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Denver Name
Gen. William Larimer, a Pennsylvania-born land developer, named this city for Kansas territorial governor James Denver, hoping the move would lock up the city's bid to become county seat of Arapaho County, then part of Kansas. Unfortunately, Gov. Denver had already resigned his position and no longer possessed the necessary clout to realize Larimer's dream.
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The name is English and once referred to "someone living near the valley's edge."
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Denver's nickname, "Mile High City," stems from its elevation, which happens to be 5,280 feet above sea level. Denver is also known as the "Queen City of the Plains" due to its crucial role in the development of agriculture on the Colorado Front Range, which borders the western edge of the Great Plains.
Historical Significance of Denver
With a population topping 550,000, Denver is the largest city in Colorado and the 25th largest in the U.S. Denver is also the capital of Colorado and the sixth largest state capital. Denver is the seat of Denver County and shares the same borders, making the duo one of the rare consolidated city-counties in the U.S. In 1890, Denver was the largest city west of the Mississippi River, but Los Angeles took over the job by the turn of the century.
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Col. Lewis Tappan, a Denver VIP, criticized the city's first schoolmaster, Prof. Oscar Goldrick, for conducting classes seven days a week, a practice that violated the sanctity of the Sabbath. Goldrick responded by teaching religious subjects on the seventh day, a tactic that led to the first official Sunday school in Colorado.
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In 1908, citizens plodding the streets of Denver spotted the first motor vehicle license plate in the United States.
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The U.S. Mint in Denver started pumping out coins of all denominations for general circulation in 1906. Today, the mint produces coin dies, regular uncirculated coin sets, and commemorative coins authorized by Congress. The mint also hoards silver and gold bullion while conducting public tours and operating a profitable sales center.
Newly minted coins end up in the clutches of an automatic counting machine that organizes preset sums that are then plopped into big canvas bags far too heavy to handle without pallets and a forklift. Gold ingots, on the other hand, can be more manageable.
Around 85 years ago, Denver Mint nightshift employee Orville Harrington supplemented his $4.00 per day wage by stealing 53 seven-inch gold bars. He snuck the bars out the mint's front door hidden inside his wooden leg. The process took several months and Harrington buried the bars, worth around $80,000, at home in his yard. The Secret Service eventually caught on to the gimpy caper. The "Man with the Golden Leg" got a 10-year jolt in Leavenworth for embezzlement.
In 1922, four stickup men packing sawed-off shotguns assaulted a Federal Reserve truck parked at the Denver Mint loading dock. Some 50 guards from the mint tried to repel the robbers with their own barrage of shotgun fire, and one robber took a round in the jaw. The robbers stowed the wounded man in their getaway car and never actually entered the fortress-like mint. But they did blow away a guard and steal $200,000 in crisp-new $5 bills from the truck.
Around 18 days later, Denver law enforcement officials discovered the getaway vehicle parked in a local garage with the frozen body of the wounded robber inside. Around 12 years later, they reported that five men and two women had conspired to pull off the crime, but released no names because all seven were allegedly dead or already confined in prison. Minneapolis cops eventually recovered $80,000 of the stolen Lincolns, but the case was never officially solved.
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During the 1960s and 70s, Denver served as a center for a national Chicano movement. Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales, a boxer turned poet turned activist, fought for human rights, founding an organization in Denver, his native city, called the Crusade for Justice.
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In 1997, Denver hosted the summit meeting of the Group of Eight, which included heads of state from the nations of Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Japan, France, Italy, Germany, and Russia. The European Union was also represented.
Denver Landmarks
The University of Denver enrolls nearly 10,000 students. Sports teams are called the Pioneers. Ruckus, a red-tailed hawk, serves as the school's mascot. Founded in 1864 as a private university, DU goes by the motto: "For Science and Religion." Notable alumni include U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, pioneer broadcaster Lowell Thomas, comedian David "Sinbad" Adkins, and Gen. George Casey Jr., commander of U.S. forces in the Iraq occupation.
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The Buckhorn Exchange, Denver's oldest restaurant, provides an Old West steakhouse atmosphere and a menu stocked with select beef, elk, buffalo, salmon, and wild game. Founded in 1893 by a mountain man buddy of Buffalo Bill Cody, the restaurant also features a Wild West museum.
