Denver In Slices: A Historical Guide to the City

by Louisa Ward Arps

The Old West has been viewed from many perspectives, from the scornful to the uncritically romantic. But seldom has it been treated with the honest nostalgia of the wonderful accounts and pictures gathered in Denver in Slices .

Ohio University Press/Swallow Press is proud to reissue this Western classic, which includes a brief survey of all Denver history, some slices depicting the most fascinating places and characters. The City Ditch, Cherry Creek, River Front Park, the Denver Mint, the Tabors, the Windsor Hotel, the Baron of Montclair, Overland Park, Buffalo Bill, Elitch's Gardens, and Eugene Field—they're all here. Illustrating these stories is an array of nearly one hundred pictures of the people, buildings, and street a fascinating panorama of the gold rush camp that became the Rocky Mountain metropolis.

With a new foreword by renowned Denver historian Thomas J. Noel, this classic will once again help preserve Denver's lively past.

Genres: History

263 pages, Paperback

Published August 15, 1998

Reviews

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book vacillates from being boring to shocking escalation… like one point about Mary Elitch and her Zoo. It talked about how the ‘the first seals born in captivity’ die after a year then their mother sinks to the bottom 😳 ☠️ but the next sentence is literally about monkeys wearing pink pajamas. In all seriousness, it was quite treating to get such a local take and from a time past.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written, but not a linear history of Denver by any means. Arps' slices are just that, short essays addressing something special about Denver . . . Elitch Gardens, Buffalo Bill, The Tabors, Overland Park, etc. And the book has some real gems of information. Arps' father was a water lawyer, so she gives a real sense of just how big a deal water rights and water access has been in Denver from the earliest days. And I now know why Speer has its name . . . I had no idea that Speer created the walls along Cherry Creek to control the crazy floods that were known to wipe out whole buildings.

I also didn't know how old this book is, almost 60 years. This isn't a problem in and of itself, but Arps references viaducts and buildings that haven't existed in years. It made it hard to for me to orient myself sometimes.

It would be lovely if some talented local writer would do an update of this work, which really is so charming. Maybe they could even add some more modern slices . . . updating Union Station, the Tattered Cover, the airport, where the town of Auraria went . . . there are so many possible slices.