Nobody knows what’s going on inside Colorado’s nursing homes better than Virginia Fraser. One recent morning, Fraser spent several hours visiting the Cherrelyn nursing home in Littleton, introducing herself to residents as their ombudsman. “I’m here to advocate for the people who live here,” she told an elderly woman with…

Western history is filled with stories of sometimes violent conflicts between railroads and common folk. In the days when trains were the only transportation link to the outside world, farmers and ranchers were often at the mercy of the rail line, which could charge exorbitant fees with no fear of…

Ann Schneider has worked for Xcel Energy for 27 years, and she remembers the days when the company once known as Public Service was both a good employer and a dependable provider of gas and electricity. Workers at the Denver-based utility would stay on for decades, confident that they had…

Over the last decade, dozens of small brick bungalows in the Cherry Creek North neighborhood have been torn down to make way for expensive townhomes with faux European facades, and residents have gotten used to seeing entire blocks transformed every few weeks. While some regret the changes, everyone agrees that…

Lauren Murray’s easy smile and trim figure give no hint of the years of life-threatening turmoil she’s endured. The 41-year-old Denver woman has built a successful career in marketing, and her colleagues rarely suspect that anything might be seriously wrong with her. But Murray has struggled with severe mental illness…

In 1995, Ken Swinehart realized that US West’s neglect of the San Luis Valley had given him a good business opportunity. Although the gigantic phone company was busy installing fiber-optic lines to provide high-speed Internet access and other services along the Front Range, it couldn’t be bothered to do the…

In an important victory for the mentally ill in Denver, a local judge found this week that the state is in contempt of court for failing to provide care and shelter to those with chronic mental illnesses. Denver District Judge Morris Hoffman fined Colorado $1.4 million and ordered the state…

When Joanne and Manny Salzman moved into their 3,500-square-foot loft on Wynkoop Street in 1980, no one had heard of LoDo. The area was filled with empty warehouses and broken windows, and the couple’s former neighbors in Hilltop worried about them walking the deserted streets at night. But the opportunity…

The politicians assembled in a conference room inside Denver’s City and County Building are on edge. A routine meeting of the city council’s parks and recreation committee is suddenly at the center of the hottest political story in town. Charles Robertson, a high-level manager with the parks department, has been…

In the past few years, lower downtown and the adjacent Central Platte Valley have become Denver’s most sought-after addresses. An area that was once home to winos and run-down warehouses now boasts some of the most expensive lofts and condos in the city, with more than a few units going…

For weeks now, Mike Cerbo has been Mayor Wellington Webb’s worst nightmare. Cerbo, the secretary-treasurer of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 14, has campaigned relentlessly against Denver’s $64 million subsidy of a Hyatt hotel planned for a parking lot across 14th Street from the Colorado Convention Center. The $217…

Last May, a sick and injured Peruvian sheepherder showed up on the doorstep of a rancher near Meeker. The herder, Remigio Inga Damian, had spent several days walking from the remote backcountry pasture where he’d been tending a herd of 1,000 sheep. Exhausted and feverish, he’d hidden in an abandoned…

It’s still possible to see justice done — as long as somebody pays the attorneys. Coloradans who spent weeks, sometimes months, sometimes even years waiting for US West to install new telephone lines will soon be eligible for credits on their telephone bills, thanks to a class-action lawsuit filed back…

As the bus full of candidates for Centennial’s first city council meanders along the jagged eastern boundary of the city, many of the would-be elected officials inside are starting to feel nauseated. Who can blame them? The vagaries of politics and the mysterious ways of suburban real estate developers have…

Launching a tourist railroad is not for the faint of heart. Just ask anyone who’s been involved with the Georgetown Loop Railroad, a breathtaking route between Georgetown and Silver Plume that transports passengers up dizzying spirals in the rugged terrain between the two old mining towns. The route had been…

When Don Shank was a child, his father regularly took his family on summer trips from California to Colorado. The elder Shank loved the history of railroading in the Rockies, and he shared with his son tales of narrow-gauge lines weaving precariously at the edge of 1,000-foot cliffs, tunnels being…

The Hilltop neighborhood, which sits on a bluff east of Colorado Boulevard and north of Alameda Boulevard, was largely developed in the 1940s and ’50s, and most of its homes are suburban-style ranch houses that could just as easily have been built in Lakewood or Littleton. For years, Hilltop was…

Sorting through a stack of planning documents and books on a shelf in her office, Denver city planner Ellen Ittelson pulls out a faded booklet with yellowed pages. It’s a Denver planning-department primer from the 1940s, and the main topic is how to remake the city’s streets to accommodate cars…

While Coloradans no longer have to live in fear of Soviet nuclear weapons obliterating metro Denver, the end of the Cold War hasn’t brought peace to the western suburbs. Instead, two local governments are squabbling over a proposed museum that would chronicle the history of the former Rocky Flats nuclear-weapons…

Last May, six homeless people sleeping outside the Denver City and County Building were awakened by the cops and arrested. They were there because city sweeps of the traditional homeless camping grounds along the South Platte River and Cherry Creek had forced them to migrate to Civic Center Park and…

Ollette Omedelena loves the two gurgling fountains in the backyard of her Washington Park home, even though listening to them sometimes makes her cry. For ten years, Omedelena cared for two women with severe developmental disabilities. One of them, a blind woman in her sixties named Jim Anna, would sit…

The July issue of Arvada’s municipal newsletter makes the city sound like the biggest supporter of open space in the metro area. “Open Space Preservation Continues: Mountain Backdrop, Trail Corridors Top Priority,” says the headline on the cover of The Arvada Report. Inside, an article enthuses about Arvada’s commitment to…