Below are ten fun quirky facts about Denver Colorado to help you prepare a trip to America’s gorgeous city, surrounded by mountains and snowcapped peaks. OR, if you’re already been and are simply a fan of Denver, this will be good fodder and provoke some fond memories.Located east of a major mountain range, Denver has a mild, dry and sunny climate with more annual hours of sun than San Diego or Miami Beach. In winter, Denver is dryer than Phoenix with an average daily high of 45 degrees in February. Golf courses remain open all year and have been played as many as 30 days in January. Denver receives only 14 inches of precipitation a year – about the same as Los Angeles.
2. Denver’s arts and cultural scene is thriving.
In its Old West days, Denver had a performance of Macbeth before it had a school or a hospital. That performance took place in a saloon. Today, Metro Denver collects more for the arts on a per capita basis than any other city. The seven county Denver metro area has a self-imposed 10th of a cent sales tax for the arts that raises more than $40 million a year, which is distributed to 300 arts organizations and facilities.
The city’s cultural renaissance can be found in places like the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Covering four square blocks, the complex is the second largest in the country, with 10 theatres seating more than 10,000 people for opera, symphony, ballet, Tony Award-winning theatre and touring Broadway shows. The $92-million Ellie Caulkins Opera House is recognized as one of the finest acoustical venues in the world and Denver voters recently approved a $90 million refurbishing of Boettcher Concert Hall.
Denver has recently added art museums including the new Clyfford Still Museum (opened Nov. 2011), dedicated solely to the works of Clyfford Still, one of the world’s most influential abstract American painters. The American Museum of Western Art, featuring more than 650 paintings and drawings spanning 200 years of American history will open in May, 2012. The Brad Cloepfil designed building is an artistic marvel unto itself, and created specifically to display the artist’s multi-dimensional work. The Denver Art Museum’s astonishing Hamilton Building designed by world famous architect Daniel Libeskind is “mesmerizing” according to the “New York Times”. In addition, the LEED-certified Museum of Contemporary Art was designed by David Adjaye, which is his first building in the United States.
3. Denver is near the mountains, not in them.
Denver is located on high rolling plains, 12 miles east of the “foothills,” a series of gentle mountains that climb to 11,000 feet. Just beyond is the “Front Range of the Rocky Mountains,” a series of formidable snowcapped peaks that rise to 14,000 feet. Denver might not be in the mountains, but the mountains still dominate the city. The picturesque mountain panorama from Denver is 140 miles long. There are 200 visible named peaks including 32 that soar to 13,000 feet and above. State law prohibits building any structure that would block the view from the Colorado State Capitol. Penetrating the mountains west of Denver required building the highest auto tunnel in the world (Eisenhower Tunnel) and the sixth longest railroad tunnel in the country (Moffat Tunnel).
4. Denver is a city of many colors and cultures.
Denver grew by 30 percent in the 1990s – an average of 1,000 new residents a week, every week for 10 years. In this period, the Hispanic population in Colorado increased by 73 percent. Today, 32 percent of the City of Denver is of Hispanic and Latino descent and 11 percent are African American. Denver’s diversity is celebrated at numerous festivals and events including the nation’s largest Cinco de Mayo celebration and the largest Martin Luther King Jr. march and rally, referred to the locals as a “marade”. Denver has a population of 600,158, while there are 2.5 million people in the metro area.
5. Denver’s history is short, but colorful.
In 1858, there was not a single person living in the Denver metro area except for some migrating camps of Arapaho and Cheyenne Native Americans. Just 30 years later, Colorado was a state with a population of almost 200,000. It was a Gold Rush that caused this boom and in a 30 to 40 year period Denver saw some of the wildest events in the “Wild West.” This fascinating period is brought to life at museums, old gold mining towns and in hundreds of elegant Victorian buildings. LoDo, a 26 square block historic district, has the largest concentration of Victorian and turn-of-the-century buildings in the country. Today, LoDo is home to 90 brewpubs, rooftop cafes, restaurants, sports bars and nightclubs.
6. Denver loves its sports.
Denver is one of only two cities (Philadelphia is the other) to have seven professional sports teams: NFL Denver Broncos; NBA Denver Nuggets; NHL Colorado Avalanche; MLB Colorado Rockies; MLS Colorado Rapids; MLL Colorado Outlaws; and NLL Colorado Mammoth. The Colorado Rockies have 11 Major League Baseball attendance records, while the Denver Broncos have sold out every game for more than 20 years. Denver also hosts one of the world’s largest rodeos – the National Western Stock Show & Rodeo. Denver is the only city to build three new sports stadiums in the 1990s: 50,000-seat Coors Field; 75,000-seat INVESCO Field at Mile High and 20,000-seat Pepsi Center.
7. Denver brews more beer than any other city.
The first building in Denver was a saloon, so it’s natural that Denver would become a great beer town. Coors Brewery is the world’s largest. Denver’s Great American Beer Festival is the largest in the nation, with more than 1,900 different beers. The Wynkoop Brewing Company is one of the largest brewpubs in the country. On an average day, Denver brews more than 200 different beers. Why is Denver the “Napa Valley of Beer”? Well, just as the water tumbling down from the Scottish Highlands has made Scotland a renowned center for whiskey, the great taste of Rocky Mountain spring water provides a key basic ingredient for the city’s booming beer brewing industry.
8. Denver – The Mile High City, really is exactly one mile high.
By an amazing stroke of good luck, the 13th step on the west side of the State Capitol Building is exactly 5,280 feet above sea level – one mile high. In Denver’s rarified air, golf balls go 10 percent farther. So do cocktails. Alcoholic drinks pack more of a punch than at sea level. The sun feels warmer, because you are closer to it and there is 25 percent less protection from the sun, so sunscreen is a must.
The Mile High City is also extremely dry, so it is a good idea to drink more water than usual. With less water vapor in the air at this altitude, the sky really is bluer in Colorado.
9. Denver has the 10th largest downtown in the United States.
Unlike some Western cities, Denver has a definitive, exciting and walkable downtown – the 10th largest in the nation. Within just a one mile radius, there are three sports stadiums, the country’s second largest performing arts complex, an assortment of art and history museums, a mint producing 10 billion coins a year, a river offering whitewater rafting, the country’s only downtown amusement park, a new world-class aquarium, more than 8,000 hotel rooms and more than 300 restaurants, brewpubs and music venues.
10. Denver has the largest city park system in the country.
Denver has more than 200 parks within the city and 14,000 acres of parks in the nearby mountains, including the spectacular Red Rocks Park & Amphitheatre. The city has its own buffalo herd located in the mountains with a panoramic view. Other mountain parks include Echo Lake, at the base of the Mount Evans highway – the highest road in North America and Buffalo Bill’s Grave on top of Lookout Mountain. Denver plants more than 200,000 flowers in 26 formal flower gardens every spring. There are more than 850 miles of off-street bike paths, 90 golf courses and one of the nation’s largest urban trail systems. Due to all of these recreational opportunities, a federal study found that Denver has the thinnest residents of any major U.S. city.
The above information was contributed by our pals at the Visit Denver Convention & Visitor’s Bureau. Check out their Facebook page for ongoing activities.
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
