY PARK, E. 17th Ave. between York St. and Colorado Blvd., and extending to E. 26th Ave., covering 460 acres, contains numerous recreational facilities. The THATCHER MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN, N. end of the Esplanade, just within the park, consists of bronze figures representing Love, Loyalty, and Learning, the work of Lorado Taft, surmounting a basin of Colorado granite.

The ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, north-central section of the park, contain more than 1,400 specimens of wild life, including buffalo, antelope, deer, elk, coyote, mountain lion, and pheasants. The gardens are landscaped to simulate the animals' natural habitat. The zoo was established in 1896 when a bear cub was presented to the mayor.

The ELECTRIC FOUNTAIN, center of the large lake, a reproduction of a fountain in Mexico City, has two thousand sprays discharging 4,400 gallons of water a minute, lighted on summer nights in 125 combinations of nine colors.

The COLORADO MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY (open 9-5 weekdays; 12:30-5 Sun.), at the Colorado Blvd. entrance to the park, a two-story brick structure with Corinthian columns, houses elaborate collections of mounted animal and bird groups. Those on the ground floor are mainly of North and South American and Arctic animals, including a group of Kodiak bears. The mounted birds, grouped in "altitude zones," and the butterfly collection on the second floor are pictured in their natural surroundings. The backgrounds were painted by C. W. Love, staff artist ; the foregrounds were prepared by the curators of the museum. In the basement are mineralogical exhibits, including the Campion collection of flake gold, the H. H. Nininger collection of meteorites gathered from many parts of the world, several cases of arrow and spear heads of the Folsom Man and Yuma Man, and the fossil remains of mammoths and other prehistoric animals.

The PHIPPS MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM is housed in a new wing of the building. The $250,000 auditorium, dedicated Jan. 11, 1940, is the gift of former U. S. Senator L. C. Phipps. Constructed with supplementary funds provided by the Public Works Administration, it has a seating capacity of goo; the stage can accommodate a 75-piece orchestra. Lectures, plays, and motion pictures are presented here.

The TOTEM POLES at each end of the building, examples of wood carving of the Haida Tribe of the Prince Edward Island off the west coast of Alaska, were presented by the tribesmen to Edward 0. Wolcott, U. S. Senator of Colorado (1889-1901).

29. LOWRY FIELD (open 7:30-3 :40 weekdays; 1:30-5 Sun.), main entrance SE. corner E. 6th Ave. and Quebec St., an 800-acre tract, is a U. S. Army Air Corps technical school for training of personnel in aerial photography and bombing. The plant, now under construction (1940), and for which $3,500,000 has been appropriated, will consist of one hundred buildings, including hospitals, officers' quarters, barracks, theater, and four large hangars; two school buildings will be occupied by the photographic and bombing departments. The four runways are 200 feet wide and from one to two miles long. Adjoining are the auxiliary landing field and ammunition depot. To the southwest is a 64,000-acre bombing field.

30. The UNIVERSITY OF DENVER (buildings open during school hours unless otherwise indicated), occupying a 27-acre campus on S. University Blvd. between E. Evans and E. Iliff Ayes., extending to S. Race St., the pioneer institution of higher learning in Colorado, was chartered by the Territorial Legislature as the Colorado Seminary of the Methodist Episcopal Church on March 5, 1864. Among those instrumental in the founding and later development of the institution were Territorial Governor John Evans, William N. Byers, Amos Steck, W. A. H. Loveland, and David H. Moffat, Jr.

In 1880 the University of Denver was organized as the degree-conferring body of the Seminary, and various schools and colleges were added. Here were awarded the first law, dentistry, commerce, pharmacy, and medicine degrees in Colorado. The School of Medicine, having graduated boo students, was merged with the University of Colorado, and the School of Dentistry has been abandoned. University classes were first held in downtown buildings; in 1885 forty acres were acquired in southeast Denver and construction began here six years later.

