Denver was established as a city and county by a constitutional amendment in 1902. The Denver economy grew as tourism and the service sector expanded, energy resources were exploited, and federal offices were attracted. The Denver Livestock Exchange and the National Western Stock Show anchored Denver’s cattle town reputation. Growth began to pick up slowly after 1900 as the city’s economy improved due to stockyards, brickyards, canneries, flour mills, and leather and rubber goods. There were many breweries in Denver then, but only Coors Brewing survived and has become one of the country’s largest beer producers.
During Speer’s tenure as mayor from 1904 to 1912, several projects were initiated to add landmarks, update existing facilities, and enhance the city’s landscape. These included the City Auditorium, the Civic Center, and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Denver’s city leaders went to Washington D.C. and convinced the politicians there that Denver was no longer a frontier town. This allowed the first major party convention to be held in a western state. While jobs began trickling back into Denver in 1897, real estate prices remained depressed until 1900, as the U.S. economy began to recover.
Here are some interesting historical photos that will take you back to the 1900s in Denver. While buildings, streets, and wardrobes have evolved over time, many attractions remained popular today that have remained popular for a long time.
#1 Panoramic view of Denver, 1909.
#2 View of the Denver Club at 17th (Seventeenth) Street and Glenarm Place in Denver, 1900
#3 View of Cheesman Memorial Pavilion, Cheesman Park, Denver, 1909
#4 Exterior view of Walter Scott Cheesman’s residence (later called Cheesman-Evans-Boettcher mansion & Governor’s mansion), 400 East 8th (eighth) Denver, 1908
#5 Denver County Courthouse (Arapahoe County Courthouse) on Fifteenth (15th) and Tremont Street in Denver, 1909
#6 View of columned gateway at Fourth (4th) Avenue and Franklin Street, in the Denver Country Club neighborhood, Denver, 1907
#7 Pennsylvania Street (ca. 900 block south), in Denver, 1909
#8 Haish Manual Training School located in the University of Denver Haish Building at 14th (Fourteenth) and Arapahoe Streets, Denver, 1900.
#9 Welcome Arch at Union Station in Denver, Colorado; view of 17th (Seventeenth) street, street railway car number 248, 1906
#10 View of the lily pond and rock garden at Washington Park in Denver, 1909
#11 View of a yard at 742 South Emerson Street, Washington Park West, Denver, 1907
#12 Denver Tramway cars no. 74 and no. 63, 1900
#13 Denver Republican Newspaper building at 1118 16th (Sixteenth) Street in downtown Denver, 1909.
#14 Workers dismantle the chassis and wheels from several old Denver Tramway Company cars in Denver, 1909
#15 The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad engine no. 701 pulls into the Union Station in Denver, 1909
#16 Boys pose with wood planes in the workshop at the Denver Orphans’ Home (later the Denver Children’s Home) at 1501 Albion Street in the South Park Hill neighborhood of Denver, 1909
#17 Ice skating on City Park Lake, Denver, Colorado, 1901. View east to Museum of Natural History building under construction.
#18 View of construction of the Denver Tramway’s storage yard and tracks near Jason Avenue (Santa Fe Drive) and Bayaud Street in Denver, 1904.
#19 Men and boys pose on the Denver City Tramway Company ‘Steam Dummy’ steam-powered street car at 30th (Thirtieth) Avenue and Zuni Street in the Highland neighborhood of Denver, 1900.
#20 Exterior view of Saint Anthony’s Hospital, West 16th (Sixteenth) Avenue and Quitman Street, Denver, 1905
#21 West Denver High School women’s basketball team, Denver, 1908
#22 The Denver, formerly Arapahoe, County Courthouse located at 15th (Fifteenth) and 16th (Sixteenth) Streets and Tremont and Court Places in downtown Denver, 1909
#23 View of Tremont Street, in downtown Denver, 1909
#24 Passengers, conductors, and a tour guide with a megaphone ride on Denver Tramway Company trolley number 112 in Denver, 1900
#25 View of Denver Tramway Company trolleys number 166 and 53 on Colfax Street at Broadway in Denver, 1900
#26 Girls and their teacher sit at tables and on chairs and sew in a classroom at the Denver Orphans’ Home (later the Denver Children’s Home) at 1501 Albion Street in the South Park Hill neighborhood of Denver, 1909
#27 Sick men lie in beds in a ward of Denver General Hospital in Denver, 1909
#28 View of 18th (Eighteenth) and Arapahoe Streets with the Denver Cable Car power plant smoke stack in Denver, 1909
#29 View of a ditch adjoining the South Platte River in Denver, 1909
#30 Denver Fire Department’s Engine House Number One is being dismantled, corner of Colfax and Broadway, Denver, 1909
#31 View of a Victorian Richardsonian Romanesque house at the corner of 1st (First) Avenue and Grant Street in the Speer Neighborhood of Denver, 1905
#32 View of Denver Tramway Company Park Hill trolley number 230 on 17th (Seventeenth) Street in front of Union Station, Denver, 1905
#33 Denver Public Library at Colfax Avenue and Bannock Street in Civic Center Park, Denver, 1909
#34 A man and Denver Fire department horses, in Denver, 1900
#35 Denver Fire Dept. fire run or parade, 1902
#36 Group portrait of East Denver High School students in Denver, 1900
#37 The Denver Dog Pound with animal control officials and dog posing outside of the building, 1909
#38 View of horse-drawn wagons, one filled with furniture, next to the American Furniture Company warehouse at 1542 Lawrence Street in Denver, 1905
#39 View of Leyden Mine coal trains, Denver & Northwestern Railway cars number 1101, 1555, 1523, and 1546 with Alcott Public School at West 41st (Forty-first) Avenue and Tennyson Street, Denver, 1900
#40 Conductors pose with Denver Tramway Company trolley West 38th (Thirty-eighth) Avenue number 312 at the entrance to Elitch Gardens in Denver, 1905
#41 View of Denver Tramway Company trolley “Seeing The Foothills Observation Car” on 17th (Seventeenth) Street in Denver, 1905
#42 Panoramic view of Denver, Colorado from the Capitol Building, 1900
Shows the intersection of Colfax and Broadway, Denver Fire Department Engine House No. 1, the Denver Cable powerhouse with a large smokestack and storefronts, a park, sidewalks, commercial buildings, houses and apartment buildings. The rusticated stone Denver County Jail, with clerestory windows, and St. Elizabeth Church are in the distance.
