Settlement & Development
From 1870 onward, rail service brought residents, visitors, and freight into Denver and helped expand its role in the region.
Rail Connections and New Arrivals
Denver entered the 1870s with new rail service. The first train from Cheyenne reached the city on June 24, 1870, followed in August by the arrival of the Kansas Pacific line from Kansas. With these links in place, Denver became part of a rail route that connected travel between the eastern and western coasts.
In the 1870s, it was estimated to bring 100 new residents to Denver each day. During its first month of operation, it also brought 1,067 visitors and 13,000,000 pounds of freight. Denver’s population rose from 4,759 in 1870 to more than 35,000 by 1880.
Capital Status and Civic Growth
Denver became the temporary state capital when Colorado entered the Union on August 1, 1876. A statewide vote in 1881 made it the permanent state capital.
By the period between 1870 and 1890, the city’s activity included railroads, wholesale trade, manufacturing, food processing, and services connected to agriculture and ranching. Manufacturing output rose from $600,000 to $40 million during those years, while the population grew to 107,000 by 1890.
Silver Wealth and City Building
Silver mining in Colorado expanded after Leadville was discovered in 1874, and wealth from the boom reached Denver. The city continued to serve miners, workers, and travelers through saloons, gambling rooms, theaters, and other businesses.
The Tabor Grand Opera House, built in 1881 with money Horace Tabor made from silver mining, occupied an entire block. Union Station was built in 1881, the Brown Palace Hotel in 1892, and the Colorado State Capitol Building in 1894. Homes for wealthy residents also appeared, including the Croke, Patterson, and Campbell Mansion at 11th and Pennsylvania, along with the later-demolished Moffat Mansion at 8th and Grant.
Work, Migration, and Public Needs
City leaders sought industry and workers for new factories. Denver developed an elite class and a large middle class, along with a growing population of German, Italian, and Chinese laborers. African-Americans and Spanish-surname workers also became part of the city’s labor force.
Denver also drew people seeking relief from respiratory disease, especially tuberculosis, because Colorado’s dry climate was considered favorable for treatment. Many came from the East Coast and brought training and skills that added to the city’s industrial base. Jewish residents later established National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives and the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society to serve health needs and their community.
Crime, Reform, and City Government
The 1880s and 1890s also included corruption and organized vice. Underworld figures such as Soapy Smith and Lou Blonger worked with city officials and police to profit from gambling and other illegal businesses. Gambling rooms, card games, bunco schemes, and bawdy houses operated in the city, while authorities sometimes accepted bribes and occasionally staged cleanups.
Women’s suffrage came in 1893, led by married middle-class women who first organized for prohibition and then for suffrage. In 1887, church leaders began the Charity Organization Society in Denver to coordinate services and fundraising for 22 agencies.
The Panic of 1893 and Recovery by 1900
In 1893, a national financial panic struck, and the silver boom collapsed. Denver was already affected by droughts and harsh winters that hurt agriculture. Banks closed, businesses failed, real estate values fell, smelters stopped work, and the Denver Tramway struggled to attract paying riders. The Union Pacific Railroad, which had absorbed the Denver Pacific and Kansas Pacific in the 1880s, declared bankruptcy.
Unemployed miners and other workers came down from Colorado mountain towns to Denver in search of work as silver mines closed. Some train companies offered reduced or free fares to people who wanted to leave Denver, and the city’s population dropped from 106,000 in 1890 to 90,000 in 1895. The national economy began to recover in 1897, jobs slowly returned, and real estate prices remained low through 1900. Denver regained the population it had lost, largely through annexing nearby towns, and ended the century with more than 133,000 residents.