A new book by Colorado historian Tom Noel is always a treat, even if you’re not a local history buff. His most recent offering, co-authored by Deborah Faulkner, Brown Palace Hotel historian/archivist, is a beautifully illustrated treatment of Colorado’s $3.1 billion/year travel industry. As the authors demonstrate, a wide cast of enthusiastic promoters over the decades can join Mother Nature in taking credit for the state’s second most important industry after manufacturing. In fact, Colorado boosters go back to Denver’s first decade, when guidebook writer William Newton Byers assured readers that they could reach the city via steamboat.
Although Denver may have been one of the friendliest towns in the West, in the mid-1860s, times were tough. Except for the locusts, the infant city had endured a series of plagues that would make a pharaoh turn over in his sarcophagus. When the gold boom fizzled, prospectors abandoned Denver as quickly as they had arrived, many leaving to fight in the Civil War. In 1863, a major fire destroyed much of the downtown business section, and the devastating Cherry Creek Flood of 1864 would inundate what remained. That same year, the “Indian Wars” left residents in a panic, resulting in the unwarranted attack on a peaceful village of Arapaho and Sioux, later called the Sand Creek Massacre. Following this PR disaster, which made national headlines, the city remained a relatively isolated outpost, praying to be rescued by the railroads.
Denver International Airport is the third-largest airport in the world and the fifth busiest in the nation. Photos courtesy of Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau.
When the transcontinental Union Pacific Railroad decided to build through Cheyenne rather than Denver, the faithful saw the writing on the wall. Businessmen like former Gov. John Evans Sr. and attorney Bela Hughes urged citizens to form a Board of Trade (the predecessor of the Denver Chamber of Commerce), which spearheaded construction of the Denver Pacific Railway and Telegraph Co. The Denver Pacific, in turn, built its own link to Cheyenne. When the first engine rumbled into town on June 24, 1870, Denverites breathed a sigh of relief. With the transportation problem solved, the Territorial Legislature created the Board of Immigration in 1873, charged with attracting new citizens to the “Gateway to the Rockies.”
And so they flooded into the city, Scots-Irish and Irish, Germans, Italians, Scandinavians, working class and professionals looking for a place in the sun. During late 19th century, travelers descended in droves, making Denver the hub of a blossoming new industry. Glamorous hotels like the Windsor (1880), the Oxford (1891) and the Brown Palace (1892) became destinations in themselves, supplying elegant accommodations for guests. The Chamber of Commerce welcomed the city’s first Seeing Denver Tour Company in 1897, a motorized tour that took visitors from the Brown Palace Hotel to various hot spots around the city, with summer evening trips that culminated with a concert at City Park. Denver made its mark as a convention spot in 1908 when Mayor Robert Speer built a brand new auditorium to attract the Democratic National Convention. The following year saw the founding of the Denver Convention Bureau, the sixth oldest in the nation.
The Brown Palace, built in 1892, was a huge draw for tourists that came to vacation in Denver. Photo courtesy of Denver’s Division of Theatres & Arenas
The advent of the automobile brought even more tourists to Denver, many en route to mountain retreats. Denver pioneered the first free automobile camp at City Park in 1917, although many folks still preferred to travel by train. The Moffat Tunnel, created in 1928 after decades of delay, finally allowed the railroad to cross under the Continental Divide. The Great Depression affected tourism like everything else, but the industry actually benefited as Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps forged through wilderness to create the recreation areas we still enjoy today. Many hiking trails, campgrounds, picnic areas and even the famous Red Rocks Amphitheater can be credited to the CCC.
After World War II, Denver’s population exploded as military stationed at Lowry returned en masse with their families. During Eisenhower’s administration, 1952 – 1958, Denver would be called “the other White House” since Ike and his wife Mamie spent so much time here. Thanks to Eisenhower, the 1956 Highway Act, which created the Interstate Highway System, made it easier for automobiles to reach the state’s more remote vacation spots. Visitors came to Colorado to see the new Air Force Academy, to ski at European-style resorts and to experience the “Wild West,” made popular by movies and TV. (As a child growing up in Denver, I was fascinated by the West I read about or saw on TV. The popular image was so different from reality that I was nearly a teenager before I realized that I already lived there.)
: Many hiking trails, campgrounds, picnic areas and even the famous Red Rocks Amphitheater can be credited to Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps.
According to Noel and Faulker, Mayor Federico Peña did more for Denver tourism than any politician since Robert Speer. The city’s first Hispanic mayor, Peña fought the economic slump of the early 1980s with the catchy slogan, “Imagine a Great City.” The mayor’s plans included a new convention center, baseball team and the country’s most recognizable airport, a topic of controversy from the plan’s inception to implementation and beyond. Topped by a Teflon-coated fiberglass roof that has been compared to clouds on the windswept prairie or teepees of the long departed Arapaho, Denver International Airport is the third-largest airport in the world and the fifth busiest in the nation. It is also, after much publicized struggles, a marvel of efficiency.
Since Mile High Tourism was underwritten by the Denver Convention and Visitors Bureau, and is partly a 100-year anniversary history of that organization, the focus on Denver attractions during the last half of the book is to be expected. The book is available at the Tattered Cover or the VISIT DENVER information center, 16th and California streets. Still, it’s interesting to note the increasing number of the tourist draws, with new cultural and sports venues and entertainment options popping up regularly. Even after the elimination of state tourism funding in 1993, Colorado is still the nation’s fifth most popular state for tourists.
In November 2008, the Bureau changed its name to VISIT DENVER, The Convention and Visitors Bureau, to distinguish itself from the Chamber of Commerce and the Denver Partnership. Check out their website at www.visitDenver.com.