#43 Boys in a marching band participate in a parade on Champa Street in downtown Denver, 1909
#44 Sick men lie in beds and sit in wheelchairs in the Tuberculosis Ward of Denver General Hospital in Denver, 1900
#45 Two women and a young girl sit in a canoe near the shore of Smith Lake in Washington Park, Denver, 1909
#46 Jolin Wright and Nora B. Wright play croquet in the fenced playground of the Detention Home School (later the Gilliam Youth Center for Juvenile Justice) at 2844 Downing Street in the Five Points neighborhood of Denver, 1903
#47 View of Larimer Street from 16th (Sixteenth) Street in Denver, Denver County, 1900
#48 Eighteenth 18th Street cable car house Denver City Cable Railway Co., 1906
#49 Exterior view of Ernest and Cranmer Building located at 17th (Seventeenth) and Curtis Streets, Denver, 1906
#50 View of apartments at 12th (Twelfth) and Pennsylvania Streets in Denver, 1900
#51 Members of the Denver Bears baseball team pose outdoors at a baseball field in Denver, 1909
#52 Denver, Colorado west Denver Turnverein meeting hall at 133 – 12th Street, west Denver, 1909
#53 View of Denver Tramway Company car number 126 and a 500-series trailer (South Pearl Street Line), and men in conductor uniforms, in Denver, 1909
#54 View of the intersection of Speer Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue in Denver, 1909
#55 Parade at the intersection of Broadway and 16th (Sixteenth) Streets in Denver, 1905
#56 Denver Sanitation street cleaning division flushing machines.1905-1915
Parade at the intersection of Broadway and 16th (Sixteenth) Streets in Denver, Colorado; shows horse-drawn water tank wagons, a steamroller, a man with a United States flag, the Majestic Building, and a street lamp traffic island. Signs read: "Tremont Grocers," and "Cassell Abbot-Detroit The Dominant Six."
![Women who include Frances Sims, Agnes S. Hall, Anamtille [?] McClung, and Louise Wells work at desks in the catalog department of the Denver Public Library at Colfax Avenue and Bannock Street in the Civic Center neighborhood of Denver, 1910](https://www.bygonely.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Denver_1900s_122.jpg)
![Looking south on B'way extension from East Denver Hi [sic] School, 1909](https://www.bygonely.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Denver_1900s_143.jpg)
Bring back trams
The lines are still there under the asphalt. I wonder how difficult it would be to unearth and reinstate some of them.
Most likely building new ones would work out better. Who knows if that gauge is even still in use.
Youd want to build new ones. Fun fact: light rail tracks need to be replaced every ~25 years and the ones in Denver now are about 20 years old
So, a big uplift is about to be needed anyways
Thank you for sharing! Now I know what I can do tomorrow – visit these places to see how much transformed and what remained
is it me or is the one of pennsylvania ave NOT look like its from 1909?
I’m not sure. I did a quick peak at a couple homes on Zillow, and they say the homes on the 900 block of S. Pennsylvania are from around 1900-1905. And I found the original photo on the Denver Library’s web site, and while it doesn’t have a date on it, it’s easier to see that while there are curbs and gutters, the street is almost certainly dirt, not paved. So maybe it is from 1909…
thats crazy to think it hasn’t changed at all in 100 years
Yeah, I tried looking for it on Google Maps and wasn’t successful since the street view for that one block is right after a snow storm and a lot of the images are blurry because their camera was fogged up. But I bet if you walked that neighborhood, it wouldn’t hard to find if no one has painted over the brick on that house with the diamond brick work on the corners.
imo that’s one of the only recognizable photos lol
It looks exactly like that now, so idk, but it would make sense. I lived in a house not far from there which was built in 1910.
i was thinking those craftsmans had to go up a little later on, right?
yeah most of the brick homes in like park hill and 5 points are all from the 60s and 70s.
Every time I look at old pictures like this the first thing I think in my mind is, “all these people are now dead.” LOL
(sorry)
First thing I think of is look at all the trams. They had a packed tram doing a tour of Denver. There was another that went from downtown to the foothills. Not sure how far it went west but thats still impressive.
I recently ran across an interesting blog post that looks like they mapped out all the old streetcar lines denver had from the earliest days until they were finally all decomissioned.
https://dugis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=00a2d498a2ac4c58ad140ac306110213
I found that post when I first moved to Denver / Highlands. Really explains the pockets of small commercial areas scattered through my neighborhood.
I feel so dumb for thinking that Cheesman area had trees before the people showed up.