Denver Hotels

Pre 20th Century History
Already the bison-hunting grounds of Arapaho and Cheyenne Indians when (mostly luckless) prospectors began arriving in 1859, Denver began its days as little more than a rough-and-tumble gold miners' camp. In an effort to polish the area's image (and bolster his coffers in the process), General William H Larimer shamelessly wooed Kansas Territorial Governor James W Denver into granting Larimer and his partners a township by proposing to name it in the governor's honor. Larimer's bootlicking worked, and the Denver City Township Company set up shop in late 1859 at the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River. The area's gold rush - though short-lived - brought a substantial overland freight and passenger business (via horse and wagon) to Denver, whose foothill location was as convenient as any along the Front Range for servicing the Rocky Mountain mining camps. Nevertheless, without water or rail transportation, Denver's overnight rise was unsustainable. Languishing far from the Transcontinental Railroad, which was opened in 1869 through Cheyenne, Denver stagnated until the 170km (105mi) Denver Pacific line joined it to Cheyenne the following year. The city's dawdling ascent to prominence was furthered by the arrival of the Kansas Pacific railway line that same year and by a silver rush in the following decade. In 1881, Union Station opened to consolidate passenger traffic for the railroads. The Italian Romanesque landmark burned in 1894 and was replaced with today's Neoclassical station, anchoring 17th St as a centre for banks and posh hotels, including the Oxford, Barth and Brown Palace. By the 1890s, the region's population had tripled and Denver had become known as the 'Queen City of the Plains'. The city's boom continued until 1893, when the Silver Panic laid waste to the city's economy and threw the entire state into a depression. The following year, the discovery of rich gold deposits in Cripple Creek again reversed the trend.

Modern History
Following the Great Depression, WWII brought jobs at hastily built munitions and chemical warfare plants in and around the city. In 1952, Denver's 12-storey height limit was repealed in the downtown area, excepting the historic districts. The Denver skyline now contains some 20 highrises, but many of these suffered during the mid-1980s, when an office-construction boom suddenly turned into a glut. The cycle reversed yet again during the 1990s, as Denver became home to computer, telecommunications and other high-tech firms and service providers, which now dominate the local economy. Denver International Airport (DEN) opened in 1995 on 137 sq km (53 sq mi) of former grasslands and prairie dog burrows. The first big airport constructed in America in more than 20 years, the facility is now among the nation's busiest.

Recent History
Denver's vulnerability to economic boom and bust - always a feature of its history - has continued into the new millennium. The bursting of the tech bubble at the turn of the millennium slowed Denver's growth - but it didn't arrest it altogether. Several of Denver's dot-coms were affected by the post-millennium bubble-burst, but relative to other parts of the country the region weathered the storm well, due to the fact that Denver is heavier with established tech companies that with actual dot-com start-ups.