City and County of Denver, Colorado
Denver is one of only two cities in America with eight professional sports teams. And essentials like where to locate the exact elevation of 5,280 feet (1 mile) above sea level (a round brass cap embedded in the western entrance stairs of the State Capitol marks the spot). The more you know before you get here, the more time you can spend taking it all in.
Local boosters named the frontier mining camp on the South Platte River “Denver” after Kansas Territorial Governor James Denver in hopes of gaining political favor. Unfortunately, Denver had retired by the time they named the town.
There were originally three separate towns, with three separate names, where Denver now stands. In 1859, the other names were dropped in return for a barrel of whiskey to be shared by all.
Fittingly enough, the first permanent structure in Denver was a saloon.
Despite being warned by Indians not to build there, early settlers didn’t listen. In its first few years, Denver was destroyed twice, once by fire and once by flood.
Denver is one of the few cities in history that was not built on a road, railroad, lake, navigable river or body of water when it was founded. It just happened to be where the first few flakes of gold were found in 1858.