The Graduate School, the College of Liberal Arts, the School of Science and Engineering, and the department of Social Work are on the campus. The School of Commerce, Accounts, and Finance is at 2011 Glenarm Pl.; the School of Law, at 211 15th St.; the School of Librarianship, at 1511 Cleveland Pl.; and the Division of Fine Arts, at Chappell House. Student publications are the weekly Clarion and the Kynewisbok, an annual. Average enrollment in all schools is 4,000.

The Foundation for the Advancement of the Social Sciences, created by James H. Causey, one of the university trustees, has done extensive work in promoting understanding of social, industrial, and international affairs; lectures are given by American and foreign scholars. The university has an Extension Division and a Bureau of Business and Social Research, and sponsors the Play Festival at Central City (see Tour 6) through the Central City Opera House Association.

The MARGERY REED MAYO MEMORIAL HALL, S. University Blvd. and E. Evans Ave., a two-story red brick Collegiate Gothic building dedicated in 1929, houses the University Civic Theater; the theater seats 300 and has workshops for construction of scenery, painting, and costume designing. The hall contains lecture rooms, laboratories, and offices of the language, speech, education, and psychology departments. Southwest of the hall is the Spanish Renaissance MARGERY REED MAYO MEMORIAL CHAPEL, built in 1910, designed by T. P. Barber of Colorado Springs.

The STUDENT UNION BUILDING, SW. Of the chapel, a one-story gray brick structure erected in 1908 as a Carnegie Library, is the center of campus social activities. The architects were W. E. and A. A. Fisher of Denver.

The four-story brick and limestone MARY REED LIBRARY, directly south of the Student Union building, is the most impressive campus structure. Collegiate Gothic in design, the building is surmounted with a 100-foot central tower. The library contains more than 100,000 volumes, including a collection of 300 Mormon books and 1,000 Mexican, a Central and South American collection of 1,500, and an Oriental group of 2,500. The library is headquarters for the Foundation for the Advancement of the Social Sciences. The DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY (open 9-5 weekdays), in the south wing of the basement, has a large collection of bone and stone implements from America and Europe. The building, designed by Harry J. Manning of Denver, was built in 1932.

UNIVERSITY HALL, east of the library, a three-story granite and sandstone building erected in 1891, is the oldest university unit; de signed by Robert S. Roeschlaub of Denver, it houses the administration offices.

SCIENCE HALL, NW. corner of the campus, a three-story red brick building erected in 1890, contains the departments of chemistry and physics.

The red sandstone CHAMBERLIN ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY, E. Warren Ave. and S. Milwaukee St., the gift of H. B. Chamberlin, contains a twenty-inch equatorial refractor ; the adjoining students' observatory houses a six-inch refractor. The library includes star catalogs and astronomical periodicals.

The STADIUM, E. Asbury Ave. and S. Race St., seating 28,000, is patterned on that of Cornell University.

31. The ILIFF SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY, S. University Blvd. and E. Warren Ave., a three-story building erected in 1903, was established by the Methodist Episcopal Church to train candidates for the ministry. It was founded through gifts from the family of John Wesley Iliff, pioneer cattleman.

32. OVERLAND PARK, Santa Fe Drive between W. Jewel and W. Florida Ayes., extending to S. Lipan St., covers 160 acres, most of it used as a golf course. The land was owned in the early 1860's by Rufus Clark, whose success in growing tubers earned him the name of "Potato" Clark. About 1900 a race track was built here, scene of the city's first automobile and motorcycle races. Here occurred Denver's first and the country's second fatal airplane accident in 1910 when a Wright Brothers' flyer plunged to his death.

33. The SOUTH DENVER HIGH SCHOOL, E. Louisiana Ave. and S. Gilpin St., built in 1926, is a three-story red brick structure of Italian Romanesque design, with decorative heads of griffins and monsters by Robert Garrison.

34. The EUGENE FIELD LIBRARY (open 2-8 Mon., Wed., Fri., Sat.; 2-6 Thur.), 531 S. Franklin St., a small white frame cottage, was the home of the author during his residence in Denver from 1881 to 1883. Purchased for the city by Mrs. J. J. Brown, wife of a wealthy Leadville mining man, the house was removed here from its original site, 315 W. Colfax Avenue, and is now a branch of the Denver Public Library.