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The Molly Brown House in Denver, a Queen Anne masterwork completed in 1800s, was once the home of an unsinkable RMS Titanic survivor, a woman later portrayed on the big screen by Kathy Bates in the 1997 cinematic sea monster Titanic. Tagged for demolition in 1970, the house itself survived when concerned Denver citizens tossed its dilapidated frame into fiscal life raft and floated it to a full architectural recovery.
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Denver's Riverside Cemetery, the oldest graveyard in Colorado, hosts the decomposing corpses of many dignitaries, including Clara Brown, a black Gold Rush woman; Barney Ford, an escaped slave millionaire; Jeremiah Lee, an ex-slave of Gen. Robert E. Lee and a successful gold miner; John Long Routt, first governor of Colorado; Sam Elbert, another Colorado governor; Alice Hill, Colorado's first poet laureate; John Evans, Colorado territorial governor; Philip Zang, a beer tycoon and owner of the first brewery in Denver; and Augusta Tabor, the divorced wife of Colorado silver king Horace Tabor.
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Originally propped on top of the seven-story Colorado Gold Mining Stock Exchange Building in Denver, The Old Prospector, a 12-foot, 490-pound, hand-hewn copper statue, traveled to 15th St. in 1962, where he now stands, exuding enlightening doses of industry, patience, and enterprise. Alphonse Pelzer, the sculptor, modeled his coppery miner after a pleasantly lurid Civil War vet named Col. John William Straughn.
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The Colorado Governor's Mansion, aka the Executive Residence, started life as a prestigious private home. Entering existence in its second century, the Denver structure, originally owned by the processed Cheeseman family, still exemplifies Old World chic while ranking as one of the Old West's genuine architectural treasures. An important example of the Georgian Revival style, the mansion features exquisite fountains, plentiful flower gardens, and a knock-out collection of foreign artwork. The Waterford crystal chandelier dangling in the Drawing Room once swung from the ceiling in the White House on Pennsylvania Ave.
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In 1858, Gen. William Larimer slapped together a meager log cabin in Denver's downtown area. That cabin blossomed into Larimer Square, Denver's world-famous dining and shopping district. Victorian structures host exclusive specialty boutiques and one-of-a-kind restaurants. Gaslights and lead-glass windows create an oasis of coziness that ranks one tourist bus behind the USAF Academy as the most visited landmark in Colorado.
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Possibly the best-known watchtower location in Colorado, the Devil's Head Lookout earned its unholy name from two red rock formations that impale the mountain air like satanic horns. Only a short trip south of Denver, the site features a 1,000 foot vertical drop that prohibits motor vehicle rides on the trail leading to the lookout tower.
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The Colorado State Capitol Building enriches Denver's skyline with a 180-foot dome plated using 200 ounces of 24-karat gold donated by Colorado miners. Construction began in 1886 and dragged on for another 22 years. A shattering beauty of brass and stained glass, the building features an interior buttressed with a spectacularly mauve Colorado marble, aka Beulah Red, so endangered its use in the capitol triggered its extinction in the wild.
A Civil War monument guards the west end of capitol, listing Union units from the Colorado Territory. Another statue called The Closing Era stands at the east end and depicts an American Indian hunter scrutinizing the merits of his fresh buffalo kill.
A commemorative plug on the 15th tread of the capitol's west outdoor staircase marks a spot 5,280 feet, or precisely one mile, above sea level. Previously, X had marked the spot on the 12th step, but in 1969 engineering students from Colorado State University discovered that the mile-high honor hadn't climbed high enough. They hurriedly stepped up to point out the error.
An anonymous watchman resided in a system of tunnels under the Capitol for 30 years. The watchman never spent his paychecks, but cashed them at a Denver bank to build a stash of silver dollars. After his death, treasure hunters scoured the tunnels for the watchman's hoard, but never recovered a single cent of it.
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Named for Lt. Francis Lowry, an aviator killed by German antiaircraft fire in World War I, nearby Lowry Air Force Base was once the interim site for the USAF Academy. During WWII, the base trained flight crews for B-24 Liberator and B-29 Superfortress bombers. Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower used Lowry as the site for his "Summer White House." During the 1960s, Lowry excelled as one of the world's top technical training centers, specializing in avionics, space operations, air intelligence, logistics, and audiovisual systems with verifiable military applications.
