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Colorado
Cities |
| Overview |
| From the beginning, settlement in Colorado was urban as well
as rural. Towns and cities played an essential role in the development of the territory
and state. The miners in the Rocky Mountains could not have survived without nearby supply
towns and wholesale/distribution centers down on the plains. Early farmers and ranchers
also depended towns, whose merchants, blacksmiths, and lumber dealers followed them into
each rural area. Small towns, in turn, depended on larger towns and cities. A string of
cities emerged along the Front Range from Fort Collins to Pueblo that gave this region a
decidedly urban character. Growing urban populations provided farmers and cattlemen with
near-by markets for vegetables, meat, and other products. The wholesale merchants and
shippers of Longmont, Grand Junction, Denver, and other cities sent Colorado farm produce
on to more distant markets. Some towns, such as Denver, Pueblo, and Leadville, also became
industrial centers. By 1900, Colorado itself had a distinctively urban character, as a
majority of its citizens lived in towns and cities. |
| Food, Clothing, and Shelter |
| The people who settled in towns and cities grew very little
of their own food. Most bought what they needed from general stores, meat markets, and
vegetable or fruit peddlers. They also patronized drug store lunch counters, as well as
local restaurants. City people had a enormous variety of foodstuff available to them. In
addition to locally produced meat, vegetables, and fruit, they could buy canned goods
shipped in from all parts of the United States. The clothing that urban dwellers wore
varied according to occupation and social class. Working men and women wore much the same
kind of clothes as miners, farmers, and ranchers. Men wore dark works shirts and pants;
women dressed in cotton print dresses or skirts and blouses. Business class men and their
families dressed more formally. Men wore 3-piece suits to work. In public, their wives
wore skirts with tailored blouses and coats. Nearly all men wore hats, especially on
public occasions, but often at work. Boys and girls’ clothing were junior versions of
what their parents wore.
The settlers who laid out new town sites typically began by building lean-tos, tents
and log cabins for shelter. Such structures usually served as the first business
establishments, as well. As the towns grew, tents and cabins were replaced by frame
buildings made from boards sawn at a local sawmill. When local timber supplies were
exhausted, lumber was shipped in by railroad. However, frame buildings were fire hazards,
as many townspeople discovered to their dismay. By the 1880s, the surest sign of a
prosperous town in Colorado was the appearance of brick and stone buildings in the
business district. Brick also became a popular home-building material in middle-class and
upper-class neighborhoods. The disparity of wealth in Colorado’s larger cities
produced a wide range of housing styles and building materials. Depending on the
neighborhood, houses ranged from shacks to small frame houses brick and stone mansions. By
the turn of the 20th century, builders in Denver and other large cities also were
constructing apartment buildings. |
| Families and Children and
Schools |
| Family, wedding, and other photographs from 19th century
Colorado reflect the great diversity of urban society. Cities were mosaics of different
occupations, social classes, and ethnic groups. The clothing and toys of the children in
these photographs reflected the social status of their families. In the first years of
settlement, children were the focus of a town’s community life. The first public
building often was the schoolhouse, typically a one-room log or frame structure. These
were replaced by brick and stone buildings as towns grew into cities. By the turn of the
20th century, school buildings in Denver and other cities were large three-story brick
structures. Larger towns and cities also could afford the luxury of high schools. Few
rural children attended high school prior to the 20th century. Those who did either had
families who moved to town or who sent their teen-age children to board in a city when
they reached high school age. Aspiring cities also competed with one another to become
sites of colleges and universities. |
| Work Places |
| The great many ways in which city people made a living was
another distinguishing characteristic of urban life. Towns began primarily as commercial
centers where bankers, merchants, buyers, shippers, and craftsmen provided goods and
services. The variety of such occupations proliferated as towns grew into cities. Larger
centers like Denver, Leadville, and Pueblo became centers of transportation, wholesaling,
and manufacturing. That latter included factories that manufactured mining machinery and
equipment. By 1890, Colorado’s iron and steel and smelting industries were thriving.
