When a wrong is almost 150 years old, righting it may not be quick. That’s one of the many lessons of the Sand Creek Massacre, a stain on Colorado history that stretches back to November 29, 1864, when Colonel John Chivington led 700 troops on a raid of a peaceful…
The Better Block Project comes to Five Points tomorrow, when it will focus on sprucing up the block of Welton Street that’s home to the legendary Sonny Lawson Park — and its ballfield. Neighborhood groups have been meeting for over a year to discuss what to do with this parcel…
Dear Mexican: Why is it that people from Chihuahua and Monterrey are such jackasses? They come from pinches ranchitos and talk about their haciendas, and they cross the border and act as if their cagada does not stink. Why do they act as if they are better than us American…
Civic Center Park is ready for its close-up tonight, when the Civic Center Conservancy, Historic Denver Inc. and Denver Parks and Recreation will share a 2012 State Honor Award for their Civic Center work during Colorado Preservation’s awards at History Colorado. Although Civic Center has already hosted several big gatherings…
Historian Ari Kelman was watching Iron Man 3 this past weekend with his son when he was startled by a familiar reference, one that seemed very out of context in a Hollywood blockbuster. Mandarin, the apparent arch-villain played by Ben Kingsley, was comparing his own act of terrorism in attacking…
While last week’s snow and this week’s predicted rains have made forecasts of drought seem all wet in metro Denver, the threat is still very real to farmers in southern and eastern Colorado. Last week, they planted more than 550 acres of Rocky Ford cantaloupe — almost a 40 percent…
While the truncated 4/20 festivities have turned Civic Center Park into ground zero for a discussion of which events are a First Amendment exercise and which are commercial, the Civic Center Conservancy will soon take a pot-free breather. On May 8, the Civic Center Conservancy, Historic Denver Inc. and Denver…
Dear Mexican: Although I’m familiar with your column, I don’t read it regularly. But today I was struck by something you said recently. And I quote: “We called ourselves Spanish, we considered ourselves white.” I’m Mexican, and I consider myself “white” because I’m not black or red or Asian. I…
Civic boosters love to travel to other cities to see how they do business — and maybe engage in some monkey business themselves. The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce’s City-to-City Leadership Exchange (LEX) will make its 24th annual trip in October — this one to Pittsburgh (last year was Austin)…
The Platte Valley & Western Railroad club started packing up its thirty-year-old model-train layout in the basement of Union Station last weekend, with no idea where the 2,000-square-foot display will eventually land. Union Station Alliance, the developer of Union Station, says it’s “offered the basement of the Sage Building on…
On Saturday, while thousands of freeloaders hopped on board the new West Line to ride light rail from downtown to Golden and back, members of the Platte Valley & Western Model Railroad club gathered in the dark basement of the shuttered Union Station and started dismantling the layout they’d initially…
Dear Mexican: I have always liked ranchera music. As of late, I have wanted to get deeper into it as far as the history, the culture and especially the songs and lyrics go. The older I get, the more rancheras seem like poetry to me…sounds cursi, I know. I was…
The space fills with the sounds of dogs barking, horses galloping, people running, gasping for breath. Red, white and blue lights illuminate quotes on white cloth shrouding the artifacts beyond: a poster calling for Indian fighters, a pair of moccasins, a howitzer. If this were one of the seven other…
Since we broke the sad news yesterday that the two model-train layouts that have been in the basement of Union Station for decades — eight decades, in one case — will not be there when Union Station reopens in 2014, fans have been hopping on board to help find them…
The beloved model-train layouts in the basement of Union Station have reached the end of the line. Back when two developers were competing for the contract to redevelop the facility, both promised there would always be a spot for the model trains — and the clubs that ran them. And…
Civic Center is quiet this morning: the grass raked, the trash collected…and the crime scene tape down. The Denver Police Department had used it to cordone off the southeast corner of the park after after multiple shots rang out — stampeding the crowds and leaving three 4/20 celebrants with bullet…
The Sand Creek Massacre isn’t the only grim chapter in Colorado history that will mark a major anniversary in 2014. Next year is also the hundredth anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre, the darkest moment in the Great Coalfield War. On April 20, 1914, a skirmish broke out between the Colorado…
Dear Mexican: What do we need to do to make the güeros understand that we come in peace? As Mexicans, we are from this great American continent as well, but in the average closed-minded English-speaking folks’ definition of “American,” it’s amusing to see they don’t understand what it really means…
The University of Denver has been meeting with members of the DU community to discuss the “mascot development” process. Doug Hirsh has been following the process with particular interest: He was the first human Denver Boone, chosen to portray the caricature that Walt Disney donated to DU to serve as…
While the University of Denver explores the role that John Evans, its founder, had to the Sand Creek Massacre, some people have moved beyond study to action. Aaron Sears, for example, has written a script for a movie he plans to direct: The Soul of Silas. The film is far…
In the late ’80s, after a Broncos Super Bowl loss, a CBS report said Denver had never been number one in anything besides air pollution. But that wasn’t true: At the time, Denver had Smiley’s, the world’s largest laundromat. And this modern marvel’s existence had been shared a few years…
Dear Mexican: We’re in state testing this week at the high school where I teach. After the students finish a section, they can only sit and read or just sit. I did an experiment: I chose the cholo-est, most tatted, pierced non-readers and dropped your book on their desk. Students…