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Nearby Mt. Lindo features a gigantic illuminated Christian cross designed and built by the late Donald Frees to remember Pearl Olinger Van Derbur, the wife of a Denver mortician. Powered by the wind, the Christ-based symbol is 393 feet high and 254 feet wide, which makes it the largest electrically lit sign in the United States.
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Opening for business in 1892, the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver was named for Henry Brown, a prosperous area farmer. The hotel offered guests uncommon amenities, including a private library, a full-sized bowling alley, billiard tables, and fresh produce and dairy products from Brown's personal farm. Local lore insists the hotel also featured an onsite crematorium for guests who, by reason of untimely death, overstayed their welcome.
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Denver International Airport covers 53 square miles and is the largest U.S. airport in terms of land area. In 2005, DIA handled more than 43 million passengers, making it the 11th busiest airport on Earth. The airport is perhaps best known for a $186 million automated baggage system that was completed in 1995 and turned into a hideous fiasco.
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Sakura Square, aka "Tiny Tokyo," is a well-known Japanese community in Denver. Tourists from all over the world visit the area, which features a magnificent Buddhist temple.
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Open for business in 1881, three-story Union Station in Denver still serves train traffic, including the Amtrak California Zephyr, aka "The Silver Lady." The original station burned down in 1894, prompting the building of the current Beaux Arts structure.
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The Denver Art Museum contains at least 55,000 artworks, including a prestigious collection of American Indian art. One of the most popular exhibits is a modern work called Linda by Denver sculptor John DeAndrea. Linda is an exceptionally realistic sculpture of a "sleeping woman."
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The Denver Center for the Performing Arts is the second largest complex of its type in the U.S. Completed in 1972, the center has 10,800 seats distributed across nine theaters. One of the theaters, the 2,700-seat Boettcher Concert Hall, opened in 1978 as the first in-the-round concert facility in the nation. The hall is home to the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.
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The 80-acre Denver Zoo was the most popular paid attraction in the city limits in 2005. An American black bear cub named Billy Bryan was the first resident when the zoo opened in 1896.
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Confluence Park is the site where Cherry Creek and the South Platte River join forces. Historians credit the area as the first settled spot in Denver.
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The Daniels & Fisher Tower is one of the best-known landmarks in Denver. Completed in 1910, the D&F was the tallest skyscraper west of the Mississippi for a time.
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Pope John Paul II celebrated mass at the spectacular Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver. The French Gothic cathedral cost half a million dollars when it was completed in 1911.
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Experts rate the 23-acred Denver Botanic Gardens as one of the top five botanic gardens in the U.S. The gardens feature more than 10,000 different kinds of plants from all over the world, including 1,000 kinds of orchids. Woody Allen filmed part of his 1973 sleeper hit Sleeper in the gardens.
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The Downtown Aquarium in Denver is the largest public aquarium between Illinois and California. Roughly 1.2 million gallons of water, both fresh and salt, are home to a multitude of ocean, sea, river, and lake creatures, including rainbowfish from Indonesia and a stingray in a touch-and-feed exhibit.
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The Wells Fargo Center is the third tallest skyscraper in Denver. Also called the "Cash Register" and the "Mailbox," the Class "AA" office tower features a heated roof to prevent snow from overflowing onto unwary pedestrians on the ground 52 floors below. Noted architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee designed the building with its granite and gray glass exterior and 1.2 million square feet of office space.
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With 56 floors, Republic Plaza is the tallest high-rise in Denver and the Rocky Mountain region. Standing 714 feet tall, the skyscraper features an exterior of polished Sardinian granite.
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1801 California Street is the second tallest skyscraper in Denver. Towering 52 stories, the structure, which is faced with brown concrete, is 11 feet taller than the Wells Fargo Center.
Prominent People in Denver
Labeled "That Damn Woman!" by her male rivals, Mary Florence Lathrop was the first practicing female lawyer in Denver. She opened her law office in 1897 and joined the American Bar Association as its first female member in 1917. She was known for wearing a lace apron while she practiced her profession.
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Dr. James Naismith, the Canadian-born inventor of basketball, once worked as an all-purpose instructor at the Denver YMCA. Naismith also earned his medical degree from Denver's Gross Medical School. While living in Massachusetts, he began to worry that area youth were starving for indoor winter sports activities. He famously came up with the idea two peach baskets, a soccer ball, and two teams looking to "make a basket." Although basketball has evolved to an NBA level of sophistication, 12 of the 13 rules Naismith formulated are still fundamental to the game.
