Title: Historic Maps of Denver: A History of the Mile High City in Rare Maps
Author: Christopher W. Lane
Size: 9 x 12
Binding: Hardcover
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9781681067155
Price: $42.00

This product is listed as a preorder. Books will ship starting March 15, 2027.

Denver did not have an easy birth. The riches that Pikes Peak gold seekers thought they would find did not materialize, and a crucial transcontinental railroad bypassed the city. Denverites, however, adapted and thrived. They made their city the gateway to the goldfields in the mountains, brought other railroads to Denver, and turned to sugar beets when the silver crash of 1893 wrecked the economy.

The story, though, is not one of pluck alone. In their zeal to build a city, Denver’s founders claimed their townsite by jumping a rival claim, and in any case all the first settlements were on land that legally belonged to Native Americans. Later undesirable events include streetcar warfare, the power of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, inequitable zoning and redlining, and urban renewal plans that left part of downtown a virtual ghost town.

This informative and beautifully illustrated book presents stories about the history of Denver through 38 period maps, ranging from an 1820 map showing the future site of the city in the “Great American Desert” to a turn-of-the-21st century portrait of the city’s kaleidoscope of neighborhoods. Author and maps expert Chris W. Lane presents snapshots of these and other triumphs and missteps, out of which has come a thriving city of great diversity and opportunity.