Who Founded Denver City? The next time you find yourself on Larimer Street, you might wonder whose idea it was to build a city here.
“I am Denver City,” William H. Larimer Jr. wrote home after staking out the boundaries of a town November 22, 1858. One of many town promoters to leap across nineteenth century America hoping to found a town that would last, Larimer finally found a winner with Denver. “With fine air, good water and everything to make a man happy,” he crowed, “Denver is bound to be a great city.”
Larimer built a log cabin near what is today the intersection of 15th and Larimer Streets, proclaiming it (especially later, once the city was thriving) to be the first house in Denver. Larimer didn’t stick around to see the city grow—he left town a few years later, but his legacy continued to be celebrated by generations of Denverites, including this 1908 postcard.
Credit: History Colorado, 89.451.335