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Silent-screen swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks Sr. was born in Denver in 1883. After his Broadway debut in 1902, Fairbanks went on to portray "Blaze Derringer" in The Americano in 1916. He also played a love-struck criminal in The Thief of Bagdad, a revengeful buccaneer in The Black Pirate, and "Steve Drexel" in Mr. Robinson Crusoe.
Fairbanks married "America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford in 1920. He hosted the first Academy Awards in 1929. A true headliner, he performed virtually all his own stunts and often insisted that his name receive bottom billing in the film credits. His son Douglas Fairbanks Jr., also an actor of some note, once said, "I never tried to emulate my father. Anyone trying to do that would be a second-rate carbon copy."
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In 1914, Mary Geneva Doud, future wife of Dwight D. Eisenhower, preeminent U.S. Army general and U.S. president, graduated from Miss Wolcott's Finishing School for girls in Denver. As an Army wife, Mamie Eisenhower estimates that she packed, picked up, and moved her entire household some 27 times over a period of 37 years. As First Lady, she and her husband Ike entertained an unprecedented crush of foreign dignitaries and domestic luminaries at the White House.
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Fleeing Milwaukee to escape a marriage arranged by her traditionalistic parents, Golda Mabovitz bee-lined to Denver to hide out with her elder sister Sheyna Korngold. In Denver, Mabovitz met Morris Myerson, a sign painter she would later marry. Some years later, she immigrated to Palestine where as Gold Meir she would become the prime minister of Israel. Known as the "Iron Lady" of the Israeli political scene, Meir once said, "Moses dragged us for 40 years through the desert to bring us to the one place in the Middle East where there was no oil." Her surname Meir means "burn brightly."
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Buffalo Bill Cody lived with his family in Cody, Wyoming, after selling his famous estate, Scout's Rest Ranch. As a youngster, Cody worked as a messenger boy on a bull train heading west. As a Pony Express rider, he once rode 321 miles straight, using up 20 horses. He earned his nickname after outshooting a fellow buffalo hunter, dropping 69 animals to his opponent's 46. An actual army scout, he reportedly killed a Cheyenne chief named Yellow Hair during an incident at Hat Creek, Nebraska.
Cody made perhaps his biggest mark as a promoter of Wild West shows. Experts consider his "Old Glory Blowout" the principle forerunner of modern rodeos. He toured the United States and Europe and fixed the idea of the romantic American cowboy in the public heart. In 1898, Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World rolled into Denver aboard 52 railway cars.
Oddly enough, Cody proved to be fiscally slow in the head, and in 1917 died virtually destitute at his sister's home in Denver at age 71. An estimated 18,000 people shuffled up to view his remains in a glass-topped casket perched on a purple couch under the golden dome of the Colorado State Capitol. Friends buried him at the summit of Lookout Mountain in Colorado.
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Denver-born actor Jan-Michael Vincent probably collected his widest audience as helicopter pilot "Stringfellow Hawke" in the 1980s TV series Airwolf. But his most memorable performance might be his interpretation of a sociopathic assassin's apprentice opposite Charles Bronson in the 1972 organized crime classic The Mechanic.
Personal problems linked to drugs and alcohol eventually sabotaged Vincent's film career, but fans can still look back on the topnotch professional work he displayed as a U.S. Marine hippie in the 1970 TV movie Tribes. He also dumbfounded critics as idealistic trucker "Carrol Jo Hummer" in the 1975 American-way movie White Line Fever.
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While only a teenager, breakthrough musician Paul Whiteman played first viola with the Denver Symphony Orchestra. Soon heralded as the "King of Jazz," Whiteman introduced the world to "symphonic jazz" in 1919. Forming his own orchestra, he toured the U.S. and Europe. In 1943, he became musical director of the Blue Radio Network, the forerunner of the American Broadcasting Company.
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Immortal folk singer Judy Collins graduated from Denver's East High School in 1957. At first a piano prodigy, she soon fell under the sway of folk icons Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and Bob Dylan. Known for her guitar work, the beautiful lyrics of her own compositions and an incredibly broad spectrum of musical interests, Collins performed at Pres. Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration, singing "Amazing Grace" and "Chelsea Morning."
