History of Denver Neighborhoods & Historical Homes

CAPITOL HILL 

Gold seekers founded Denver City in November 1858.  By 1876, Colorado would gain statehood.  At the time of the Capitol’s construction, wealthy Denverites decided that Capitol Hill was the place to be. Denver’s earliest houses were clustered around Cherry Creek and Auraria. In the 1870s, after Governor John Evans built a house at 14th and Arapahoe, wealthy Denverites followed suit, building a Millionaire’s Row of impressive Italianate and Second Empire houses along 14th. It wouldn’t be long, however, until the downtown that had started around today’s LoDo began creeping eastward. Finding their fancy residential enclave being overcome by commercial buildings, Denver’s wealthy needed a new Millionaire’s Row. When wealthy banker Charles Kountze and railroad financier David Moffat sold their 14th Street mansions for new Queen Annes on Capitol Hill, many of their neighbors followed. John Wesley Smith, an early Capitol Hill landowner, oversaw construction of a City Ditch that would bring water to the neighborhood, leading to lush lawns, trees, and parks. In the 1880s and 1890s, anybody who was anybody sported an address on Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Logan, Pennsylvania or Colfax.

East Colfax Avenue is the heart of Capitol Hill. Today the neighborhood’s main commercial drag, East Colfax actually started out as an exclusive residential avenue. It was named for Schuyler Colfax, an Indiana congressman who served as Speaker of the House and later as Vice President under Ulysses S. Grant. When Colfax visited Denver in 1865, the town named their avenue Colfax to flatter the politician into supporting Colorado’s bid for statehood.

Colfax is said to be America’s longest continuous street; the New York Times has also called it America’s wickedest. From its early days as a mansion district, East Colfax evolved into a busy street lined with stores, apartments, and bars. By the 1960s, some internationally known performers like Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, and the Smothers Brothers got their start performing in Colfax joints like the Satire Lounge. Less reputable establishments, such as adult book and video stores and strip joints, like Sid King’s famous Crazy Horse Bar, started opening up on the avenue. Soon East Colfax would also gain a reputation for prostitution. Motels were used more by the hour than by the night. Fights, drug dealing, and other seedy activity became commonplace. East Colfax’s Number 15 bus became the most notorious bus route in town.  In recent years, the City of Denver has worked to clean up Colfax. New luxury high-rises and a resurgence of interest in fixing up old homes has changed the avenue.

Originally Cheeseman Park served as Denver’s first cemetery, Mount Prospect. William Larimer and William Clancey established the cemetery during the winter of 1858 to 1859. It was located on an old Arapahoe Indian burial ground. Jack O'Neill, a victim of a gunfight, was the first burial on March 30, 1859.

In 1872 the City of Denver applied to Congress for a title to the land. On November 15, 1873, Denver gained ownership and Mount Prospect became City Cemetery. However, Riverside Cemetery opened in 1876 and burials in City Cemetery declined. Shortly after, Colorado Senator Henry Moore Teller convinced Congress to allow the cemetery to be converted into a park. On January 25, 1890, Congress granted his wish and ordered the city to vacate the property. Teller then renamed the property Congress Park in honor of the act.

In 1893 burials were ordered stopped and 788 bodies were removed to Riverside Cemetery. In August 1893 the Denver Park Commission gave notice that families had 90 days to remove their loved ones' remains and that after that time no bodies were to be removed as the entire area would be planted in grass. About 4,200 bodies from City Cemetery remain beneath the sod of Cheesman Park. 

Mount Calvary was the Roman Catholic section of Mount Prospect and later City Cemetery. In 1890, when Denver was granted permission to use the cemetery lands for a park, the Diocese of Denver secured an injunction preventing enforcement of the order against their property. The last burial in Mount Calvary was in 1908. In 1891, Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Wheat Ridge opened and many of the bodies from Mount Calvary were removed there. In 1950, the remaining 8,600 bodies were removed to Mount Olivet. Today this is the site of the Denver Botanic Gardens. 

The park has been recognized on the National Register of Historic Places as part of Denver’s historic park and parkway system. It is also known locally as one of Denver’s most haunted places, due to the unclaimed souls that still remain under the park.