LoDo Then

Sometimes, all we need is a glimpse of what had been to fully appreciate what we have now. As the oldest neighborhood in Denver, LoDo witnessed the city's development from a mining town to what it is now, a place known to many for its architectural and cultural value.

Before anyone had truly marked the territory as his own, the Arapahoe tribe was living a quiet life along the South Platte River. Their lives did not remain as peaceful as they imagined. Soon after miners shouted "Eureka!" when they found gold in the river, a certain general by the name of William Larimer built a cabin big enough for an entire block and named it after James Denver, the governor of Kansas at the time. The once wild area turned into settlement known now as LoDo.

Surely there is no need for blood to pour over LoDo to make it historical but it happened nonetheless. In 1864, during the time when Native Americans fought tooth and nail with the colonial government, a devastating number of indigenous people suffered a death not fit to any human being. The event was immortalized as the Sand Creek Massacre. The heads of the deceased Arapahoe tribe were set up like trophies within LoDo.

Leaving that dark year behind, Denver was well on its way to becoming a great city in 1870 when the city had its own railroad. The establishment of the Union Station, which became the city's most frequented train station, played a large part in making LoDo the place to be rather than simply a dot on the map.

However, that was not always the case. By the middle of the 20th century, LoDo, along with the rest of the city, was dubbed as a skid row. Train transportation was not as successful as it once had been.

In March 1988, through a City Council Act, the Lower Downtown Historic District was created to ensure the restoration of the settlement's essence, historically speaking. Once the project is off the drawing board, businessmen decided to give LoDo another shot at being the hip and hopping neighborhood.