A Walking tour of Denver

Ever take a guided walking tour of your town or city? I did that this past Sunday.

We started our tour at Union Station and ended at the Tattered Cover bookstore; in between those two sites we learned about places that are unique to Denve

r and the West. Being a history buff, I learned more about early Denver history in those 2 hours than in 30+ years of living in Denver. We heard about banks and stagecoach offices, bakeries and mercantile stores, fires and floods, hotels and spice companies. Probably the highlight of the tour for the men was seeing the antique MGTD roadster that was on display in one company’s window.

Did you know that at 17th & Wynkoop is the building that house the old Denver City Railway - a cable car company that used horses and mules to pull the cars. That’s not too unusual, but the fact that the animals were stabled on the third floor of the four story building is unusual. Imagine the poor office workers who worked on the second floor beneath all those animals. Our guide said that when the building was renovated the construction workers were nearly overcome with the "animal" odor when removing the floors of the stables.

Denver has an Elephant Corral on Wazee St. It was a livery stable where miners sold oxen used to cross the plains and bought pack animals for use in walking treacherous trails to reach Colorado mines.

Now I wonder why it took so many years to take this tour. I'm already searching for others that I can enjoy.