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DISCLAIMER: This document does not meet current format guidelines Graduate School at the The University of Texas at Austin. of the It has been published for informational use only. Copyright by Eric Terje Busch 2012 The Dissertation Committee for Eric Terje Busch Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: City of Mountains: Denver and the Mountain West Committee: H.W. Brands, Supervisor Erika M. Bsumek Steven D. Hoelscher Michael B. Stoff Emilio Zamora City of Mountains: Denver and the Mountain West by Eric Terje Busch, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2012 For Erica and Grant Acknowledgments The path to the eventual completion of this dissertation was more circuitous than I had expected, and I’ve accumulated many debts along the way. To my advisor, Bill Brands: your advice and input over the years have sharpened my writing and my thinking, and my dissertation is far better for your influence. More than that, you saw someone in need, and you helped. I cannot repay what you have done for me. But now I know how to pass it on. To the members of my committee, Erika Bsumek, Steven Hoelscher, Michael Stoff and Emilio Zamora, thank you for your wisdom and insight, and for your valuable advice on this manuscript. To David Oshinsky, thank you as well for your advice, your help, and your friendship during my years at UT. It has meant more than I can say. To those who appear in this manuscript, and who took time to talk with me, thank you for your generosity, for your recollections from your extraordinary lives, and for your tremendous contributions to the public good. To my friends at the Denver Public Library—thank you for your generosity and expertise during the long process of research for this dissertation. Thanks especially to Ann Brown, who suggested the passage by Thomas Hornsby Ferril that appears at the beginning of this dissertation. To my dear friends, Dianne and Hervey Priddy, your support has meant so much to our family throughout our years in graduate school, and even as I write this, Dianne, your editing is helping me make it to the finish line. Thank you for everything. To my mother Linda, my father Terje, my sister AnneLiese and my brother Mark, my thoughts turn back to all of our adventures in that “mountain hinterland” of ours. Thank you for your love and encouragement. To my son Grant—you can’t read yet. But you can smile. And what a smile you have. To my wife, Erica: this only happened because of you. Thank you for pushing me, supporting me, and loving me every step of the way. I love you. v City of Mountains: Denver and the Mountain West Publication No.____________ Eric Terje Busch, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2012 Supervisor: H.W. Brands This study is an urban history of Denver, Colorado, viewed through the lens of its constantly evolving physical, political, cultural and economic relationship with its mountain hinterland. From the town’s early years as a 19th century mining and ranching depot to its 20th century emergence as a hub of tourism and technology, that relationship informs every aspect of the city’s urban, cultural and environmental history. This study seeks, first, to analyze Denver’s historical appropriation and utilization of its mountain hinterland, whether for water, wealth, recreation and cultural identity. Second, it highlights how access to and control over the Rocky Mountain hinterland shaped Denver’s evolving political, class and racial landscapes throughout the city’s history. Integrating the methodologies of environmental, urban, and social history, it demonstrates how different social groups competed for access, control, and the ability to vi assign value to the mountain hinterland. Every Denverite in the city’s history, regardless of station, has lived within the context of this tense and constantly changing relationship. Since the city’s founding, that relationship has been the constant object of human agency, accommodation, and change, and in it can be read the story of Denver itself. vii Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................. I INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................13 I. Vox populi, vox dei ..........................................................................................13 II.The City-Hinterland Conundrum ..................................................................20 III. Linkages ........................................................................................................21 IV. Conservation in Context ...............................................................................30 CHAPTER 1: BEGINNING, 1859-1900 ....................................................................44 I.Pride of Place ................................................................................................44 II.An “Instant City” ..........................................................................................48 III. The Princes of Mountain and Plain ...............................................................50 IV. Denver as a Family Affair: Philanthropy and Succession ............................54 V. When Silver Was King ..................................................................................57 VI. Silver in City and Hinterland ........................................................................61 VII. The First Age of Reform ...............................................................................71 VIII.The Angry West ............................................................................................76 CHAPTER 2: BRINGING PEOPLE, 1900-1940 ........................................................78 I.A Post-Industrial Wilderness ........................................................................78 II.The Switzerland of America .........................................................................80 III. Urban Progressivism and Mountain Tourism ...............................................84 IV. The Mountains Are the Gateway to the City ................................................88 V.Marketing the Mountains ..............................................................................92 VI. A Place to Be ................................................................................................99 VII. Further Away ..............................................................................................100 TH CHAPTER 3: A 20 CENTURY FUTURE, 1940—1960 .........................................103 viii I.A Cowtown Superego .................................................................................103 II.Countercyclical Colonialism .......................................................................106 III. A Population Bomb ....................................................................................115 IV. The Press Awakens .....................................................................................119 V.A New Champion: The 1947 Mayoral Election .........................................128 VI. 17th Street Loosens Its Grip ........................................................................145 VI. The Taking of Downtown Denver: 1945-1960 ...........................................150 CHAPTER 4: BECOMING CITY AND SUBURB: RACE AND URBAN GROWTH IN DENVER, 1945-1964 ...................................................................................162 I.The “Spanish-American Problem” .............................................................162 II.The Rise of “Urban Dualism” in Denver ....................................................170 III. A Tale of Two Cities: Housing Segregation in the Post-war Metropolis ...175 IV. White Labor, White Future .........................................................................183 V.“What Is Wrong with Five Points?” Dispatches from Denver’s Looming Urban Crisis ...........................................................................................................193 VI. A New Balance ...........................................................................................200 CHAPTER 5: THE DUAL CITY, 1945-1962 ..........................................................202 I.A Well-Intentioned Bureaucracy ................................................................202 II.The Intellectual Test of Urban Planning .....................................................209 III. The Fight of the Century .............................................................................220 IV.Inward and Outward ...................................................................................232 CHAPTER 6: CONSERVATION IN DEFENSE OF AUTONOMY: WATER AND GROWTH IN POST-WAR DENVER, 1945-1960 .................................................................234 I.Praesidentis Ex Machina ............................................................................234 II.Conserving Water, Cultivating Power ........................................................240 III. Seeing Like A Water Utility .......................................................................253 ix IV. Tapping the Rockies: The Struggle For Supply ..........................................266 V.Managing Demand and Imposing Hierarchy: Servicing the Metropolis, 1919-