History of Denver, CO

In the summer of 1858, during Pike's Peak Gold Rush, a team of gold miners from Lawrence, Kansas established Montana City as a mining town on the South Platte River in the western part of Kansas Territory. This was the first settlement in what was then the city of Denver. The site quickly came to an end, however, and in the summer of 1859 it was abandoned and harvested Auraria (named after the gold-mining town of Auraria, Georgia) and St. Petersburg. Charles City.

On November 22, 1858, General William Larimer and Captain Jonathan Cox, Esquire, both land grabbers from eastern Kansas Territory, laid cotton poles to hold a dispute over the confluence of the South Platte and Cherry Creek rivers, across the river from the existing mining settlement in Auraria, and in the area of ​​the existing St. Larimer named the city of Denver City in favor of Kansas Territorial Governor James W. Denver. Larimer hoped the city's name would help him be elected as Arapaho County district chairman but, unbeknownst to him, Governor Denver had resigned. The area was accessible on existing trails and was across the South Platte River from the seasonal campus of Cheyenne and Arapaho. The site of the first cities now resides in Confluence Park near the city of Denver.