Denver is spending millions to build a new park along the South Platte River that is intended to be the centerpiece of the Platte Valley renaissance. There’s only one problem with this idyllic return to nature: A power line runs through it. A massive, 120-foot-high Public Service power line, to…

A quixotic effort to run English-style punts through downtown Denver got off to a slow start last summer, but that hasn’t deterred promoters of the boat trips from planning a $2 million expansion of the unusual network of dams and locks along puny Cherry Creek. Punt the Creek was launched…

Last summer a Denver emissary for Columbia Hospital Corporation, the nation’s largest for-profit health-care chain, had lunch with one of the city’s prominent community leaders. A pair of hospitals were on the menu. Leaning over the table during the meal, Richard Anderson, chairman of the local Columbia/HealthONE joint venture, reportedly…

Years ago, Federal Boulevard was one of the most beautiful streets in Denver. Huge elms towered over the thoroughfare, which was lined with churches, libraries and large homes. Now the City of Denver is spending $2 million to bring back some of that old glory, hoping to undo a mistake…

In the old days, buying a house in the mountain town of Black Hawk was like moving to Appalachia. Residents lined the cracked windows of their miners’ shacks with quilts to keep out the cold. Living-room floors were made of bare dirt. Porches sagged and chimneys crumbled, and many of…

Denver may be about to lose an art collection that was a fixture in the Capitol Hill neighborhood for nearly twenty years. The Turner Museum was housed in a home at 773 Downing Street until last year. Its founder, Douglas Graham, owns hundreds of lithographs and other works by the…

Stephanie Hult, 1960s feminist and anti-war activist, says she’s misunderstood. Her numerous enemies portray Hult, now the president of the Boulder Valley school board, as the spiteful leader of a band of right-wing elitists who want to destroy the Boulder Valley school system. But Hult says she’s every bit the…

When most people drive by the north Denver neighborhoods strung out along Interstate 70–including Globeville, Elyria and Swansea–they assume the area is entirely industrial and don’t notice the hundreds of homes tucked in between the factories and junkyards. If told that the neighbors are angry because trucks roar down their…

The law that created the Toxics Release Inventory is one of the more novel pieces of legislation enacted in the past decade. It doesn’t mandate any reductions in toxic releases or outlaw particular chemicals. It simply lets the public know what goes on behind factory gates. That information–and the media…

On a bright winter afternoon in northeast Park Hill, elementary-school students stream out of the Margaret Smith Renaissance Academy. While some mothers wait impatiently for their children to climb into the backseats of idling cars, most of the kids are walking to the trim brick homes and well-kept yards for…

This old cowtown is finally big enough to merit a splashy, 500-page coffee-table book filled with full-color photos and glowing prose. But Denver’s collective coffee table may not be big enough for two of them. The new year will see the appearance of a pair of lavish profiles of Denver,…

The former treasurer of the College Republicans on the Auraria campus became disenchanted with the party and has found a new campaign: He’s organizing a student club for pagans. These days, “I’m basically a conservative libertarian,” says Nicholas Bull, a 21-year-old Metropolitan State College English major. “I had a problem…

The wild West is making a last stand in bucolic Elbert County, where the new county motto may be “Make My Day.” Ranked as the second-fastest growing county in the country–it trails only neighboring Douglas County–Elbert County has been embroiled in constant battles over growth during the past few years…

Robert Brown still remembers hearing the name Christian Lawless Harper on the radio in the summer of 1995. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent hadn’t forgotten the day he arrested Harper more than twenty years ago for interstate transportation of stolen vehicles. When Brown heard Harper’s name on the tail…

US West likes to highlight the diversity of its huge fourteen-state territory with TV advertising that periodically features cowboys chatting on pay phones and pickup trucks rambling through the Sonoran desert. Now the phone company’s opponents have picked up on the Western theme: They’ve formed a regional posse to hunt…

It was the dog that let them know something was wrong. His neighbors knew Steven Wickliff would never allow his beloved golden retriever, Jake, to wander the streets. So when they noticed the animal had been running loose in their southeast Denver neighborhood, they called the police. When the cops…

Western Pacific Airlines, the media darling that captivated the public by offering a low-cost alternative to high prices at Denver International Airport, has hit heavy turbulence in its effort to become a homegrown success story. While other airlines have been reporting record profits, the Colorado Springs-based carrier has been flying…

The City of Denver’s dream of creating a string of parks along the South Platte River came true last month when it announced the purchase of most of the land for the thirty-acre Commons Park. While Denver will have a new showpiece park right downtown, some key political supporters of…

As far as US West is concerned, no news is good news. The telephone monopoly is asking the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to deny public access to information on the number of delays customers are experiencing in getting new service, as well as information concerning the salaries it pays top…

The road to Leyden, Colorado, isn’t much wider than a trail. A simple sign on Highway 93 a few miles north of Golden points east, directing motorists onto a narrow gravel road that twists through a break in the dun-colored rock formations of the hogback. For more than two miles,…

A dispute over the future of a valuable piece of city-owned real estate across the street from Larimer Square has forced Denver officials to back down from plans to sell the property to developers. If downtown residents have their way, Denver will have a new park and history center instead…

When the Colorado Convention Center was dedicated on a spring day in 1990, the promises flew as fast and furious as a March snowstorm. Politicians who had spent years campaigning for the new center didn’t disguise their delight with the opening of the tenth largest convention center in the United…