VIBRANT MILE HIGH CITY IS ON THE UP! LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
Denver has come a long way since the gold rush, when only the brave ventured downtown — a wild west with no police but plenty of brothels. At its peak, in the early 1860s, it’s said that the average man swigged three times more whiskey per day than most whiskey drinkers consumed in a week.
Today’s tipples are craft beer and cocktails, consumed not in swingdoor saloons but swanky bars on Larimer Street, the oldest thoroughfare. named after General Larimer, regarded as Denver’s founder, this street is a good place to appreciate its transformation.
In 1858, senator Larimer built the first residence on the corner of 15th and Larimer, using old coffin lids. The same ingenuity is a trademark of the tenants who fill the northern end of the street, which slices through rino (river north), a colourful, street art-adorned neighbourhood.
Here, Tunbridge Wells-born Ben Parsons founded The Infinite Monkey Theorem. The bar’s wine vending machine is the first sign this isn’t your average urban winery.
Ten years ago, Ben started making wine in a back alley. ‘My terroir was a mouldy couch,’ he jokes.
He’s on a mission to strip away pretentiousness, hence his canned wine. Far from a gimmick, it’s designed for outdoorsy Coloradians.
Denver has always been a master of reinvention. Head for the mountains (simply look for the rockies, above the city’s western edge) and you’ll find The Source, a food hall inside a 19th-century ironworks.
THe distinct architecture, with railroad ties embedded in the brick, has been lovingly preserved. vendors include Western Daughters, a butcher run by ex-vegetarian Kate Kavanaugh, who ditched tofu for transparency and sources meat from local farms. I dine at ‘eclectic’ Acorn. I’m nervous. Are plates of haminfused air on the menu?
I needn’t have worried. Acorn’s all about Southern comfort food: grits, clams and pimento cheese with bacon jam.
That’s the best thing about Denver: it’s hip and full of energy, but down to earth, too.
The biggest makeover took place at Union Station (renovated in 2014). Denver was merely a supply stop for miners hoping to strike it rich in nearby gold towns. When the gold dried up, the city began to go the same away, until a plan was hatched in the late 19th century.
Cross- country trains would stop here, breathing new life into the city.
It worked. Today, it’s estimated that 80 people move to Denver every day. Many are young entrepreneurs dodging San Francisco’s soaring rents.
Union Station is a spectacular arrival point, a magnificent Beaux Arts building known as ‘Denver’s living room’.
The walls are decorated with blueprints of the original station and 19th-century timetables.
My favourites are the faded portraits of Denver’s first cowboy poets. The Colorado Cowboy Poetry Gathering still takes place today.
I board a train for Winter Park. I resist the urge to nap after a passenger reveals he boarded in Chicago (1,000 miles away) and is heading to San Francisco, arriving ‘ some time this week’. The train rumbles through snow-dusted forests and tunnels carved into mountains. I pass colourful, clapboard cottages being swallowed up by snowdrifts; abandoned villages littered with rusting mining equipment.
In summer, Winter Park is a popular hiking spot (Colorado is America’s second- sunniest state, with 300 days of sunshine annually), and in winter, growing numbers of Britons take advantage of its huge ski area. The resort has a wonderful small-town feel, its centre filled with boutiques and firepits surrounded by families defrosting after a day on the slopes. Back in Denver, I channel my inner cowgirl at rockmount ranch Wear, a family- owned store founded in 1901. rockmount’s diamond-studded shirts have been worn by everyone from elvis to Anne Hathaway, and been displayed at Washington DC’s Smithsonian Institution museums. They celebrate Americana: suede fringe jackets, cowboy boots and cowboy shirts with intricate shoulder detailing. My last mission is to see the plaque on the steps of Denver’s Colorado State Capitol. It confirms I’m one mile above sea level. Mile High City has more than met my expectations.
TRAVEL FACTS
NORWEGIAN ( norwegian.com, 0330 828 0854) from Gatwick to Denver from £305 return. Doubles at the Kimpton Hotel Born ( hotelborndenver.com, 00800 4444 5566) start at £235.