A snapshot of history
If you have never heard about the history of this building, you would never know that this empty parking lot at the corner of 14th and Larimer was a pretty impressive and important building. Now all that is left to remind us is a bell sitting with a small plaque explaining what it is. With that being said there once was one of the first city hall buildings sitting along the cherry creek.
I got the pleasure of finding out about this place from the free Denver walking tour that comes down this way. We highly recommend this free walking tour and maybe use this history blog to get some good visualization too.
The Denver City government in the 1860’s met in a small shack on the Blake Street and various other locations until 1883 when the official City Hall was built. In 1864 the Cherry Creek Flood washed away all the city records along with the one the original city hall ramshackle houses of the city government. The new city hall was built in 1883, it was a four-story stone building with a mansard roof and decorative cresting. When the it was completed, it housed the mayor’s office, city council chambers, and city offices. It also was home to the fire department, police department along with a city jail.
In 1894 the City Hall was the setting for the “Denver’s City Hall War”, the governor at the time, Davis Waite, tried unsuccessfully to throw out corrupt city officials. On March 4th, 1894 the Denver Police Department and Arapahoe County Deputy Sheriffs, in protest barricaded themselves inside City Hall. After 10 days the Colorado National Guard was called to reclaim the building.
On November 30, 1901, a fire that destroyed a lot of the building, it was rebuilt but without the mansard roof and corner towers it originally had. You will notice in the later pictures the flat roof line.
In 1902 the Arapahoe County seat to move to Littleton and some of the Denver offices moved to the old Arapahoe County Courthouse at Sixteenth Street and Court Place. In 1932 after the new City and County Building was completed all moved to the new building but the fire department stayed until 1936-37 when the building was torn down.
This picture was actually taken sometime between 1900 and 1910 when they were installing the bell not removing it. This is possibly the second bell to be installed as the original first bell was destroyed in the 1901 fire when it fell through to the second floor. The bell was later removed and sat in the police garage until 1953. Now it sits as a memorial on the southeast edge of the same property that the building once stood.
Below is the bell from the original City Hall that now sits on the corner of Larimer and 14th Street as a memorial of a grand building that has been gone for many years now. This little corner section is known as Bell Park and future projects are to build a 375-foot residential tower containing 169 apartments, a leasing office, amenities and underground parking.
Here is an overlay of what the building would have looked like if it was still standing at the edge of Cherry Creek.
Thanks for wandering with us,
The Wandering Couchs