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Pam Grier, the peerless blaxploitation film specialist, grew up in Denver. Brash, bold, buxom, beautiful, and black, Grier made her cinematic bones as a gangster-hunting gunwoman in the 1974 Jack Hill masterpiece Foxy Brown. True fans will gaze back to Coffy, another Hill film where she portrays a kill-crazy registered nurse tormented by the downfall of her heroin-ravaged, 11-year-old sister.
In 1997, Quentin Tarantino famously cast her as the lead in the tribute film Jackie Brown. In 2004, she began work on the Showtime lesbian tell-all series The L Word. The first black woman to grace the cover of Ms. magazine and blessed with the body measurements 38-22-36, Grier once said, "Me, sexy? I'm just plain ol' beans and rice."
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Born in Denver in 1953, comedian and actor Tim Allen charmed America as the not-so-handy handyman "Tim 'The Tool Man' Taylor" on the TV sitcom Home Improvement. In 1978, Allen almost missed his flight to Hollywood success when authorities caught him with 1.4 pounds of cocaine in a Michigan airport. Facing life in prison, he testified against his partner and served only 28 months. He was obsessed with "more power" as the Tool Man. "Electricity can be dangerous," he once said. "My nephew tried to stick a penny into a plug. Whoever said a penny doesn't go far didn't see him shoot across that floor. I told him he was grounded."
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Lefty tennis pro Victor Amaya was born in Denver in 1954. In 1980, he grappled his way up to a career-high WTP ranking of #15 in the world, depending mostly on his 135 mph serve. He almost knocked off Swedish colossus Bjorn Borg in the first round of the 1978 Wimbledon Championships.
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India.Arie, the R&B and neo soul singer and guitarist, was born in Denver in 1976. Known for her valiant and persuasive singing voice, India once said, "I was never searching for a deal. I knew that I wanted as many people as possible to hear my music, but I made a decision early not to compromise myself or my music."
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Karl "Bush's Brain" Rove was born in Denver in 1950. A Republican bullworker known for his allegedly Machiavellian strategies, Rove eventually rose to the exalted rank of White House chief of staff in the administration of Pres. George W. Bush. He was later somewhat tarnished by unconfirmed links to the Valerie Plame CIA leak scandal. "I don't know about you," he once said, "but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble."
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B-ball superstar Chauncey Billups was a top defender, key playmaker, and clutch shooter in the NBA. As co-captain of the Detroit Pistons, Billups used his skill set as a point guard to lead his team to victory in the 2004 NBA Finals. Averaging 21 points per game, he ended up the Finals MVP. He was born in Denver in 1976.
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Cornerstone character actor Pat Hingle got his start in the uncredited role of "Jocko the bartender" in the 1954 unlucky longshoreman classic On the Waterfront. Born in Denver in 1924, he is perhaps best known for his work as "Commissioner Gordon" in a trio of Batman feature films. Early in his acting career, Hingle fell 54 feet down the elevator shaft of his New York City apartment building. For two weeks, he hovered near death in intensive care, but eventually recovered, losing his left little finger as a lasting reminder. Looking back, he probably would have settled for a piece of string.
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David Fincher directed Alien3, Se7en, Fight Club, Panic Room, and Zodiac, a docudrama based on the morbid stylings for the infamous San Francisco serial killer. Fincher got his start directing music videos, including work for Billy Idol, Paula Abdul, Sting, Madonna, Aerosmith, Michael Jackson, The Rolling Stones, Nine Inch Nails, and Roy Orbison. He was born in Denver in 1962.
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Alan Kooi Simpson, a former U.S. senator from Wyoming, was born in Denver in 1931. A powerful, but nonconformist Republican, Simpson once said, "Stonewalling, wiretapping, cover-up, Lord's sake, if there isn't one of us here at this table that hasn't dabbled in that mystery."
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Dean Cyril Reed started his career as an American teen idol and ended up a Socialist sympathizer living in East Berlin. He cried out against nuclear weapons and championed the building of the Berlin Wall. In 1986, he turned up dead from drowning in a lake near his Berlin home. Authorities claimed suicide. His family in the U.S. spoke of murder. Even though he denounced many American policies, Reed never actually joined the Communist Party and always professed his love for his home country. He was born in Denver in 1938.
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Pat Oliphant won a Pulitzer as an Australian-born political cartoonist. He got his start in America working for the Denver Post. Oliphant's wry, often hard-hitting work appeared in newspapers all over the world.
