1. Begin at the Colorado History Museum and the Colorado Judicial Building
(1300 Broadway)

The Colorado History Museum is a three-story structure of gray brick forming a flat-topped triangle with three north terraces. Primary exhibition space is below ground. Exhibits include a wonderfully detailed WPA diorama of Denver in 1860. This new museum (1977) shares its site with a granite-clad, five-story Colorado Judicial Building that has a cut-through opening at ground level, and a mural by Angelo di Benedetto depicting history’s great lawgivers.

2. Walk up 14^th Avenue to the Old State Museum
(SE Corner of Sherman Street and East 14^th Avenue)

Classic palace of Greek Revival detail is the last work of renowned architect Frank Edbrooke. Built in 1913 to harmonize with nearby the 1908 State Capitol. Sheathed in polished Colorado yule marble. Four fluted marble columns support the entrance portico. After the museum moved to 1300 Broadway, this building was restored as legislative offices. It retains its exquisite marble and golden oak interior.

3. Wander down 14th Avenue to Civic Center Park

The park’s north-south axis terminates in two classical structures inspired by the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. At the north end is the Voorhies Memorial (1920). An arcade of Turkey Creek sandstone curves around a pool with twin fountains of cherubs riding sea lions, designed by Denver sculptor Robert Garrison. In the lunettes of the arcade are murals by Allen True. The memorial was funded by banker John H. P. Voorhies who lived across the street.

The Greek Theatre and Colonnade of Civic Benefactors echoes the Voorhies Memorial, at the opposite end of the park. Also constructed of Turkey Creek sandstone, the theatre’s arcade contains two more Allen True murals depicting pioneers in the wilderness.

Plans for a sunken sculpture garden at the center of the park solidified around two bronze statues by Denverite Alexander Phimister Proctor, Bronco Buster (1920) and On the War Trail (1922).

4. Cross 14^th Avenue to visit the Denver Public Library and the Denver Art Museum
(10 and 100 West 14^th Avenue, respectively)

On the north side of this full-block complex is the 1955 four-story. limestone-clad Burnham Hoyt library building that subtly plays on classical composition. Postmodernist architect Michael Graves (with the Denver firm of Brian Klipp) produced the seven-story addition (1995) attached to the south of the original central library that contains more than four million books, government documents and special collections, including the world-famous Western History Collection. Graves’ articulated masses of colors and shapes reject the Neoclassicism of the Civic Center, except for the parade of columns along the 13^th Ave. façade. Edward J. Ruscha created the Colorado murals in the central atriums. Outside, Donald Lipski’s towering horse sculpture entertains children.

Gio Ponti’s 1971 Denver Art Museum fortress clad in gray Corning tile is a dramatic piece of art that demands attention. Its huge bulk belittles the City Beautiful idea and overshadows the nearby City and County Building. The reinforced concrete frame carries 28 vertical sides that rise to crenelated parapets on the roofline. Inside, stacked vertical galleries focus on specific collections, of which the most notable is Native American art. A new entrance replaces the original stainless steel and concrete entry tunnel.

A fiery red sculpture by Mark di Suvero occupies the plaza between these two edifices

5. Continue down 13^th Avenue to the Byers-Evans House
(1310 Bannock Street)

This two-story Italianate house, which shares the block with the Denver Art Museum, was built in 1883 by William Newton Byers, founding editor of the Rocky Mountain News. In 1889, it became home to the family of William Gray Evans, son of Colorado territorial governor John Evans. Restored as a house museum, it focuses on Denver history in general, as well as the Byers and Evans clans.

6. Continue north on Bannock Street to the City and County Building
(1437 Bannock Street)

Denver's city hall, the City and County Building, balances the Colorado State Capitol to the east and is the greatest monument of Mayor Speer’s City Beautiful. Conceived as part of the original Robinson Plan of 1906, it took 26 years to build (1932) and incorporates the design efforts of 39 leading local architects. The Beaux-Arts Neoclassical façade has three-story Corinthian entry columns of travertine atop a grand staircase and massive bronze doors. Upper walls are Stone Mountain, Georgia, granite. Eleven varieties of marble are featured inside this impressive home to mayor, city council and other municipal offices. In the main entry lobby, works by Denver artist Susan Cooper depict Denver’s architectural heritage. Despite charges of bad taste, the City and County building has been decorated riotously with colored lights every holiday season since 1832.

