Coors Field's 20th Anniversary: Here's What It Looked Like Under Construction

It was 1994, and I was somewhere in between grad school and my first job in the real world. The Colorado Rockies had come into existence just a few years earlier, when Major League Baseball announced that it had awarded a franchise to Denver, and had only begun playing a...

By Jonathan Shikes

April 10, 2015

[
        {
          "name": "Air - MediumRectangle - Inline Content - Mobile Display Size",
          "component": "12017618",
          "insertPoint": "2",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "2"
        },{
          "name": "Editor Picks",
          "component": "17242653",
          "insertPoint": "4",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "1"
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "18838239",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Air - MediumRectangle - Combo - Inline Content",
          "component": "17261320",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "18838239",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Air - Leaderboard Tower - Combo - Inline Content",
          "component": "17261321",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        }
      ]

It was 1994, and I was somewhere in between grad school and my first job in the real world.

The Colorado Rockies had come into existence just a few years earlier, when Major League Baseball announced that it had awarded a franchise to Denver, and had only begun playing a year before in the old Mile High Stadium.

Although I didn't grow up watching baseball — Denver was mostly a football town in the 1970s and '80s — I became a convert at college in California, where I met some die-hard Dodgers, Padres, Giants and A's fans.

So when Coors Field was under construction, I took my enthusiasm and my non-digital camera and snapped some photos.

Coors Field opened the next year, in 1995, and will celebrate its twentieth anniversary this season.

Although the Rockies will play their home opener today against the Cubs, they'll commemorate two decades on April 26 with a pre-game celebration.

Here are the photos I took, which show Coors Field under construction and a very different Lower Downtown, one that is barely recognizable today.

KEEP WESTWORD FREE... Since we started Westword, it has been defined as the free, independent voice of Denver, and we'd like to keep it that way. Your membership allows us to continue offering readers access to our incisive coverage of local news, food, and culture with no paywalls. You can support us by joining as a member for as little as $1.