Kirjahaku

The beloved thoroughfare at the heart of Denver, Sixteenth Street has always been the Mile-High City s Main Street. Sixteenth Street got its jump start in 1879 when Leadville s Silver King and Colorado s richest man, Horace Austin Warner Tabor, came to town and built the city s first five-story skyscraper at the corner of Sixteenth and Larimer Streets. In coming years, Sixteenth Street became Denver s main retail center as shopkeepers and department store owners constructed ever-more impressive palaces, culminating in the Daniels and Fisher Tower the city s tallest building for five decades and the symbol of the city. In the second half of the 20th century, Sixteenth Street saw major changes, including the creation of one of the most successful pedestrian malls in the country, an archetype of the power of great urban places and an inspiration to other cities, large and small."

From its 1858 birth, the Mile High City has undergone continuous change, with each successive generation putting its stamp on Denver's architectural character. Along the way, landmarks initially considered first class were later deemed disposable by those who had different visions of what Denver should be. Beloved buildings like the Tabor Grand Opera House, the Windsor Hotel and the Republic Building vanished. Historian Mark A. Barnhouse revisits these lost treasures along with the lesser known and rarely explored, including an apartment building dubbed Denver's Bohemia, the humble abode of one of the early twentieth century's most successful novelists and the opulent mansion of a man who gave Denver three consecutive baseball championships.

For more than five decades, the Tattered Cover has been Colorado's favorite source for books. Beginning with just 950 square feet, it has grown into a multistore operation and important cultural institution, the special place where people go for all things literary. It has been a forum for ideas, with hundreds of writers visiting each year to sign books and greet readers. It has proven itself a bastion of democracy, championing the First Amendment and readers' rights to privacy. Join Denver historian and onetime Tattered Cover employee Mark A. Barnhouse as he celebrates the store's first fifty years and tells stories from the thousands of author events it has hosted over the decades.