Cities also were banking centers where buyers, merchants, and builders obtained commercial
loans. By the end of the century, large towns and cities also offered a variety of service
occupations. Urban dwellers also worked as public service employees, including policemen,
firemen, sanitation and healthcare workers. Cities along the Front Range of Colorado
became centers for treating tuberculoses and other respiratory diseases. |
| Large Cities |
| By the 1890s, Colorado had several major cities. The largest
were Denver, Pueblo, Leadville, Colorado Springs, and Grand Junction. These cities had
much in common. Each included retail, wholesale, manufacturing, and service
establishments. Each also was the commercial center of a hinterland that included smaller
towns and villages. These cities also had individual characteristics that reflected its
particular role in Colorado’s urban development. Denver was the first town to be founded in
Colorado and would remain its largest city. It began as a supply town for miners. It
quickly became a wholesale distribution center, shipping mining equipment, hardware,
canned goods, clothing and other merchandize to merchants in mining and farm marketing
towns throughout Colorado. As the state’s economy developed, Denver became a shipping
point for Colorado livestock growers, a manufacturing and smelting center, and an
investment banking and financial center. As the state capital, Denver also was the
political center of Colorado.
Pueblo began in
1842 as a trading fort on the Arkansas River. Abandoned after a band of Utes massacred its
inhabitants in 1854, the settlement was re-established in 1859-1860 as a market and supply
town for the farmers and cattlemen of the upper Arkansas valley. By the 1890s, Pueblo also
had become an important industrial center. Nearby deposits of iron ore and cokeing coal
made it a logical place to establish an iron works. The mining of silver, zinc, and other
minerals in the mountains west of Pueblo also helped make the city it an important
smelting center.
Leadville owned
its existence to the discovery of rich silver deposits in Lake County. The town, founded
in 1877, grew rapidly as silver mines were developed. By 1880, Leadville had become the
second largest city in Colorado with a population of 24,000. The city served as a
commercial hub for the nearby mining camps and as a smelting center. (Silver ore had to be
reduced by smelting before it could be profitably shipped to refineries beyond Colorado.)
Leadville experienced boom times during the 1880s, although its prosperity was short
lived. It came upon hard times in the 1890s, when the price of silver sharply declined.
Colorado Springs
was founded by William Jackson Palmer in 1871 as a resort community. Palmer capitalized on
the scenic beauty and natural wonders the Pike’s Peak area, which also included the
Garden of the Gods and the mineral springs at nearby Manitou. The city became a resort
destination for wealthy Europeans as well as Americans as well as a magnet for Colorado
tourists. The building of a cog railway up Pike’s Peak in 1890 added to the
city’s tourist appeal. Palmer’s city absorbed the nearby town of Colorado City
to become the Pike’s Peak region’s major market and supply center. The
city’s prospectors and bankers also played a major role in the opening of the Cripple
Creek mining district, which was Colorado’s last major gold strike.
Of Colorado’s major cities, Grand
Junction was the most recently founded. The original town site was platted
in September 1881, only a few days after the Ute inhabitants of that area left for a
reservation in Utah. The removal of the Utes set off a land rush by white settlers. Among
the first to arrive was George W. Crawford, who claimed the Grand Junction town site. He
named the town for its location at the junction of the Grand and Gunnison rivers. Grand
Junction’s hotels, cafes, and post office served the settlers who moved into the
region. As those settlers transformed the Grand Valley into a showcase of irrigated farms
and fruit orchards, the city’s bankers, merchants, flour millers, and sugar refiners
prospered. Grand Junction became the regional financial, marketing, and supply center for
the Western Slope. |
| Community Life |
| The people who settled in Colorado’s towns and cities
brought a variety of community institutions with them. As early as 1860, Methodists,
Episcopalians, and Catholics either had established missions or had built churches in
Denver. By the mid-1880s, those denominations as well as Baptists, Presbyterians, and
Congregationalists had built imposing, stone-faced church buildings in Denver and other
cities. As in rural areas and in Colorado’s mining towns, religious services,
national holidays, local elections, and public meetings provided occasions for people to
come together. The Fourth of July was a major event in every city, typically celebrated
with a parade and picnic. By the end of the century, Labor Day also had become a major
holiday in Colorado’s cities. Skilled craftsmen, clerks, and laborers lined up to
march in Labor Day parades. Sporting and other recreational events also brought people
together. |
| Transportation |
| Horse-drawn vehicles were the primary mode of urban
transportation throughout the 19th century. Horses pulled delivery wagons, omnibuses, and
hacks for hire, as well as private carriages. By the 1890s, electric streetcars had
replaced horse cars or omnibuses on the streets of Denver, Pueblo, Grand Junction and
other cities. Automobiles also made their appearance during that decade, although they
remained a novelty. For inter-urban and long-distance transportation, city people depended
on railroads. The main railroad station, usually a Union Station shared by several
railroads, was central urban gathering place as well as (usually) a focus of civic pride.
As the architectural monuments of their time, the railroad stations rivaled the city hall
and the churches of major denominations. |
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