The Flag of Denver Colorado 
Denver, officially called the City and County of Denver, is the capital and most populous municipality in Colorado. Located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains, just east of the Front Range of the Rockies and downtown originated at the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River as their water source, 12 miles east of the foothills. Denver was named after James W. Denver, a governor of the Kansas Territory and is nicknamed the Mile High City because its official elevation is exactly one mile (5280 feet) above sea level as marked precisely on the front steps of the state capitol building. Interestingly the 105th meridian west of Greenwich, (the longitudinal reference for the Mountain Time Zone) passes directly through Denver’s Union Station (still the train station), downtown.
Denver is ranked as a Beta world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. With an estimated population of 716,492 in 2018, Denver is the 19th-most populous U.S. city, and with a 19.38% increase since the 2010 United States Census, it has been one of the fastest-growing major cities in the United States. The 10-county Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area had an estimated 2018 population of 2,932,415 and is the 19th most populous U.S. metropolitan statistical area. The 12-city Denver-Aurora, CO Combined Statistical Area had an estimated 2018 population of 3,572,798 and is the 15th most populous U.S. metropolitan area. Denver is the most populous city of the 18-county Front Range Urban Corridor, an oblong urban region stretching across two states with an estimated 2018 population of 4,976,781. Denver is the most populous city within a 500-mile radius and the second-most populous city in the Mountain West after Phoenix, Arizona. In 2016, Denver was named the best place to live in the United States by U.S. News & World Report.
HISTORY
Spanish Explorers were the first Euros to step foot on land that is now Colorado, but they did not venture far, since the land of Taos and New Mexico was more to their liking. This left the state untouched by change, until the hearty French and Anglo frontiersmen came Westward from the cultured East Coast of what was now the United States. Beaver fur was much in demand for European Fashion and in the American cities back East. Beavers were plentiful in the many streams and rivers in the Rocky Mountains. These mountain men lifed off of the land and their hunting and fishing skills: Rocky Mountian trout, venison, buffalo, antelope, elk, moose, snake, large birds and mountain goats. Smoked buffalo tongue was the gourmet delicacy of the time. This meat was lean, smooth, and had a unique “wild” flavor about it.
There were very few plant foods available in the mountains, but Sunflowers were plentiful and their seeds could be ground into a meal for flat bread. The mountain men would bring their pelts and meat back to Denver, to trade for supplies.
The immigration from the east came via wagon trains – slowly across the endless parched plains until first in the distant horizon a white dot of Pike’s Peak would have shown up – until a whole chain of rugged and snow-capped peaks slowly unveil themselves. After months or even years of traveling, the destination was now in sight. Denver was built on the confluence of two waterways making the rarest asset in the West, “water” very available to grow a city.
The epoch of the mountain man lasted only one gereration, by late 1830’s beaver fur had fallen out of favor in fashion world and the pelts no longer payed the overhead for the lifestyle.
The next wave of immigration came when gold and silver were discovered to be plentiful in the West. Also the large tracks of land made cattle and sheep ranching an easy match. “Pikes Peak or Bust” was the slogan painted on wagons trying to make it to mine for gold and silver, that made millionaires for many of the rough and tumble crew who risked it all to make it to the Rockies. Most of the mansions built in Denver from this money have not survived over the hundred plus years since.
Denver was founded in 1858, so the whole region has a very short 150 + years of modern history. Some of Denver’s public schools have old photo showing teepees on the grounds. Colorado is called the Centenial State because it was created in 1876 one hundred years after the birth of our nation, 1776.
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Denver has lots of public art, but the two most discussed sculptures are: (1) “Blucifer” – the blue horse with red glowing eyes at the airport, and (2) “Oh, Now I See” the Big Blue Bear peering into the convention center, downtown.
Blue and Orange are Denver’s unofficial colors – the colors of the “Denver Broncos” NFL football team. The Broncos are the home team embraced by all of Colorado and have tremendous fan support! In many ways they are the glue that unifies all demographics of Denver and Colorado – GO Broncos!
Dinosaur Ridge (dinoridge.org) – This park, just north of Morrison in the foothills, is all about fossils, not the ones inside a museum, like normal, but where you can walk right up to the dinosaur fossils where they have been frozen in time, for millions of years.
Denver’s Museum of Nature and Science in City Park and the Dinosaur National Monument in Western Colorado (a live dig, but it takes several days to travel there, see the sites and come back to Denver.) both showcase many of the Dinasaur bones found in and around Colorado.
