Denver has plenty of streets named after presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, James Madison and James Monroe. However, its biggest street is named after a lowly vice president.
Some of Denver's streets honor a president's role in the Civil War, which ended just as Denver began to boom, or got their names to help simplify the growing city's grid, according to Denver Streets: Names, Numbers, Locations, Logic, a book published in 1994 by historian Phil Goodstein. But by the end of the nineteenth century, Denver stopped renaming major streets after presidents, so without homages to Franklin D. Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy, it might take a real history buff to spot all the presidential namesakes in this city.
For example, there are homages to Andrew Jackson, the original jackass of the Democrat Party who forced Native Americans on the Trail of Tears, and Grover Cleveland, the first president to serve two non-consecutive terms and whose daughter was the inspiration for the Baby Ruth chocolate bar. Cleveland Place is a short homage, though, just a few blocks that cut through 16th Street on the edge of downtown.
Instead of celebrating Presidents' Day by buying a new mattress at one of those ubiquitous sales, brush up on your history of how Denver's presidential streets got their names:
Washington Street
George Washington, the first president of the United States, has his name written throughout the country in honor of his role in founding the nation and fighting the British in the Revolutionary War.In Denver, a high school, a park and a street bear his name. Originally, Steele Street was named after the Father of Our Country; that changed in the 1880s, according to Goodstein, when the original Washington was renamed to honor Robert Steele, who governed the Jefferson Territory that later became part of Colorado, and a street a mile to the west was renamed Washington Street.
Today's Washington Street extends well beyond Denver's city boundaries. On its north end, Washington is part of Five Points, running into Welton and 27th streets and East 26th Avenue. In south Denver, it's a skinny residential street near the University of Denver and Washington Park (but it never touches the president's namesake park).
Lincoln Street
If Interstate 25 is backed up, anyone heading north towards downtown Denver will likely reroute up Lincoln Street, the one-way road that runs over Cherry Creek and passes the State Capitol (as well as the Westword office).In 1886, Denver businessman and developer Henry C. Brown bought 160 acres of land just outside Denver city limits, according to Goodstein. Brown named the first street east of Broadway, which he hoped would be as big as New York's Broadway one day, after Abraham Lincoln in honor of the sixteenth president's role in defeating the Confederate Army and abolishing slavery.
Today, the east-west boundaries of Brown's land would go from Broadway to just shy of Logan Street, which he didn't name. According to Goodstein, Brown named two more streets that ran through his land after other Civil War heroes: Ulysses S. Grant and scorched-earth General William Tecumseh Sherman. Meanwhile, Brown's name lives on with the Brown Palace Hotel, which he built.
Fair warning: Because of construction, there's now a detour at that northbound exit of I-25 onto Lincoln.
Grant Street
A couple blocks east of Lincoln Street is Grant, named after the eighteenth U.S. president who, as general of the Union Army, accepted the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Grant also oversaw the reconstruction of the South after the Civil War.Grant was the easternmost street in Brown's 160 acres of land. As it heads south, it passes neighborhoods like Platt and Rosedale and is dotted with green dividers and sharrows, or markings to make room for bikes. However, with cars parked on both sides, it can be uncomfortably narrow for cyclists.
Long before a convicted felon was elected as president, President Grant was arrested for speeding in his horse-drawn buggy in 1872. Today, Grant Street is a great place to get a speeding ticket of your own, as it passes just to the east of the Colorado State Capitol, and state troopers are always cruising nearby.
Madison Street
If you've ever tried to park your car near City Park, you might find a spot on Madison, a north-south road in central Denver that is mostly residential. It's named after James Madison, the fourth president, who's considered the father of the U.S. Constitution after playing a key role in its drafting.Madison is also known as the shortest president, though plenty of guys will tell you that being 5'4" doesn't make you short — but he was definitely shorter than the 5'6" Napoleon Bonaparte, who was waging war in Europe while Madison was rebuilding the White House after the British burned it down in the War of 1812.
In the 1880s, Denver planners wanted a few streets west of Colorado Boulevard (which was then named McKinley Avenue, after President William McKinley) named after presidents, according to Goodstein. This is when Madison Street earned its presidential name. A street named for Thomas Jefferson was renamed in 1893, to honor developer J. Cook, who helped build up the city east of York Street. Near Madison are streets named after John Adams, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison and Andrew Jackson, as well.
Fillmore Street
Maybe because he was the thirteenth U.S. president, Millard Fillmore was unlucky enough to be considered one of the most forgettable. He's mostly known as the last person from the Whig Party to take office, but he wasn't elected. He took over for Zachary Taylor, who died in office. Fillmore is also known for enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act, which forced many escaped slaves to go back to the South.In Denver, his name lingers on Fillmore Street, which runs north-south past notable spots like City Park and the Cherry Creek Shopping Center, where the Fillmore Plaza takes up a block of his namesake street. According to Goodstein, the street's name was once thought to honor a Denver pioneer named John S. Fillmore, but this street was named around the time Madison and other streets west of Colorado Boulevard were named after presidents, so that version is unlikely.
Milwaukee Street runs alongside Fillmore, separated only by an alley. Former Colorado State Senator Barbara Holme nicknamed the two streets "Filly" and "Milly," according to Goodstein.
The Fillmore Auditorium on East Colfax Avenue was named in 1999 after the legendary Fillmore in San Francisco, but the California venue was named after a street honoring the thirteenth president. So in a way, Fillmore is actually kind of lucky.
Pierce Street
About a mile west of Denver's western boundary of Sheridan Boulevard, Pierce Street runs north-south through Jefferson County. It's named in honor of Franklin Pierce, the fourteenth president.Pierce served a single term in office from 1853 to 1857. The Democrat is known for signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which organized the two territories and attracted settlers to those Western territories. He's also criticized for not addressing the divisions that led to the Civil War.
Pierce Street runs for miles over gulches and creeks and past parks; it stretches from West 80th Avenue down to around E-470 and Chatfield State Park.
Colfax Avenue, the Vice Thoroughfare
Once called the longest, wickedest street in America, Colfax Avenue is known as a place where you can indulge in a few vices. But it's on this list because of one: Vice President Schuyler Colfax.Colfax, a New York Republican, was the Speaker of the House of Representatives during the Civil War and then Grant's vice president. Although he's not a household name the way Lincoln is, he has a bigger street named after him in Denver than either Lincoln or Grant.
At the end of the Civil War, Colorado was vying for statehood and Colfax, who was House speaker at the time, agreed to help Territorial Governor John Evans endorse Colorado's bid in exchange for having a street named after him that enters the city from the east, according to Goodstein.
Colfax Avenue began appearing on maps of Denver in 1868, the same year that Grant and Colfax were elected to the White House. Colfax left his vice presidential post in shame in 1873 after taking stocks in exchange for government favors, and died in 1885 as a "man better known locally for the street named in his honor than his political career," Goodstein wrote.
In Denver, Colfax's last name is intimately tied to life in the city, even if no one can remember his first name. If only his namesake street wasn't always under construction.
