Denver

Denver is the capital of Colorado. Known as the Mile High City because of its elevation of about 1.6 km (1 mi), it is coextensive with Denver County and is part of a large metropolitan area that also includes the city of Boulder. Denver is the commercial, manufacturing, financial, and transport centre for an important ranching and mining region of the Rocky Mountains. It contains one of the largest sheep markets in the world; is one of the most important cattle markets west of the Mississippi River; is a regional headquarters for several United States government agencies; and has many firms engaged in the research and development of high-technology items. Manufactured goods include rubber products; processed food; electronic devices; building materials; luggage; mining, aerospace, and railway equipment; and chemicals.

Denver is the site of the University of Denver (1864), the University of Colorado at Denver (1912), Regis University (1877), Colorado Institute of Art (1952), and Yeshiva Toras Chaim Talmudical Seminary (1967). Major cultural institutions in the city include the Denver Art Museum, displaying 8,500 items of Native North American art, and the Museum of Western Art, including works by Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell, Thomas Moran, and Georgia O'Keeffe. Among other places of interest are the Zion Baptist Church, oldest black Baptist church in Colorado, and the State Capitol, a Corinthian-style granite structure built from 1887 to 1895. Denver supports a symphony orchestra and several theatre groups and is a major winter sports centre. The city is home to professional sports organizations: the Nuggets basketball team, Broncos American football team, and Colorado Rockies baseball team.

Wandering hunters came to Colorado 15,000 years ago; Arapaho, Comanche, and Kiowa peoples migrated to the grasslands. In 1776 friars Francisco Atanasio Domнnguez and Francisco Silvestre Vélez de Escalante explored the western part of the state. In 1858 gold was discovered on the South Platte River in what is now the centre of Denver, sparking a gold rush, with the city serving as an outfitting point for prospectors throughout the area. In November 1864, the Sand Creek Massacre in eastern Colorado ensured the growth of the region. Peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho awaiting a treaty signing were massacred by 700 United States soldiers. About 130 Native Americans were killed, three-quarters of them women and children. Though Native Americans in the area responded with raids and battles, the army subdued most of the plains tribes by 1869, securing the area for further white settlement. From the temporary settlements founded here developed the towns of Auraria and St Charles. The latter subsequently was renamed Denver City, after the territorial governor James W. Denver, and in 1860 the two communities were consolidated.

Denver's development continued with the addition of irrigation farming, factories and mills, a branch of the transcontinental telegraph line (1863), new roads, and the first Colorado smelter at nearby Black Hawk (1868). The city was selected as the territorial capital in 1867 and prospered in the 1870s and 1880s as a result of the discovery of rich gold and silver deposits in the area and the coming of the railway. Between 1870 and 1890, its population grew from 4,759 to 106,713. Population (1980) 492,365; (1990) 467,610.