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Born in Mumbai, India, superstar actress Madhuri Dixit owned Hindi cinema in the 1980s and 90s. In 1999, she married Denver-born physician Dr. Sriram Nene. With two children, she splits her time between Denver and Mumbai, aka Bombay. The winner of countless awards for her work in the mammoth Indian film industry, which has earned the nickname Bollywood, Dixit is considered by millions of fans to be the Indian epitome of feminine grace and beauty.
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Although a native Washingtonian, John Elway, the legendary QB for the Denver Broncos, is unquestionably an honorary Coloradoan for all foreseeable generations. In 1998, after three previous failures, Elway led his team to victory in Super Bowl XXXII. A year later, he did it again, passing for 336 yards and earning MVP honors in a win over the Atlanta Falcons. The Denver Broncos retired jersey # 7 in 1999. Elway compiled 148 wins as a starting quarterback, but suffered 516 sacks, an NFL record.
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Raised on the streets of Denver, Beat Generation kingpin Neal Cassady is probably best known as the role model for the heroic bum "Dean Moriarty" in On the Road, Jack Kerouac's counterculture blockbuster. Cassady met and molded a brief sexual affair with Beat wordsmith Allen Ginsberg, the author of the American epic poem Howl. In 1968, Cassady slipped into a fatal coma after wandering away from a party in Mexico, but not before saying, "Art is good when it springs from necessity. This kind of origin is the guarantee of its value; there is no other."
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Don Cheadle, a top echelon Hollywood actor, graduated from East High School in Denver. Cheadle wowed critics with his work in Traffic, Hotel Rwanda, Crash, Ocean's Eleven, and The Rat Pack. The winner of a Los Angeles Film Critics best supporting actor award for his portrayal of "Mouse Alexander" in the 1995 crime thriller Devil in a Blue Dress, he once said, "I've been doing this since I was 10 years old, inhabiting different people and playing different roles. Thirty years later, there's still the same sort of excitement I get from it. It's still fun to inhabit different characters and play different things, so it's all in that panoply of acting."
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Katrina Wolf Murat, maker of the first U.S. flag in Colorado, is buried in a cemetery on the west side of Brighton Blvd. in Denver.
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Leland Chapman ran with a Denver street gang before he began appearing as a bail bondsman on his father's reality show Dog the Bounty Hunter. Leland, a pro kickboxer, operates a bail bonds branch office in Kona, Hawaii.
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Voice actor Frank Welker was born in Denver in 1945. Welker is known for doing more than 1,200 voices, including "Fred Jones" from Scooby-Doo and every cartoon "Decepticon" from The Transformers.
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AnnaSophia Robb played "Violet" in the Tim Burton film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She also played "India Opal Buloni" in Because of Winn-Dixie, a 2005 family film by Wayne Wang. Robb was born in Denver in 1993.
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NASCAR driver Jerry Robertson won 126 races on the national dirt-track circuit. In 1994, he was Rookie of the Year in the NASCAR Grand American Modified Division. He was born in Denver in 1962.
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Latina bombshell Jacqueline Madera was Miss Colorado USA in 2006. She earned a B.A. in Hospitality, Meeting, and Travel Administration from Metropolitan State College in Denver.
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Denver-born actress Hanna Hall appeared in Forrest Gump, Neal Cassady, and The Virgin Suicides. Thirteen-year-old "Cecilia Lisbon," her character in the latter film, skewers herself on a fence post after jumping out her bedroom window.
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Jack Earle weighed only four pounds at birth, but he grew into the frame of a 7'7" Hollywood actor. In the 1920s, he appeared in at least 25 films, including A Spooky Romance, Golfmania, Obey the Law, and Sahara Blues. Born in Denver in 1906, Earle was at one time billed as the "World's Tallest Human."
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Born in Okinawa, but raised in Denver, writer Ted Conover won the 2000 National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction for his book Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing. Conover actually worked as a guard at the prison to get hands-on research material.
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Fans and experts consider Bill Frisell won of the best U.S. jazz guitarists in recent memory. In 2005, he won a Grammy for his contemporary jazz album Unspeakable. Frisell was born in Baltimore, but grew up in Denver.