7. Behind the City and County Building is the Denver Mint
(320 West Colfax Avenue)

This two-story rectangular fortress (1906) inspired by the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi in Florence is clad in pink Pikes Peak granite with Colorado gray granite ashlar above. Wrought iron is used for entry lanterns, window grilles and fencing. Murals by Vincent Aderente in the main vestibule represent mining, manufacturing and commerce. Although James Knox Taylor was the supervising architect, the New York City firm of Tracy, Swarthwout and Litchfield designed the mint. Additions have detracted from this monument to Colorado’s gold rush origins, but it remains the city’s most popular free attraction.

8. Directly northeast is City and County Annex No. 2
(144 West Colfax Avenue)

This three-story Greek Revival Temple was conceived by New York Architect Albert Randolph Ross and funded in part by a $200,000 grant from philanthropist Andrew Carnegie who hated the final design ("Too many pillars!") It was Denver’s Main Library from 1910-1955 and well-loved by many who still remember passing quiet hours researching and reading in its hushed and lovely interior. Since the library moved across Civic Center in 1955, it has been awkwardly remodeled inside to accommodate other city agencies.

9. Across Colfax Avenue is City Hall Annex No. 1
(1445 Cleveland Place)

One of Denver’s best International Style buildings comments on its Beaux-Arts neighbors with a studied absence of applied decoration. Designed in 1949 by Casper Hegner, the building features a roof that extends over a fourth-story deck overlooking Civic Center. Solid end walls of dressed white Indiana limestone enclose rectangular planes. Alternating bands of limestone and windows with projecting sun shields along the south façade give the building a strong horizontal orientation.

In 2000, the City embarked on an ambitious refurbishing of Annex No. 1, to which a total of 600,000 square feet was added, consisting of a 12-story new building and 3 ½ levels of below-grade foundation. For the project, Denver selected the team of David Owen Tryba Architects working with RNL Design of Denver and general contractor Hensel Phelps in a joint venture with J.A. Walker Company. Mile High Properties is the land development firm selected by the City to oversee the development and construction.

When complete in the autumn of 2002, this new Civic Center Office Building will house about 40 governmental agencies/divisions and approximately 2,300 employees. The building consolidation is projected to save the considerable expense of numerous City office leases throughout Denver, but also will provide for convenience to the customers using City and other government agency services.

10. Proceed east to the Pioneer Monument Fountain
(at Colfax Avenue and Broadway)

Kit Carson on horseback dominates bronze figures of a prospector, a hunter and a rifle-toting pioneer mother with her infant. Frederick MacMonnies’ original 1911 monument was capped by a heroic Native American figure that public sentiment forced him to replace.

11. Cross Broadway and Colfax Avenue to visit the
Colorado Veterans Monument
(one block southeast)

Dedicated on November 11, 1990, this tribute to Colorado's war veterans is both a memorial to those who lost their lives in service to our country and a tribute to veterans of the past, present, and future. Tim Drago spearheaded the effort to create, fund and build the memorial. After a statewide contest was held, a committee of veterans chose the design submitted by Robert Koot and Richard Farley. The monument tower and wall were built of red sandstone from Lyons (Boulder County), Colorado, and represent the image of strength and vigilance. The beacon at the top of the tower represents lasting awareness and perpetual memory.

12. Cross Lincoln Street and climb the steps to the Colorado State Capitol.

The main axis of the Civic Center plan is dominated on the east by the Colorado State Capitol, a cruciform building of four stories, culminated in a gold dome.

The edifice was designed by Elijah E. Myers and Frank E. Edbrooke and opened in 1908. The building houses offices of the governor and chambers for the state senate and house of representatives. Like many domed state capitols of its era, it is inspired by the national Capitol. The exterior walls are Colorado gray granite from the Aberdeen quarry in Gunnison County.



Colorado mining magnates donated the 24-carat gold leaf on the 272-foot-high dome which was regilded most recently in 1991. Elijah Myers also designed state capitols for Idaho, Michigan, Texas and Utah. Myers gave Colorado a classical design of Renaissance origins, but with unmistakably 19th-century proportions.



The interiors feature Beulah red marble and Colorado Yule marble wainscoting and brass fixtures. Of 160 rooms, the most noteworthy are the old Supreme Court Chambers, the Senate and House Chambers, and the first-floor rotunda, whose walls display murals (1938) by Colorado's premier muralist Allen Tupper True, and a poem by Colorado Poet Laureate Thomas Hornsby Ferril.