Denver Noir

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Long before Sam Bates and William Greenberry Russell set their mining pans into a stream near a confluence of waterways about thirty miles east of the Rocky Mountains, the area’s grassy riverbanks provided a seasonal home for the Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapaho nations. In 1851, the land was granted to the Arapaho under the Treaty of Fort Laramie, but in 1858, Bates and Russell’s discovery of twenty troy ounces (620 g) of gold resulted in thousands of settlers flocking to the region to seek their fortunes. Native peoples attempted to coexist with the newcomers — until November 1864, when hundreds of Cheyenne and Arapaho were slaughtered at Sand Creek, and those who survived fled for their lives.

Even by then, Denver’s forecasts as a golden promised land had begun to wane, as the area’s gold prospects proved negligible while silver mines in the nearby mountains burgeoned. Still, the town of Denver, named for one-time Kansas Territory governor James W. Denver, reinvented itself as a railroad and supply hub for prospectors and pioneers alike.

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