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2 Cold Scorpio, also known as Charles Skaggs, invented the 450° Splash, a pro wrestling move that involves splattering an opponent by performing a forward revolving flip-splash from a raised platform. Scorpio's aerial wizardry made him a four-time Extreme Championship Wrestling World Television Champion. He was born in Denver in 1965.
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Born in Denver in 1951, Philip Bailey went on to become the founding singer for Earth, Wind, & Fire. Equipped with a four-octave voice, Bailey sang falsetto on the E,W&F hits "Devotion," "Head to the Sky," "Reasons," and "Shining Star."
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Jill Sobule, a songwriter born in Denver in 1961, penned the controversial 2000 hit "I Kissed a Girl." She also wrote "Supermodel" for the Clueless soundtrack.
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Hattie McDaniel won an Academy Award for her supporting work as "Mammy" in the 1939 classic Gone with the Wind. McDaniel was the first black American to win an Oscar. Weirdly enough, Hollywood execs arranged for her to sit by herself during the Oscar ceremonies at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles. She was born in Wichita, Kansas, but raised in Denver. The USPS released a 2006 39¢ stamp with McDaniel's portrait to celebrate the nation's black heritage.
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Starting in 2001, Dianne Reeves won three straight Grammys for "Best Jazz Vocal Performance." Reeves, who was raised by her grandmother in Denver, toured with Harry Belafonte in the 1980s. Experts rank her with Dee Dee Bridgewater, Cassandra Wilson, and Diana Krall as one of the top female jazz singers in music history. She played the jazz singer in the 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck.
Denver Inventions
In 1893, Henry Perky, a mile-high health nut, invented shredded wheat for his own personal consumption. Soon other health nuts in and outside Denver were demanding the crunchy breakfast food Perky called "little whole wheat mattresses." By 1901, Perky had established a production plant in Niagara Falls, New York, called "The White Palace." Today, Post Cereals markets shredded wheat in both a bite-sized and bun-sized form. Sugar frosting is also an option.
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Denver businessman Jesse Shwayder, a master trunk maker, invented Samsonite Luggage in 1910. Shwayder chose the muscle-bound name because he felt enlightened by Samson, the Biblical hero who went blind, but still toppled a temple with his strength.
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In 1944, Frank Marugg, a retired Denver policeman, invented the Denver Boot, the original wheel immobilization device. He was motivated by owners of impounded vehicles who complained incessantly about items stolen from their cars while in police custody. The boot eliminated the need for impoundment.
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Denver traffic engineer Henry Barnes came up with the idea of installing lights at intersections that stopped cars traveling from all directions. The innovation allowed pedestrians to cross diagonally, a slantwise street move now called the Barnes Dance, saving time, energy, and shoe leather.
Speaking of dances, Colorado adopted the square dance as the official state folk dance in 1992. Designed for groups of four couples, the square dance is traditionally accompanied by a fiddle, accordion, banjo, and guitar. A "caller" sings out a patter of instructions that direct the couples around the dance floor. Cooperation is a crucial feature of properly performed square dancing.
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An all-American sport variously called Pumpkin Ball, Kitten Ball, Country Ball, Diamond Ball, and Mush Ball first hit playing fields in 1887. Finally, 45 years later, the game got a name hard enough to stand alone when Denver YMCA physical education chief Walter Hakanson coined the term "softball."
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Insightful florist John Valentine was running Park Floral Company in Denver when he convinced 14 other flower sellers to help him organize the Florist's Telegraph Delivery Association in 1910. Today, FTD has more than 20,000 members.
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Denver architect Temple Buell, aka the "father of the shopping center," did not actually construct the first indoor collective retail hub in America. Buell used his idea to inspire Boston and Seattle developers to build shopping centers in their own cities. Buell went on to develop the Cherry Creek Shopping Center in Denver.
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In 1871, Denver restaurateur Otto Baur invented the ice cream soda when he offered to cool down a customer's glass of seltzer with scoops of ice cream. The chilly improvisation proved to be a big hit around the world.
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One day at his Humpty Dumpty drive-in restaurant in Denver, Louis Ballast, a chef with an experimental streak, slapped a slice of cheese on a grilling hamburger. By 1935, Ballast had patented the idea as the planet's first "cheeseburger."
General Denver Trivia
In 1903, Denver judge Ben Lindsey organized and implemented the first juvenile court in the U.S. The court soon became global model for applying the law to underage criminal offenders.
