US West may take a lot of criticism, but its customer-service shortcomings are nothing compared to the way Denver’s first telephone company treated customers. In the 1880s, the Denver Telephone Dispatch Company set up shop at 15th and Larimer streets, taking up three rooms in a second-story office. The city’s…

Ray Gifford was stumped. The questions seemed so simple. Why have hundreds of US West customers had to face waits of up to five months for telephone service? Why have these problems plagued the company for five years? A parade of US West Colorado division vice presidents–in gray suits and…

Jan Bach used to be the queen of the trailer park. She’s lived in a mobile home for the better part of two decades, and for much of that time she’s worked as a trailer-park manager. Bach knows what it’s like to own her own home but to have to…

Hold On for the Ride Denver District Judge Michael Mullins ruled on July 12 that Deborah Lee Benagh, who claims she was injured on Six Flags Elitch Gardens’ Mind Eraser, will get her day in court (“Twists and Shouts,” June 17). Elitch’s had asked the judge to dismiss the suit,…

An urban anthropologist looking for the perfect example of the place where Denver’s past and future come together couldn’t do better than the neighborhood around 20th and Park avenues. On one side of the street, Post Properties is spending millions of dollars to transform the old St. Luke’s hospital site…

Jammed with a collection of rides that promise to make the traditional terrors of the old-fashioned roller coaster seem positively quaint, Six Flags Elitch Gardens, like many amusement parks these days, is on the cutting edge of engineering technology. Since it was moved downtown and bought out by Premier Parks…

What would you do with $300 million? If you were a member of the feuding Magness clan, you might decide to build a casino in Black Hawk or even launch a new career as a caterer. Never mind that much of the money from the estate of cable pioneer Bob…

Larry Mizel, the home builder who once spent his days worrying about criminal cases being built against executives in his company, is back on Colorado’s A list. A regular on the social circuit, Mizel has been feted at fundraising dinners and was even made an honorary dean by the University…

Sid Lindauer’s family has been ranching in western Colorado for three generations, fighting winter storms, brushfires and outbreaks of disease, but never worrying much about what went on in the state legislature. Until now. The area around Lindauer’s ranch just outside Parachute is dotted with natural-gas wells, part of a…

Calling All (Inexpensive) Social Workers Parents, teachers and authorities are struggling to understand how two kids at Columbine High School could have murdered twelve of their classmates and a teacher without anyone paying attention to the warning signs. At the same time, social workers, nurses and psychologists in the Denver…

For fifteen years, Dana Line has served Denver as a sheriff’s deputy at the county jail. Dealing with inmates can be risky, but Line always assumed that if he were hurt on the job, he would be taken care of. Today he no longer believes that. In 1992 Line was…

Ellen Golombek has one of the most thankless jobs at the Colorado Legislature. The 44-year-old flight attendant serves as the main lobbyist for the Colorado AFL-CIO, the federation of state labor unions. With the election of Bill Owens as Colorado’s first Republican governor in 24 years, as well as Republican…

The bill-signing at the Library of Congress was meant for the history books. To mark the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, President Bill Clinton flourished a pen used by Dwight Eisenhower to approve the legislation that created the interstate highway system in 1957. The signing marked the birth…

Is Currigan Exhibition Hall destined to become a part of the Denver Art Museum’s permanent collection? If Denver voters approve the $200 million proposed expansion of the nine-year-old Colorado Convention Center next fall, Currigan’s thirty-year role as part of the city’s convention complex will come to an abrupt halt. Current…

Plans recently unveiled by Westminster and Arvada to build a major link in a new beltway along metro Denver’s west side have alarmed Golden officials, who fear thousands of cars will be funneled into their city on Highway 93. But the din of oncoming traffic is nothing compared to the…

A map of downtown Denver covers the entire wall behind David Owen Tryba’s desk. Squiggly lines and arrows fill in blank spaces; historic churches and commercial buildings are highlighted in red. Jumping out of his chair, Tryba paces in front of the map, sweeping his hands over the triangle of…

Conditions at a Denver nursing home so alarm the state health department that it recently placed the facility under continuous monitoring and began fining it $1,700 a day. Although the Colorado Department of Health and Environment has been criticized for its lax enforcement of nursing-home standards (“Dying for Dollars,” October…

Kathy Caddell’s mother spent the last ten months of her life at a high-end nursing home that charged more than $4,000 a month. That sum helped pay for wall-to-wall carpeting, plush sofas and art in the common areas–but Caddell says it didn’t buy her mother basic human dignity. “They treated…

A proposal that would radically change the way Colorado grows and curb urban sprawl is on a collision course with the Colorado Legislature. And if lawmakers turn the idea down–again–Colorado voters will likely have the final say. The Colorado Responsible Growth Act would mandate “urban growth boundaries” around most of…

Jerry Ritchie is dying. He has emphysema, and as he moves around his small Arvada apartment, he carefully steps over the plastic tubes that link him to an oxygen tank. For the last several years, Ritchie has been in and out of hospitals and nursing homes, recovering from surgery and…

Maverick Elbert County commissioner’s concern over thousands of tons of waste from Denver’s sewer system being used as fertilizer has spawned an unprecedented $1.4 million agreement to monitor soil and water on an eastern Colorado farm. Since taking office in 1996, John Dunn has butted heads with oil companies, developers…

The weekly meeting of the Arapahoe County Republican Men’s Club is the ultimate power breakfast. Over scrambled eggs and ham, influential business and political leaders gossip and scheme in a usually well-behaved manner. The opulent Metropolitan Club setting on Orchard Road reflects the comfort and good fortune of the south…