While in Denver, Field was managing editor of the Tribune. Much of his writing was clever and original, but it is for his later work while in Chicago—chiefly his children's poems—that he is best known. He delighted in goading the more pompous figures of Denver's public life until they lost both dignity and temper; at the same time, he fashioned such whimsical creations as the starving cockroach that staggered from the office of the Rocky Mountain News to that of the Tribune to get a square meal of editorial paste.

35. LAKE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL, W. 19th Ave. and Lowell Blvd., built in 1926, overlooks Sloan's Lake from the east. One of the most attractive of Denver schools, the three-story dark brick structure, designed by Burnham Hoyt, is an excellent adaptation of early Tudor style to contemporary school needs.

36. ELITCH GARDENS (open June-Aug.; adm. 10¢), W. 38th Ave. and Tennyson St., forty acres of floral gardens and amusement devices, were opened to the public in 1890 by the late John Elitch, Jr., and his wife Mary, well known as "The Lady of the Gardens." Here is the renowned Elitch Gardens Theater (see The Arts), where for fifty years the country's leading actors and actresses of stage and screen have appeared in summer stock productions.

37. INSPIRATION POINT, six blocks W. of Sheridan Blvd. on W. 49th Ave., a unit of the municipal park system, has been transformed by the W.P.A. from a barren elevation into a small landscaped park from which there is an unrivaled view of the mountains.

38. The two-story stuccoed brick EL JEBEL SHRINE MOSQUE (open 9-5 daily), 4625 W. 50th Ave., completed in 1929, is among the largest temples of the order in the United States, having an auditorium seating more than 2,000. In carrying out the Moorish motif, the architects, T. Robert Weiger and William M. Bowman Company of Denver, made elaborate use of stucco, terra cotta, and Spanish tile.

39. REGIS COLLEGE (Roman Catholic), occupying a 94-acre campus on W. 50th Ave. between Federal and Lowell Blvds., established as the College of the Sacred Heart by the Society of Jesus in 1887, offers the usual liberal arts courses, as well as preliminary training for the engineering, legal, and medical professions. Here is one of the sixteen stations of the Jesuit Seismological Association; the seismological instruments, installed in 1909, were among the first in the United States to function regularly. The largest of the seven brick and sandstone units are the three-story ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, which houses the Regis High School, erected in 1888, and CARROLL HALL, opened in 1923. The main entrance drive is bordered with large elms. The average college enrollment is 200, with another 250 attending the high school.

40. The DENVER UNION STOCKYARDS, main entrance E. 47th Ave. and Lafayette St., established in 1886, occupies 130 acres, of which 80 acres are paved; pens have water and sewer connections. This is the largest receiving market for sheep in the United States, handling as many as 100,000 head a day; more than 1,000,000 pass through the yards annually. The plant, centered on the LIVESTOCK BUILDING, which contains the administration offices, has facilities for handling 70,000 sheep, 33,000 cattle, 10,000 hogs, and 2,000 horses or mules. The cattle-branding chutes have a daily capacity of 4,500. The STOCKYARDS STADIUM, E. 47th Ave. and Gilpin St., a large rambling brick and frame building seating 4,400, is the scene of the annual National Western Rodeo, Horse Show, and Livestock Show.

41. The OMAHA-GRANT SMELTER STACK, Brighton Blvd. and E. 43rd Ave., is a reminder of Denver's once-flourishing smelting business. The 350-foot stack, 33 feet square at the base, contains more than 4,300,000 brick; it is said to have been the tallest industrial stack in the world at the time of its construction in 1892. Closed by a strike in 1903, the Omaha-Grant Smelter, designed for the reduction of complex gold and silver ores, never reopened and was later dismantled.

Fitzsimmons General Hospital, 8.4 miles (see Tour 7b) ; School of Mines, 12.6 miles, Bear Creek Canyon, 15 miles, Red Rocks Park and Denver Mountain Parks, 15.2 miles, and Lookout Mountain (Buffalo Bill's Grave), 19.4 miles (see Tour 7A); Fort Logan, 8.2 miles (see Tour 12b).