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In 1984, security officials detained movie actor Peter Fonda at Denver's Old Stapleton International Airport for disturbing the peace. He had torn up a campaign poster for obstinate presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche Jr. that read: "Feed Jane Fonda to the Whales."
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Also called U.S. Hwy. 40, Colfax Ave. in Denver once fashioned a rep as a cornucopia of low-level crime and prostitution. Playboy magazine once called Colfax, which was named for ex-Vice President Schuyler Colfax, the "longest, wickedest street in America." Some 40 miles long, the avenue is the longest continuous street in the U.S.
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The Denver Broncos are nicknamed the "Orange Crush." Mile High Stadium sold out every home game since the team joined the NFL in 1970. The Broncos started playing at INVESCO Field at Mile High in 2001. They won Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII. Broncos in the Pro Football Hall of Fame include John Elway and cornerback Willie Brown. Along with Elway, QB Frank Tripucka, #18, and RB Floyd Little, #44, had their jerseys retired by the franchise.
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The Denver Nuggets of the NBA play at the Pepsi Center. The team has five Northwest Division titles, but no NBA championship. Head coach Doug Moe, #432, forward Alex English, #2, and center Dan Issel, #44, had their jerseys retired by the franchise.
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The Colorado Rockies are in the West Division of the National League in Major League Baseball. The team plays home games at Coors Field. In 1993, the year the Rockies entered MLB, the team set a single-season attendance record with 4,483,350 fans attending home games. The team has yet to win a World Series championship.
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The Colorado Avalanche of the NHL were once the Quebec Nordiques. The franchise relocated to Denver in 1995. The team plays at the Pepsi Center and won two Stanley Cups, one in 1996 and one in 2001.
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The Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer are based in Denver, but will move to Commerce City in 2007. The Rapids made it to the 1997 MLS Finals and the 1999 U.S. Open, losing both times.
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Founded in 2003, the Colorado Crush of the Arena Football League won ArenaBowl XIX in 2005. Bronco legend John Elway is a principal owner of the franchise.
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Denver hosts two professional lacrosse teams, the Denver Outlaws of Major League Lacrosse, and the Colorado Mammoth of the National Lacrosse League. The Mammoth bested the Buffalo Bandits 16-9 to win the 2006 Champion's Cup. The Outlaws played their inaugural game in 2006, beating the Chicago Machine 24-14 before a crowd of 13,167 at INVESCO Field at Mile High.
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The primetime ABC soap Dynasty was set in Denver. The show, which starred John Forsythe, Joan Collins, and Linda Evans, told the story of a superrich Denver oil family.
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Worried about a potential 300 percent increase in costs for goods and services plus a possible environmental meltdown, Denver voters rejected the opportunity to host the 1976 Winter Olympic Games, which went instead to Innsbruck, Austria.
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Denver has hosted several significant sporting events, including the 1990 NCAA Final Four, the first Ultimate Fighting Championship three years later, the 1998 MLB All-Star Game, the 2001 NHL All-Star Game, the 2005 NBA All-Star Game, and the 2008 NCAA Frozen Four hockey tourney.
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The light cruiser USS Denver received 11 battle stars in WWII fighting sea battles in the South Pacific. The warship was manned by a crew of 72 officers and 1,200 enlisted personnel. Named for the city in 1942, USS Denver was scrapped in 1960.
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In 1877, a party at a Denver brothel got out of hand when partygoer Katie Fulton began making sexual advances on Cortez Thomson, the long-term boyfriend of Mattie Silks, the brothel's commanding madam. Silks challenged Fulton to a duel, the first recorded between females in human history. The women followed approved duel rules and Silks fired first, missing her opponent, but striking her lover Thomson in the neck, a minor flesh wound that nevertheless caused him to scream and incite a full-scale mêlée. Fulton escaped with nothing more than a broken nose. Silks and Thomson presumably resumed their courtship with a few slight alterations in day-to-day conduct.
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In 1878, stray dogs were rummaging the streets of Denver in nearly uncontrollable numbers. Riot police eventually employed a patrol wagon to hunt down and shot-gun to death every vagrant mutt they could find. They killed 103 in the first week alone. Public outcry fueled by the sight of wounded mongrels crawling into gutters and alleyways to slowly die soon short-circuited the brutal campaign. In 1883, packs of dogs began to run down and maul small children, inspiring police to reload their shotguns.
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